-”If you ask anybody here who’s traveled much how far it is from A to B, the answer will always be in time and aircraft type as in from ANC to BET is an hour by jet or from BET to St. Mary’s is forty minutes by Cessna 207.”-

Alaskans vocalbulary for travel is entirely different than than any other state. Commuter trains, Amtrak, et al just doesn’t work for a State as large as Alaska. Eastern seaboard states are so tiny, they can leach off the Federal government for decades to pay for there transportation costs. Joe Biden never did a commute that wasn’t paid for by every other state. Like you say, the rules for the Wilderness are completely different from the village, and I’ll add from whatever you find in modern Pennsylvania. The poor girl was probably as much a victim of ‘Americanism’, the idea all 50 states are the same, and the idea the legal rules of America protect her wherever she goes, as she was of the reality of real wolves.
That eastern seaboard states have a say over western states and how they manage the environment is annoying. They don’t have a clue about environments. They should look at their own track record with the environment and Indian affairs (think trail of tears), before offering us any advice. Being that there are no Indian Reservations east of the Alleghenies, perhaps they should return Manhattan Island to the Indians. Then they would have credibility to counsel Alaska on how to utilize it’s natural resources.

side note: If you take the nationalism out of it, it is more properly ‘The First Frontier’. Clovis People travelled the Land Bridge and lived throughout the West 10,000 years before the Pilgrims. they left a nice cache of Clovis Points in East Wenatchee, Washington.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=7966

The stories coming out of the west are far more interesting than the tired old stories of the Pilgrims. Perhaps Alaska could consider changing it’s motto to ‘The First Frontier’ or ‘North to the Past’.

I don’t think these Electras are used any more, but the video provides a fascinating glimpse of the terrain

17 Million acres of mostly wilderness and ice fields. The face of the Mendenhall Glacier is a couple of miles from my front door. There really isn’t much game because you only have a thin strip of land along the coast and then mountains and the ice field. There are a few wolves and I’ve heard them a few times. There was one black wolf that became very familiar in the flats around the Mendenhall Glacier lake. He came to even have a name, Romeo, because he was always trying to socialize with people and dogs. ‘Course he was “accused” of having eaten a few dogs as well. He hasn’t been seen in a year or so now so it is thought that he has died. He had to be at least eight or ten years old, so either killed by a younger wolf or simply dead of old age wouldn’t be surprising. Here’s a YouTube of Romeo near the Glacier and about a mile and a half from my house: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H98D23Eb9Ow

There are lots of Black Bears but there’s never been a confirmed sighting of a Brown or Grizzly Bear. The Black Bears used to be a real problem and several were killed every year for either threatening humans or simply becoming too pesky for having lost their fear of people. They used to be around my house constantly even though we were pretty careful with garbage. We got chased out of the hot tub one night when one came shuffling up the steps to the deck; luckily we’d left the front door unlocked so we just bailed and went around the house. We really tightened up the rules on garbage storage and disposal a few years back and that has pretty much eliminated the bear-human confrontation issues, though the rules are a pain.

Remember, polar bears are an endangered species. It would be a tragedy if one starved to death because some polar bear food was wasted.

…….. the ability to conVINCE someone – let’s arbitrarily say a former Senator / current Secretary Of State to stay in DC in order to FOSTER a level of awareness amongst the flock.

since they don’t seems quite smart and will do anything if you ask them. I want to send wolves,bears,coyotes and Javalena’s(it’s like a wild pig with tusks) out to DC so they might get closer to nature. I’m also considering putting them in a wooded area in East Texas with all the Predators that there are. That might get rid of the problem.