BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay, today is May 14, 1998. I’m Bill Schneider and have the pleasure of doing an interview tonight with Nancy and Eric Larson.

And we’re at their nice log house here on the river, the Chena River, and -- what’s the name of the street here? NANCY LARSON: Crown Road.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Crown Road, yeah. Where they have their family house and a stable, too. So we can plug the stables.

Well, we’re going to talk a little bit about the Wrangells area and some of your knowledge of that area and interest in that area. And why don’t we start with Eric, and then we’ll pick up on your mom going out there.

So, Eric, when did you first hear about that area? And we’re talking about the Chisana area, is that right?

ERIC LARSON: Well, it was early in 1968, and my uncle and I were driving up the Alcan, and when we got to the border of Alaska between -- between there and Northway Junction, he pointed out the Wrangell Mountains.

And he said, “Well, I go --“ He, you know, he pointed it out and said, “The Chisana’s right out there in the mountains there to the -- to the south. And that’s where I go hunting and we go prospecting and stuff like that.”

And he said, “Well, we’ll probably go out there in August when we go hunting.“

BILL SCHNEIDER: Tell us his name again, if you would.

ERIC LARSON: Oh, Iver Johnson.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. And he had a history of involvement in that area, is that right?

ERIC LARSON: Yeah. I think the first time he went out there was in 1946 or 1947 with a friend of his, Andy Kimik, and his -- and another friend, Nick Barberi -- or Barbera.

They went out there to go prospecting for the summer and the winter. And so they stayed the whole winter out there and part of the next summer, I think.

And then a few years later, I think in 1956 or ‘7, he drove a Cat out there from, I think it was Dry Creek, Canada. They took the Cat out and were -- to go gold mining or prospecting.

And then they did that, and then they rebuilt the airstrip in Chisana itself with that tractor and -- for Mudhole Smith.

And then he did different things out there, you know, prospecting on different creeks and stuff like that. I think him and Ivan Thorall tried to mine on a few places, and then they had a churn drill to prospect on different creeks and they tried that deal.

So that was in the ‘50s and early ‘60s.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Do you know the route they followed when they walked the Cat in?

ERIC LARSON: Well, they -- they left Dry Creek, Canada, and I think they took the old stampede trail, and they went up -- they crossed Beaver Creek and then they went up what they call Lamb’s Pass.

And down -- then you go down to Lamb’s Pass and you go to what they call Braye Lakes and then over to area called Horsfeld, and then they followed Beaver Creek to -- to Beaver Lake. That’s the head of Beaver Creek.

And then they -- from there they went to -- either up to Bonanza Creek or drove the Cat down to the town of Chisana itself.

And that’s -- all those trails there, there’s -- you can take a Cat or ATV year round on any of those trails.

You know, but you have to be real careful ‘cause they’re kind of wet in some places, and you have to watch out for high water, so --

NANCY LARSON: Well, didn’t they have winter and summer trails for the Cats?

ERIC LARSON: Well, some people say that, but if you know what you’re doing you can travel ‘em year round because the swampy areas aren’t quite that bad as you think, you know.

I mean, if somebody that doesn’t know the country very well, he could get stuck pretty easy. And you could get -- you could get stuck anytime.

BILL SCHNEIDER: More about that?

ERIC LARSON: Well, I think you gotta kind of prompt me here. Ask questions.

BILL SCHNEIDER: No, tell me more about those trails, though, if you would.

ERIC LARSON: Well, the trail from, say, Bonanza Creek to Horsfeld has been there for quite a while. There’s a horse trail that’s closer to the hills, and a Cat trail’s been there since -- I would say after World War II they were -- first started in.

The -- N. P. Nelson, he drove his Cat down to Carl Creek to prospect. And then his ex-partner, Billy James, he brought a Cat in from either Dry Creek or Beaver Creek and established the Cat trail.

And other people have been usin’ it to bring machinery in and out of there.

So it’s been there for quite a while. Fifty years now.

And horse trails have been there since, I would say, the gold rush.

BILL SCHNEIDER: I guess that’s the -- the next question is how old is that community?

ERIC LARSON: Well, from what I understand they were prospecting in there right after the turn of the century. But they never found any -- you know, enough gold to really get things started.

And there’s always been an Indian town there. It was, I think, seasonal. But it was across the river.

And then when they finally discovered gold in a pretty good amount there, then everybody moved across the river to Chisana, which was actually a winter town and a staging area for -- to go to where the gold is -- or was.

