CLARENCE SUMMERS: When I first came to -- arrived in Yakutat my mom called me and she said, "What’s it like?" And I said, "Okay."

I explained that, you know -- Before taking this job I had an offer to go to the Peace Corps in Nepal and I turned it down and I was going to work in the terrae with farmers. And I went to Nepal years later though and did a trek around Annapurna, but that’s another story.

But getting back to Yakutat, I told my mom, you know, I said, "It's a lot like the Peace Corps." You know, I'm representing the Park Service. I wear a uniform. The people here are not used to at least Park Service management on lands that are like the Wrangell-St. Elias area. And the people that use Dry Bay had some encounters with the Forest Service.

But, I said, "You know, it's a lot similar in that I'm -- I'm explaining our mission and I'm working with people." And instead of working -- let’s say, if I'd have done the Peace Corps thing, with people that are farming. These people are farming fish, so that's similar. There are regulations involved. And I don’t know, it's just a thought that came to mind with my mom and I had to explain to her what was it like, what’s it like.

And I said, "You know, I'm a minority here." The people that live here are a minority to the state or -- or in some ways to this type of -- you know, they’re -- they're --

it's new to them, maybe that's the point I want to make. They're new to a system of management and hopefully, you know -- and I think it did, you know. We all learn from -- from our day-to-day experience to -- to -- to come closer together. But yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: It does sound like the community was not so positive about this park experience when you first got there and they were not very welcoming.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, you know, it's funny. I read a bit of the new publication that -- I forget the name of it. Barbara's -- the new Wrangell-St. Elias document. Barbara Cellarius sent me a copy of it.

RACHEL MASON: The EOA? (Ethnographic Overview and Assessment) CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah.

RACHEL MASON: The Tlingit EOA?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: There's some new -- yeah, and there's -- there's stories from people and I looked at it. And it said, yeah, the Park Service -- somebody made a comment and this is Clarence’s interpretation.

Yeah, the first park ranger guy, you know, he was real easy. He didn’t do all -- You know, he was just a pushover. He was a nice guy maybe, you know.

RACHEL MASON: Meaning you?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, he didn’t really -- You know, he was kind of trying to not doing his job or whatever. He was doing his job, but he was really nice. He was an easy guy. And I read that and I went okay, looked at it again, and I said, "Oh, I know who said that."

But anyway the point is, you know, I tried my best to use -- When I did law enforcement, it's education. That was my point. And we -- I think it worked. And, yeah, I enforced the regulations, but it was an education for people. 36 CFR, what’s that?

You know, so it was a new education. The Park Service way of doing business and how we have natural and healthy and why we have preserves where we have sport hunting. And, yeah, it was an education process and --

KAREN BREWSTER: How -- how long did that process take? Was it over years or -- ?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, man, let me put it this way. It took a while.

I can think of the guy that flew me on my flights to Dry Bay and I'll use that as an example because we used -- well, we used this same Yakutat Air. Air business. Air -- was the contractor. Mike -- oh, I can’t remember his name. Mike -- It doesn’t matter. Anyway, the owner-operator was my pilot so when I flew a patrol I would use the pilot from Yakutat Air.

I had to -- I cited him at one point over a cabin problem at Glacier Bay. A tent frame. It was he had a site there, but I had to cite the guy, and I'd been flying with him for about four years. I said, "Mike, you know, you got to follow our terms and conditions and you can’t --" You know, we had rules about, you know, occupancy.

Bottom line is he got a citation. He paid it. We still remained friends I thought, and he flew me. So you got to do your job and, yeah.

So there was all -- you know, I think in any situation where you're new, it takes a while and, yeah, those first years -- And I was there for the first official National Preserve for Glacier Bay and National Park and Preserve for Wrangell-St. Elias. Yeah, it was tough coming in in the beginning and it took a while.

RACHEL MASON: What changes did you notice in the community during the time that you were there?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Changes in the community? A lot of it had to do with the fish cycle. Glacier Bay, Dry Bay, we had a boom time where we had a lot of people trying to get into the preserve to -- to -- for temporary camps. We had a temporary camp zone set up. We had a fish manufacturing or processing plant on site. We had DC-3’s landing to pick fish product up.

We had ATV’s arrive. That was a change for -- for transportation. This is at -- at -- at Dry Bay in our preserve. Prior to that the Forest Service, there were a few old military trucks and a few vehicles driving around that were left behind that were owned by some of the lodges.

And the new event of, let’s say, ATV’s that was a big deal. That caused a whole new -- there's now, I think, a plan for that. We did an EA (Environmental Assessment). We got routes identified now.

When I was there, it was a free for all. I mean, in that, you -- we used -- I used the regulations. The 1981 regulations. I tried to keep people on our “designated routes."

But, yeah, the arrival of the ATV was a big deal for me, at least, to manage and to stay on top of. To keep people in areas. To keep them out of, let’s say, Glacier National Bay National Park, which was closed, you know, to this sort of thing. And then the boundary you can hike in, but yeah, just managing that was a big deal. A change. That's one change.

Another change was the discovery of the "Lost Coast." The surfing thing for Yakutat brought people in, and Alaska Discovery brought people in. That’s a commercial operator out of Juneau.

They brought people in for kayaking in and around the Malaspina area, the Hubbard Glacier. Icy Bay, popular. A change was an increase in for a while there in mountaineering, because of advertisements and articles about the “Lost Coast”.

Another change had to do with just the -- the -- the -- the offshore fishing and salmon management of permits and boom and bust of fisheries. Because for a while it seemed there was an intense amount of use in the 80’s and then it fell off in the 90’s, and now it's sort of leveled off.

And now at Dry Bay it's a ghost town when I was there two years ago when we did our boundary survey.

RACHEL MASON: Is there any fishing there?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: I mean, there's fishing, but I think it had a lot to do with glacial rebound. You know, you get a couple centimeters. RACHEL MASON: Yeah.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: And so things are -- and then some of the tributaries dry up, the channels change.

That was another reason why I went down for the boundary survey with Chuck Gilbert from Lands (Realty Officer, Lands Department of the National Park Service in Anchorage.) These glacial rebound, the tributaries that used to have water and used to be affected by the flow of the Alsek (River) were now high and dry and they were vegetated in gullies.

And so there's -- that glacial succession occurring. So that's a big change. It's the natural change both on the Malaspina and on the -- in the Dry Bay area.

And then the tourism, I think it's more -- Yeah, it's -- it's -- it's more commercial. More river trips, guided trips on the Tatshenshini (River). All managed by the Park Service, but there's more popularity.

I think advertisement. People are well aware of it. And there're a lot of independent climbers and backpackers and kayakers that are showing up and -- and -- and visiting parks, both in Icy Bay, Yakutat Bay, and at Dry Bay in that area.

KAREN BREWSTER: I have a question about -- about the Wrangell part. So the area of the Wrangell Park, that was all park land that you were managing? When you talk about the preserve, that’s the Glacier Bay district?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: My district -- I was Yakutat District Manager and that included lands in Icy Bay, portion of the Bagley Icefield going along -- well, if you -- Bagley goes all the way to the -- Cordova. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: And on occasion I went up to Cordova and gave programs to talk -- and give out park information to let hunters know that, hey, the park's closed. To get to the nearest preserve in Wrangell-St. Elias, you got to go inland and upriver, you know, towards Chitina.

KAREN BREWSTER: You're talking about the preserve, that's the Glacier Bay Preserve, right?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, we have a preserve on the Malaspina Forelands. There's a preserve between -- what's a placename -- KAREN BREWSTER: National Preserve, right.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, I want to say Point Manby going up to Esker Stream or a little above it. There's a National Preserve open to -- to sport hunting. So there's sport hunters, guides and then sport hunting occurring in the Glacier Bay Preserve.

KAREN BREWSTER: Okay. CLARENCE SUMMERS: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: So this National Preserve by the Malaspina Forelands is that Wrangell-St. Elias?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Wrangell-St. Elias, yes. KAREN BREWSTER: National Preserve. Okay.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: The park name is Wrangell-St. Elias Park and Preserve. That's one of the preserves. One of the several preserves.

It's the only preserve land on coastal -- that's coastal in the park. Everything else is interior.

If you want to get the preserve in the interior Wrangell’s, you got to go up on the other side of the Bagley into that Chitina Valley area.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so when you first got to Yakutat, the park was already there, but people had been using the Malaspina Forelands and Icy Bay for subsistence uses?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Historic camps, yeah. And our survey with the Growler -- this trip with Austin Post --

And by the way, we did a trip in Icy Bay and we did surveys and I'd go ashore and I'd look for evidence of anything. Camps, hunting camps, illegal camps 'cause this is park land.

But there were also Native allotments in this area, and I'd check on them just to see what was there. And, yeah, did the same on the Malaspina side.

And one other point on our trip with Austin, we also went into the Malaspina Lake through Sudden Stream and up into the lake. And we did a survey with my Zodiac and we sounded the lake to look at water depth because it -- it -- the -- as the glacier retreated on that east side of the Malaspina Glacier, this lake -- this natural lake opened up. So I felt like that was a first.

We also did a first in going into -- for Park Service, at least, I couldn’t find a documented park visit into the Samovar Hills where we landed with a -- I want to say a helicopter and a fixed wing at one time.

And we found salmon in these streams that were landlocked when the glacier advanced, 'cause we took some samples out. But a lot of fond memories of trips. But getting back to your questions, specific to -- do you have any?

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, yeah, the -- so the people of Yakutat, they were going to the Forelands (Malaspina) and Icy Bay? CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: For --

CLARENCE SUMMERS: For subsistence purposes, mainly. KAREN BREWSTER: For fish -- for -- right. CLARENCE SUMMERS: Subsistence. KAREN BREWSTER: So -- fish?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Goat hunting in the Chaix Hills. Salmon fishing in Icy Bay proper. There were old camps.

The lands in Icy Bay, most of the activity is actually in the lower portion of the bay on BLM land or on state land, but there are -- but where our boundary begins, upper bay, there's a place -- an airstrip. Chaix Hills.

That's one of the areas where Larry Powell, the mayor, and Byron Mallott made it clear he wanted aircraft access so that people could go to this historic airstrip in the Chaix Hills. And then get out and hunt glacier -- hunt mountain goat, excuse me.

RACHEL MASON: When -- when was that, that -- ? CLARENCE SUMMERS: The meetings? RACHEL MASON: Well, the airplane access?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, that went on through my entire time because our regs allowed it officially in ’81 and so it says that the superintendent could authorize a permit for air access.

I think in recent years we recently tweaked it or we -- we addressed some areas in Icy Bay. It was --

KAREN BREWSTER: So even though that airstrip was in the park now after ’81 --

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, it was just outside. It was just on the fringe, so they'd fly to that area and then -- and then go into the park -- park to hunt goats.

KAREN BREWSTER: But that was allowed under the ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act)?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, 'cause see our regulations don’t allow aircraft access for subsistence purposes. So this was the big exception or two in regulation. One is the Malaspina Forelands. The second one is in Anaktuvuk Pass where you can petition the superintendent for. You can always petition the superintendent as a hardship, too, if you want to use.

I can think of one example where Chuck Budge allowed -- This is the interior, a trapper, to do something with an airplane to support his trapping 'cause it was so hard. He deemed it a hardship, so that's -- that's already in regs. But -- but as a general rule, no airplanes to support subsistence.

KAREN BREWSTER: I was going to say, but you had mentioned that Byron Mallott.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: In -- in the park, but not in the preserve. You can use an airplane in the preserve, but in the park no aircraft access.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you had mentioned that Byron had testified at the D-2 hearings -- CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well -- KAREN BREWSTER: How this area had been used with airplane before.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Right. I -- I can say that I know from conversation that Byron was one of the key spokesmen during this period of public meeting to gather information on how to regulate park areas and what regu -- our regulations are regular --

There's a requirement that we have public meetings before we implement regs and that's part of the process. So he I know was one of the spokesmen along with Larry Powell making it clear that we needed air -- that they needed aircraft access for the Malaspina Forelands.

KAREN BREWSTER: And do you think that's partly why that became preserve was because the people of Yakutat --

CLARENCE SUMMERS: I think it became preserve, my opinion, there were already guides there. Dick Cox had a cabin there and I can think of the team for Wrangell’s. I'm not going to rattle the names off, but the D-2, so the background information on who's -- who's on the land.

They talked about guides in Yakutat and places. So they tried to draw the boundary in an area that captured, you know, the guide area use areas that you didn’t have to run Dick off. He could still operate.

There was another guy, John Latham, operated there. And there was another guy. Oh, he's -- Latham and -- Well, the primary users were Cox and Latham.

KAREN BREWSTER: And what were they doing there, bear hunting was that mostly?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: And -- and on occasion Latham would help Cox. So I'm thinking back now. Latham’s primary camp was at -- was at Glacier Bay National Preserve.

John Latham lived in Yakutat with his family. He's one of the guides that didn’t leave. Arnie Israelson (phonetic), another guide, lived in Yakutat. He didn’t go Outside. Dick Cox used our preserve. And now that I think about it, Dick was the only guide officially assigned with a cabin there, with a cabin site.

There may have been other guides that -- sometimes these guides can transfer use. They have arrangements, but I can think of official sites where there was a structure and a cabin where I saw clients come and go.

Dick Cox was the primary. Latham was a primary along with Arnie Israelson down at Dry Bay. So it was John Latham, Arnie Israelson for guided hunting, and then for fish guiding at Dry Bay the Lowenstein family. And, yeah.

RACHEL MASON: Well, I'm curious about the clan territories. If there were specific families that were associated with particular areas based on their clan membership or anything like that?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: You know, I could -- I don’t want to -- I've got a -- yeah, because their clans are part of the lineage of the Tlingit tradition. There're different clans and, yeah, they were family clan land ownership. Respect for that.

And I won’t go there. I'm not the expert, but I -- I have seen at least site maps that were -- that show where people shared and respected use of the land.

And -- and -- and it's linked to, I think, the allotments because the people that have the allotments in those areas are part of that group as a norm. I'll just stop with that.

KAREN BREWSTER: So when the -- when the Park was put in, did that then mean some people couldn’t go to their traditionally clan-owned areas?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: No, no. All the Park did was designate an area and identified a use that could occur in that area. As an example, when they drew the boundary for the preserve, it -- it just specified that if you were a sport hunter you're authorized to use this area. If you're engaged in sport activities, you can get an authorization to use that area.

And we didn’t dictate, you know, use of, let’s say, Native groups or clans where they could engage in subsistence. All we said was within the National Preserve, and I think it's in, I want to say 1313 National Preserves, it says it's open to subsistence. Subsistence uses, everything, sense of place.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. And -- and the park is --

CLARENCE SUMMERS: And the same with the Park. If it's designated park in Wrangell-St. Elias open to subsistence, you know, as authorized, you know, in the federal regulations that's a little -- in the small print. But yeah, it's open. Congress said subsistence uses occur in park and preserve lands.

KAREN BREWSTER: And if somebody owns and has an allotment and it happens to be within the park boundary now, they still go to that allotment?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, it's their private land. We work closely with BLM through the management, the transfer thereof. And at some point, BLM through their process, you know, says that it's now an individual private land. It's been transferred. Selected but not -- I forget the term. I used to rattle it off.

There's terminology that I used to just could rattle off, but -- you've got selected lands, but not conveyed and they're in stewardship and we had guidance for that.

And then the idea being, you know, once it's transferred officially then it's private land, and it's not even open to Title 8 regs. It's strictly private land open to state regulations. You know, so it's interesting and it just depends.

But there's different categories of administrative use that occurs depending, you know, on our federal regulations. And I won’t rattle them off any more without my 36 CFR -- my reg book.

KAREN BREWSTER: So when you were the ranger in Yakutat -- CLARENCE SUMMERS: District ranger. KAREN BREWSTER: District ranger, so you covered Glacier Bay and Wrangell? CLARENCE SUMMERS: Through our agreement, yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did it ever switch that you just did Wrangell?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: No. When I was there, we had the golden -- I had the golden job, premiere responsibility of representing both Glacier Bay and Wrangell-St. Elias through our agreement. Was the point of the contact for the Park Service administrative permits in both parks.

I think we had a phone call recently from the current superintendent and he was saying, "How did the fishermen at Dry Bay and these fishermen at Wrangell-St. Elias, what are these permits? You know, how are they alike?"

But the bottom line is, you know, when I was there, we had a similar arrangement where if you were a qualified commercial fisherman, you could get a permit for that site for the period of the fishery under terms and conditions for Park Service special use permit.

And it was the same for everybody with the exception where some of the people, I think at Glacier Bay in the preserve, wanted beyond -- they wanted to stay beyond this commercial fishing period to do other subsistence uses. And in those days, we -- we tried to accommodate the concerns within reason. I'll just leave it at that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Were there -- were there commercial fishermen that were unable to go back to sites after the park -- after the Wrangell Park was established? Like you said, there was some commercial hunters who had to switch.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, the hunters were not allowed in the -- for sport hunting purposes, they couldn’t sport hunt in a park. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: They could go back. The hunters could go into the Park. I've contacted hunting camps. I've landed in Icy Bay area near Icy Bay somewhere over in this side and on the beach along the Malaspina side here on the glacier.

Landed on the beach, walked into a hunting camp which was -- through my GPS, we're now in the coastal area of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park on the west side of the Malaspina Glacier, a forested area 'cause the glacier retreats. Beautiful place with lakes.

Hunting camp, fire, they're all sitting around the fire. I walked in, and I said, "Hi, I’m a park ranger." In uniform. "And how's everybody? Do you realize you're in a national park?"

Yeah, well, they looked around, but the bottom line was they'd just arrived. We saw the camp over that day on a fly over so we made contact to let them know if they hunted in the Park, it was a violation. That they should hunt to the west, you know, out in this area, state land or BLM land because it was open to sport hunting.

But if you hunt in the Park -- it's okay to have a camp fire, to have a camp, to have guns, but don’t kill our animals, you know. And so they were happy to hear that. They were from Ketchikan. True story. And I was with another ranger and we just made the contact and left.

Another time on the Malaspina Forelands, I was just outside of the preserve. It's sort of a weird little boundary land designation at Point Manby, where if you go west you leave the Preserve and you go into what's designated park not park wilderness. And because of the map -- some of the maps show the park designation, then they show park wilderness beyond that where you get to the glacier.

And so these guys had -- they were from Wisconsin. They went in, and unfortunately they shot a moose in the park and they had a camp in that scenario, sad -- sad tale. They got a citation. I confiscated the meat and we flew it back with a helicopter, gave it to -- through the process of the state and I think they took it to one of the homes for the elderly in Yakutat.

Anyway, we did the citation thing and they paid their fines and that was that. But, yeah, it happens on occasion that people would come to the area. To avoid that sort of thing, I -- when I first arrived I went to the Yakutat airport and I had a nice map, big map, wall map. I got permission from Alaska Airlines, the facility, put up this big map of Glacier Bay Park Service.

I worked with Hoofnagle was the artist. RACHEL MASON: Yeah, yeah. CLARENCE SUMMERS: I can’t think of his first name. RACHEL MASON: Ken -- Ken Hoofnagle. (It's Keith Hoofnagle.)

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, don't make me -- You're good. I'm not the only one.

Anyway, Hoofnagle was our artist in resident and he helped me with this map and we had this big display. And it showed the park, the boundary for both Glacier Bay, Wrangell-St. Elias. Showed the areas open to sport hunting, showed our preserve at Glacier Bay, showed an area in Glacier Bay closed to hunting, but open to all this other, with little pictures of people floating rivers and hiking the beach.

And that was my -- one of the first things to help people as they arrived because that's a main point of contact when you're coming in is out at the airport about twelve miles out of town or whatever it is. Ten miles to this Alaska Airlines site and a big airstrip.

Put in what was it -- World War II to ferry airplanes, huge strip in the middle of nowhere. So lots of -- Alaska Airlines jet twice a day, north and south. So, yeah, that was a good thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: But I was thinking that the commercial hunting guides, some of them got displaced by the Wrangell Park being pushed -- so were the -- ?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, I think Mr. Cox lost land and so did Arnie.

KAREN BREWSTER: Were there commercial fishermen who lost fishing sites because of the Wrangell Park being put in?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: No, because the preserve boundary included the major streams. Once you get beyond Point Manby, it's just horrendous ocean, surf and -- but for that stretch from about Point Manby up to Esker Stream, that's -- you can fish there. That's in the preserve and they can have their camps and have their commercial fishing camps, etc.

So that worked for them and it's in our reg. When we wrote our regs, we wrote it, you know, for these coastal areas not just in Malaspina Forelands or the Yakutat area and Dry Bay, but we did a similar thing up at Kotzebue and Bering Land Bridge and the coast where people could fish.

KAREN BREWSTER: Did people in Yakutat go up to Icy Bay by boat? CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: By boat? CLARENCE SUMMERS: They boat. They boat all the way to Cape Yakataga. Their tails. In fact, that's a late fishery. I want to say it's for silvers.

And -- and it's really one of the things that -- Yakutat Bay and coastal community, historically people use these open boats with high-powered outboard motors. And it's really a Marlboro Man thing to be out on the water with this big engine and you're out there, you know, in a halibut jacket or in raingear, and you're just riding that boat going, I don’t know, 30 miles an hour flying -- skipping over the waves.

And they would go in the fall as a group. They would fish at Dry Bay. The Yakutat fishermen would fish the surf. Sometimes they would show up in groups. They fished in family groups. We're back to the clans and families and groups, but the family groups.

And they'd show up and sometimes on the land you've got these people with permits issued by the State of Alaska commercially to fish gillnet. And they're on land. Some of these guys are out from Washington State and they're on the land. And the Yakutat guys would show up on the ocean and they would fish the beach -- from the beach out with their nets.

So they don’t need -- they would camp on land in the zone that we had identified for tent platforms or for camping out. But they'd fish for a few weeks during the peak run and fish the surf which is a --

You asked me earlier about controversy. That was a point of controversy for land use. People fishing the surf because, you know, it's almost as if you're fishing and all of a sudden somebody shows up and they're getting them before you can get them and before they get into the creek. And it's perfectly legal, surf fishery.

But these guys would fish that certain skill, special skill. A lot of people died while I was there doing that, and I've been on rescues for them and helped the community, you know, get through the loss of family members.

But, yeah, these guys would show up, fish, a lot of close friends, and then they would go in the late fall when the weather's not the best in the Gulf of Alaska. Go to Icy Bay and beyond to Tsiu (River). That's another traditional.

Because, you know, the Yakutat people, you know, their traditional lines go up and down the coast there and connect with the Eyak, anyway.

So, yes, going to the Tsiu, that's quite a ways beyond Icy Bay going up the coast, but macho time to be out on the water. And on occasion it's so rough that they just say, "It's too rough to go back." And they flip the boat and leave it and catch a plane out.

So, you know, there's some common sense there in all that macho. They'd come back and celebrate the end of the season, so to speak.

RACHEL MASON: So you said you were back in Yakutat just a couple years ago? CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, with Chuck Gilbert on a survey, a boundary survey. Excuse me.

RACHEL MASON: How many years had it been since you left Yakutat?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, that was the first time on the ground overnight. How many years? I was there, let’s see --

KAREN BREWSTER: I was going to say what years -- You started in '81? CLARENCE SUMMERS: I left in ’78. Now, I'm going back to the 70's again. I'm losing it.

I left in ’89. Or ’88, I believe, something like that. ’88. I arrived in ’81, left in ’88. Left to go to work for Wrangell-St. Elias as -- standing in as Slana District Ranger and then got a job here in subsistence. First, in ranger activities, and then in subsistence.

In the regional office, I went from subsistence, environmental compliance, and then back to subsistence where I am now. But yeah --

KAREN BREWSTER: When did you come to Anchorage then?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: I came to Anchorage -- thanks to Chuck Norris who I tabbed in this -- his book. RACHEL MASON: Frank Norris.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Frank, see, I'm -- Chuck, he's the -- he's the karate guy. Frank Norris, my good friend Frank who I know. I think this book is a pretty darn good documentation. It provides --

KAREN BREWSTER: That's Alaska Subsistence book.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, and I think I'm in here as ’88. I think I tabbed it. For all our staff, but yeah. So it's --

Yeah, it says here ’88 to present. I don’t want to -- I don’t want to -- I want to say, yeah, Frank's got a similar interview I think somewhere in his little document -- in his file that he left behind. But, yeah, I'm documented in -- logged in as ’88 to present.

KAREN BREWSTER: Okay. But, so you were in -- that answers -- You were in Yakutat from ’81 to ’87? ’88? Seven years.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah. There was a little overlap. ’87 I think was a transition period. KAREN BREWSTER: Okay. CLARENCE SUMMERS: Where I moved out.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you're -- Rachel, you're asking so what did you think about Yakutat -- ? CLARENCE SUMMERS: To '88. KAREN BREWSTER: -- when you went back? RACHEL MASON: Yeah.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, what did I think? RACHEL MASON: The changes that you'd seen.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, I -- I went back -- So I -- During the '90’s, I went back to public meetings a couple of times because we had our subsistence regulations --Working with Lou Waller. I was assigned to southeast with my experience and time in southeast at Glacier Bay over maybe a ten year period and another I want to say seven good years in Yakutat or something like that. What's seven, from ’81 -- KAREN BREWSTER: To ’88.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: -- to '88. Let’s say, ’88. So I was assigned to southeast when I came on with the subsistence team. And when I first started here in ’88, Tony Sisto, who's now retired Park Service living in Eagle River, was working for Lou Waller here.

Lou Waller had the lead as the chief and Tony had worked as a park ranger at Denali and in Alaska. So, yeah, a long-time friend.

We both worked in field situations using our regulations with the local people on the ground. So we brought that expertise to the regional office.

You see, the way our regulations are set up, if the superintendent makes a decision and denies a permit, the individual -- the affected individual has an opportunity to appeal to the regional director.

So at the time in ’88, we wanted people in this office who had experience and expertise with our regulations in the field to be here in the office for the appeal scenario where we briefed the regional director. Take a look at what was the decision making tree for the superintendent depending on if he -- Well, he would deny it, that's when we would see it.

We'd sort of ground truth the decision made and then we'd either report back with the recommendation on yes or no, or -- you know, for the regional director in the appeal situation.

So I was part of an interdisciplinary group to do that. And I think Tony (Sisto) was here, Lou (Waller) was here in the beginning, and then later I believe Bob Gerhard. And Ray Bane came in and then, of course --

RACHEL MASON: And Don Callaway.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Yeah, Don Callaway came a little later with John Hiscock and Janis Meldrum. And Sandy Rabinowitch came later after the oil spill, yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: But so the changes that you've seen in Yakutat since ’88? CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, since then? KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, more built and there's more development. I think when I was there, when I first came in the village corporation -- the commercial corporation. I want to say, Yak-Tat Kwaan, that's the commercial village corporation. Had lands with -- they were forested. Now trees are cut and there're houses there.

So they sold a lot of their property. Coastal areas that were forested when I lived there, now there are subdivisions. That's a change.

Road improvements are a change. There's a road between the airport and town, maybe 10 miles, paved. And there's a gravel road going out to 20 some miles, I believe out to a lake. Harlequin Lake. Forest Service land. But that's now an improved road and a -- and a destination for people.

What’s improved? Yeah, the idea of cruise ships. In previous -- in just in recent years, Park Service has worked with the cruise line companies. I think this is the product of Glacier Bay and a connection through Kris Nemeth, who's now retired at Glacier Bay, where we put a naturalist on board in Yakutat.

A pilot ship would come in and or -- or a boat would come in, a cruise ship, and we'd put a person on it. I can think of one of our subsistence resource commission members, Bert Adams, who went on board as a park ranger interpreter to tell the story of Yakutat for the Park Service on board the cruise ship up at the Hubbard (Glacier) to talk about seal hunting.

That's a big change. When I was there, we didn’t have that. We had it at Glacier Bay proper, inside Glacier Bay, but that's something that's new when I was there, that activity.

Something that saddened me when I first -- one of the things that I did when I came into town I reported back to the regional director through the superintendent that we needed to have an office in Yakutat 'cause that's where the majority of the people live. That's where the school was. That was the heartbeat. That's where the docks and the fish processing, all the facilities, the clinic, the elder’s home.

The only people at the airport were government people. There was a Forest Service office, a bunkhouse, some weather station people there. And what else? Just a few federal or state employees and then a lodge, two lodges. Well, one lodge at the airport and then another one halfway to town.

So I said, "I have to -- We have to stay in town." So they followed that lead, got the least through the Yak-Tat Kwaan, working with Lowell Peterson and Hank Porter to lease our facility there. Well, just recently through budget concerns and cuts, we gave up the lease. And now we're out at the airport.

I don’t know how it's going. But when I was there two years ago. we were still in town. But just recently, that happened. So that's a different operation.

And I don’t think the -- the staff is -- I don’t think the -- the number of employees are, I think, we've declined. In at least the number of employees, there's been a decline there for support services.

So, it's a difficult time, I think, for the Park Service getting through the budget. And what other changes did I notice?

KAREN BREWSTER: Has there been a change in how the community feels about the Park Service and relates to the park?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Absolutely. I think the Park -- And I think it has a lot to do with -- my first contact with Yakutat, I met Byron Mallott and over the years while I was here in Anchorage in the '80’s and '90’s -- We brought him to town at least two occasions to talk to the Park Service staff here to -- He -- I think we had a --

The regional director was Arnberger (Robert). He had a large gathering of park and staff employees to celebrate park management, and he brought in leaders and speakers. We were down at the Egan Center. He honored Byron Mallott as a speaker. I know we've done that here on occasion.

On one other occasion, where he came up to speak to our subsistence group. I think it was in Fairbanks, that's where it was. We have an annual subsistence chairs information share workshop. And so Byron flew up, and came into the building and gave a talk and talked to the Park Service and talked about subsistence and how we were doing statewide, you know.

So, yeah, it's better. Everything's better. Everything's better. I think race relations are better, but there's still a fine line between, you know, the sensitivity thing with research and with just land management, giving permits.

I think we've got a situation now where, like I said, a couple of weeks ago the new superintendent at Glacier Bay is conferencing to find out how are people being dealt with in Wrangell. So I think -- I don’t know if it's because the ranger at Glacier Bay just works at Wrangell’s and the Wrangell’s ranger there just works at Wrangell’s.

I mean, the Wrangell’s ranger works for Wrangell’s and the Glacier -- I'm getting tongue-tied. Getting tired, too. And the Glacier Bay ranger works for Glacier Bay.

When you had one point of contact and one manager, you're not going to get twisted on permits or how because you're going to try to have -- the goal is consistency.

Kevin Apgar retired recently. And he was a long-time concessions person, permitting person for the region. And he was at Glacier Bay when I was there, and he was my mentor with the permits and management of.

And the plan was, at least our goal, was to be consistent in these park areas. That was a region-wide thing.

On a number of occasions, the regional director brought the superintendents in through their annual ALC meeting, and the goal was to have consistency.

And we produced a subsistence management plans and documents for cabin management and permitting. And the goal was to be consistent for eligibility. Not to have a lot of exceptions, because our regs are pretty -- they're black and white.

So the goal was to try to treat people fairly. And there's always a little wiggle room for -- to if you've got a hardship or something, but the goal was to be consistent. So --

KAREN BREWSTER: So when did they split it to have a Wrangell’s ranger and a Glacier Bay ranger?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh boy, that probably occurred -- I want to say it occurred after the millennium, the big millennium, when money was a little tighter. We got more independent through the computer and radio facilities.

When I first arrived, we had a -- we had side-band radio. Then we went to repeaters, so that was an improvement. Now they have cell phones.

And now there's computers at Dry Bay, and you can -- So with the advent of the internet, you just don’t -- there's more communication "supposedly," but, you know, a lot more opportunity to have different actions occur. And so --

KAREN BREWSTER: So you were reporting to Chuck Budge who was at Copper Center, right?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, no I -- I reported to Chuck Budge. And I want to say Mike Tollefson was there when I left. I couldn’t think of his name earlier.

RACHEL MASON: In Copper Center?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: No, Mike Tollefson was superintendent at Glacier Bay when I arrived in ’81. He was my supervisor of record. I worked as the backcountry supervisor at Glacier Bay. Mike Tollefson was superintendent. Don Chase was the chief ranger.

And so Mike Tollefson got together with Chuck Budge and we worked out this arrangement for supervision. My primary -- Yeah.

So I -- I had through my performance standards, supervisor of record was a man by the name of Bill Paleck who was chief ranger at Wrangell’s. But in this agreement, Mike Tollefson gave the -- some of the -- identified, you know, key performance standards, you know, for Glacier Bay, and my performance standard and gave them to Bill Paleck and Chuck Budge and they signed off on them.

And we would meet annually in the fall for the performance evaluation in Yakutat, both superintendents or their representatives to go over it.

Well, that's how it worked. But we had one rec manager for the -- for the unit there and it's based on, like I said, on recommendation in the comprehensive plan. I think there's one after this one. This is the old one. Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: So how did you communicate with Chuck and those guys at Copper Center?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, I had a -- we had side-band, you know. We had -- we had radio repeaters. I want to -- I want to get this straight. We had radio capability in Yakutat, but telephones. You know, we had telephones. Yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: But you didn’t -- Did you have computers yet?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: No, I had a computer, but it wasn’t anything like this, you know. I should've saved it. It was a personal one. I think the government bought me one. And later they did, but I'm just saying.

I had floppy discs, you know. But we used, you know, telephone and radio for communication. We had satellite phones, too, you could get. Yeah. They were radio telephone, old ones.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. And now, you've talked a lot about Glacier Bay in -- in -- today. Is there a sense was your work more Glacier Bay and less Wrangell or how did your time split out?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Well, it was fifty-fifty. I want to say fifty-fifty. About fifty percent, if I had to draw a pie.

And it had a lot to do with the season during the -- During the salmon run, the red salmon run, I would spend quite a bit of time at Dry Bay just because there were a lot of people there. And I mean a lot meaning, I don't know, a couple hundred people, you know, in one --

All camping out. Either camping out or living in wall tents. A few in cabins. But maybe you could have 300 people down there, you know. That's a lot for a beach, you know, small area with people zooming around or all having, you know, like a big party.

At least 300 people. And airplanes, DC-3 landing. And that was peak. That's the -- The peak time for that is the salmon, let me see, July or June.

And for Wrangell’s, it was always a quieter time. Not as many people. Not as many subsistence camps, but it would pick up in the fall hunting season. That was the peak time for Wrangell’s. I think I spent more time there for fall time.

But for visitor use, we probably had more people on the Malaspina. I mean on the Tatshenshini River. Floaters during the peak run.

So I spent more time at Glacier Bay I'm thinking. Probably because that's where the people were. And then in the fall -- In the spring for mountaineering, and then we'd check in again. For fish camps, I'd always go over to see who was in their camp and to check with the guide.

Then in the fall, when the hunting starts in August through the fall, the guides would show up. Dick Cox. I'd have to go back and forth and split it. But my schedule was, you know, I tried to split the time.

KAREN BREWSTER: We kind of passed over it at the beginning. CLARENCE SUMMERS: What’s that? KAREN BREWSTER: I wanted to take back to a question about why did you decide to go work for the Park Service in the first place?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Okay, I'll explain that story. I'll tell that tale. This is a Clarence tale from old.

My sister, Wanda Summers, who's now Wanda Johnson, depicted here at the State Department with Condi Rice, but she's worked --

She just retired, but she started with the State Department and I don’t know she -- if I've worked -- I've worked for almost forty years, you know, government service. Yeah, my sister, a government employee. My father -- I should have brought his picture, but anyway, he worked for the Department of Navy.

I can go back to my -- my family here. John Bell in this publication. When he -- John Bell escaped. He's the son of the master. This is the John Bell, son of the master who's John Bell, escapes, goes to northern Virginia, can pass for white, got a job with the postal service. It's in this book.

And he worked for the government for the postal service. We're federal workers. That's what I'm -- That's the theme here. My dad worked for the Department of Navy in Washington, DC at the Naval Yard. He made training films.

But anyway, bottom line is that we've got this -- everybody in our family, my sister, my mother’s family, everybody works for the government in some way because we're northern Virginia. Inside the Beltway.

And so my first job was at the Pentagon. I was a busboy. And so I got a summer job. I want to say 15, something like that,

Catching a bus, riding the Columbia Pike to the Pentagon, got fingerprinted by the FBI. I'm a busboy at the Pentagon at the inner place. And I had a great time.

That was my first government experience. Went on to work for the Department of Navy as a courier. I worked for the Department of Health in one of their facilities in northern Virginia. And then that summer when I applied as a college student, a sophomore, one of the --

Oh, before that I took my first trip across country I want to say it was 19 -- maybe '70 or something like that. And -- Yeah, maybe ’70. Went across country with a friend. Started at Georgetown University with some friends and we drove with another couple. They were exchange students. And I had another friend, so there were four of us.

And we drove west up through Indiana Dunes and had my first raccoon attack in a park area. So I was saying, "What’s that?" And then we went into the Badlands. I'll just skip through some of this. Got to the Badlands.

I saw a park ranger on a horse. And this guy's on a horse and he just looked like Gerald Ford does when you see that picture of him as a park -- His kid was a park ranger.

Anyway, but the deal is here's a guy on a horse in a green uniform with a flat hat and we're in the Badlands. And we'd just done some hiking and I walked over and I said, "How -- Are you work -- ?" You know, we had a conversation. He said, "I'm here for the summer. I'm a seasonal. And I'm just here for the summer. It's a great job and I got -- "

He told me how to apply. But then from there we went on -- on our trip and we went to Glacier and did the trip there. Saw a brown bear and went over the Highway into the Sun (Going-to-the Sun Road), went into Canada, went to Banff, Jasper. And hitting all the parks.

Going this -- this is where it's at. Hiking all the way. We get to Vancouver down the Columbia or to University of Vancouver. Stayed on campus there for a while.

I was in a fraternity, so we had a place to stay in all of these places at the colleges. We usually stayed at colleges.

But anyway, we stayed at Vancouver, took the ferry, did Olympic and Mt. Rainier. Went to Yosemite, did that. Went down and did Death Valley. Did my first hike, oh -- Did I skip -- ?

We did Canaveral. I mean, Channel Islands. Then we went across to Death Valley. Then we went into -- up through to the Grand Canyon. Went into the Kaibab, got my permits from the Park Service, went down the Kaibab Trail up the Bright Angel (Trail).

And now I'm thinking, I'm going to work for the Park Service 'cause I'm having too much fun. And these guys are -- I'm meeting rangers. I'm meeting naturalists. I've seen the helicopter do a rescue.

I'm thinking Yosemite 'cause some guy climber got in trouble. I'm thinking horses. I saw people on horseback and I'm thinking this is great. You know, I'm going to do this. Somehow I'm going to figure it out.

And then I did the Bright Angel. We went down the Kaibab, up the Bright Angel. And then eventually we get back and that -- that winter I applied.

The phone rings. It's Cape Cod and the guy says you can work at the beach as a park technician at Canaveral National Seashore (think he meant to say Cape Cod National Seashore). My mom says great. There's a -- we've got relatives in Boston or something, you know, or in Connecticut.

The phone rings again. 'Cause in those days you fill out a 171, and you send it everywhere and then you get a response, you know.

Phone rings and the guy says, "I'm at Lassen Volcanic National Park. We need somebody to work in the campground." I said, "Great. California, volcano. California. Sierra."

And then the phone rings. The guy says, "I'm at Mount Rainier." And I'm calling back these other jobs saying I'm sorry a guy just --

The phone rings and it's a guy says, "I'm at Mount Rainier. You can work at Longmire entrance station. But we're at Mount Rainier. We have a 14,000 -- " Is it 14 or 12, I forget. Mount Rainier.

Anyway, "We have a glacier and a mountain and it's beautiful here." And I said, "Great. I'll take the job." You know.

And so then the phone rings, the guy says, "I'm Chuck Young and I'm chief ranger. I'm in a place called Glacier Bay. No, you can’t drive here. No, we've got telephones. This one is a land line, but we have wind-up phones here." In those days, when I first arrived they did. They had the ring, ring. You pick it up like Andy in Mayberry in the early --

But then he says, you know, "We've got a job in a campground. Park technician. We've looked at your application. We'd like for you to work for us. If you'd like to come, get to Juneau and then you fly with Alaska Airlines or take a charter flight in." All these little charter things. They didn’t have boats at that time.

Coming in to work at May. So I said, "That's the ticket. I'm going to do this." So it was a May -- it was a 90-day wonder seasonal thing.

And that was my first exposure, and I worked, yeah, in the campground at Glacier Bay. I was just there a few years ago.

We had a reunion of park rangers who worked the '70’s, at Dave Nemeth's and Kris Nemeth's place about three years ago in the summer. We had Bill Brown and all these people.

And it was fun. But anyway we went to the campground, and I saw my little -- where my fire circle was and where the new more, you know, high-tech. Not the 55-gallon drum that we cut with a torch and dug a hole and put a grate on it. You know, they replaced it with all the high-tech stuff and anyway.

But -- but that was my first experience, and then I knew I wanted to be a career ranger and so I planned on it and got lucky, you know. And I've been a career park ranger person, a manager, since then.

And, you know, it's been fun working as an interpreter at times, but like I said in Florida education working with kids. We did a lot of that, too.

But, yeah, then I got into this law enforcement, search and rescue thing in Yakutat and that was fun.

And then, like I said, marine operator’s license. I had a hundred-ton license at one time at Glacier Bay operating boats. And 'cause they had a supply boat. And at Biscayne (National Park) we had a supply boat and marine operations.

And a lot of fond memories with the Park Service. A lot of VIP’s and this sort of thing.

But, yeah, it's because of this government service thing. My family. My sister served in the State Department. My dad served and somebody says, "He in the service?" "Yeah, I'm in the service. I don’t -- I don't go for the military bene -- " I was never been in the military, but yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, I was wondering about your -- your seven years in Yakutat. How do you look back upon that and how do you feel about that ?

CLARENCE SUMMERS: Oh, the best -- the best time. Historic moments. Especially now that Byron Mallott is -- is governor (he's actually Lieutenant Governor). He called me before he ran. The phone rang on a Saturday. 'Cause I see him around town and when you live next door to some --

Like he lived in the big house, I had the beach house. And when he would go out of town, he would say, "Clarence, watch my house." I'd go up and look at TV, look in the frig, you know, and just make myself at home.

But it was like a family. And, you know, here's my landlord for the time there. And it was great. We had good relations. And I thought when problems came up because of the key contacts in the community through him, we could always work through it.

Park service meetings a lot of controversy with, you know, permits and fishing and all of our new regulations, you know. I sort of weathered that.

But getting back to my experience in Yakutat with Byron, oh, yeah. He called and he said, "Clarence, I'm running for governor." And we had a conversation. I won’t get into the details of it, but it was kind of cool, you know, to have a conversation and then the guy wins. And, yeah, I have a lot of great memories, and now he's governor.

So, and I work with subsistence resource commissions now and three of the members are appointed by the governor and the Secretary of the Interior and local regional advisory committees. But the bottom line, is I get to go over and talk to the governor’s office. And I've talked to people and I see him occasionally in town and around, but --

Yeah, it's just -- just, you know, relationships. I had a friend who was just in town from Yakutat and he works for BIA. And he stopped by and he had herring roe and salmon. We did this exchange. And just a lot of close friendships and long-term relationships that are just priceless.

Priceless moments when you're on a ridgetop and you're stormed in on Mount Logan and we all look around with Canadian wardens. I've got an ice axe from the Canadian wardens that they gave to me. And we have a little reunion where they fish and come over and we meet in Valdez or go over, you know, that sort of --

But the point is, just these relationships are -- are priceless. And the experience of being able to, like say, ski on the Bagley Icefield and ski the base of Mount Logan and some of the river trips on the Alsek and Tatshenshini are priceless moments.

And then the moments of grati -- of just, you know, of real satisfaction when you can help people either find their way or rescue 'em if they've run out of gas in Yakutat Bay. And you've got this patrol boat that you just --

You know, we're not in the Park, we're just on the high seas and you can give them gas or help them in or give them a tow in this patrol boat.

Or get in your Zodiac and go over on the beach and there's somebody in the fish camp and they've run out of something or they need some help with something or they want -- they have questions about the Park and what's the Park going to do? Are we going to get run off? Are they going to take my cabin?

And, you know, there's always a way to work through that, you know, through education and communication.

So I've been really fortunate. I've had a fantastic career opportunity, you know, offered to me, and I've taken advantage of it.

Let’s see, I won Outstanding Performance and Achievement and Contribution Federal Employee of the Year. This is my high point, I think around the millennium. You know, that was one -- that was a good year, I think.

And -- and -- and being part of, I don’t know, the -- the Alaska subsistence team and having the regional director -- Or at least the national director, acknowledge us, you know, was a -- was a high point.

I think these high points. And continuing to have great relations with all the Park staff here in the regional office and in parks, you know.

I feel so privileged and honored to be here. And, you know, I want to thank you again for providing me an opportunity to do some sharing. And I know there's a lot of rambling here and I wanted just to get to the Yakutat moment.

RACHEL MASON: That's a great way to wrap it up.

CLARENCE SUMMERS: But I want to thank you. KAREN BREWSTER: Well, thank you very much. RACHEL MASON: Thank you. CLARENCE SUMMERS: Certainly.

KAREN BREWSTER: It's a great way to wrap it up. RACHEL MASON: Yeah, yeah. CLARENCE SUMMERS: Thank you again. KAREN BREWSTER: Perfect. Thank you.