And -- but it was up -- the gold was up in the alpine country so they, you know, really couldn’t stay there all winter because there was no fuel for fires and stuff like that.

And then there’s no use prospecting there.

NANCY LARSON: Well, I think the story goes that the two fellows that actually, you know, discovered the gold there, they couldn’t decide whether they were in Canada or US territory, and so one went one way and one went the other.

And, of course, the one that went to Canada kind of lost out. Is that accurate?

ERIC LARSON: Yeah. Well, he lost out until he threatened the other guy. And then he got, you know, some -- and then he, you know, then he got some good claims.

And then there was other guys there, too, that had to threaten that guy, too, to get their share. So --

BILL SCHNEIDER: Part of the wild west story, huh?

ERIC LARSON: Yeah. Yeah.

NANCY LARSON: Well, the original town, wasn’t there almost two thousand people there in its heyday?

ERIC LARSON: Well, when the gold rush was -- First year of the gold rush, they say there was at least two thousand people there.

But then after they found out that was just a secondary deposit and there wasn’t much gold there, and everybody -- you know, a few people had all the claims, then everybody left.

BILL SCHNEIDER: People listening to this will pick up the riverboats here on the river coming by. That’s what that low hum is. And we can’t stop that.

NANCY LARSON: Or the planes. BILL SCHNEIDER: Or the planes, right.

But getting back to the history of that community, how did -- how did Iver first hear about it?

ERIC LARSON: Oh, his friend Andy Kimik went out there after he got out of the army in World War II.

BILL SCHNEIDER: And how did he hear about it?

ERIC LARSON: Well, he was over -- he had been in Chitina before World War II, working on a railroad there, see.

And so after World War II, he went down there. You know, he just was getting a -- what do you call it -- unemployment, and he didn’t want to work ‘cause he -- I think he had a nervous breakdown.

And so when he was at Chitina, he ran into these old-timers that had property out there. This K. J. Rickey and George Nagenas and this O. A. Nelson, who more or less had the town there in Chitina.

And he went out there. Well, I think he bought George Nagenas and Rickey’s cabin out there, the one that I have now, and he bought some tools and stuff from ‘em and maybe a mining claim and he went out there to just --

you know, just to go out there and something to do, you know. And then he told my uncle about it and then my uncle went out there with him and this other guy, this Nick Barbera.

BILL SCHNEIDER: And how would someone go from Chitina out there? How would he have traveled?

ERIC LARSON: Oh, he took the mail plane.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. And maybe -- maybe we should talk a little bit about some of those early pilots in there. You mentioned Mudhole Smith, who’s pretty infamous.

ERIC LARSON: Well, he had this Cordova Airlines, and from what I understand from my aunt and uncle, that he’s the one that -- he got some kind of government grant to start a airline route from Cordova to Chitina to McCarthy to May Creek and then Chisana and Northway into either Whitehorse or Dawson. I don’t know which one it was.

And so when he did that, he -- back then the Chisana strip in the late '40s was just a twelve-hundred-foot strip or fifteen-hundred foot.

And then since my uncle had the Cat out there, he contracted him to make the strip bigger, so --

NANCY LARSON: And that strip is huge. How big a planes they had land on that?

ERIC LARSON: Well, you can land a Hercules on it. So, it’s four or five thousand feet.

BILL SCHNEIDER: That’s pretty major.

And what happened to the Indian population there?

ERIC LARSON: Well, I think, you know, it just slowly went away. I think a lot of the Indians in that area they either moved -- they lived in over toward Nabesna and Slana, in that area there, and maybe Northway.

And those areas, I think. I can’t tell you.

I think Ivan Thorall could tell you where a lot of Indians lived there. And so I think that’s where they evidently moved to.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. Was there ever a school out in the community?

ERIC LARSON: Not that I heard of.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So it was mostly men out there?

ERIC LARSON: Yeah. I think there was women out there, too, when they first had the stampede, because they do have a building called the women’s jail out there.

And it’s still there. The Park Service fixed it up. And they had a commissioner out there for a year, I think, and that was Tony Dimond.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Oh, really? Huh! Can you tell me more about this women’s jail?

ERIC LARSON: Well, that’s just what I -- you know, everybody calls this building the women’s jail. And so I don’t -- I don’t know the history of it.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. Well, we’ll have to ask others about that one.

The old horse trails in there, were those different than the Cat trails? Did they have to follow different country?

ERIC LARSON: Well, I think one horse trail came from -- it came over from McCarthy, and part of that they call the Goat Trail. It goes up on the Russell Glacier and then up Solo Creek and down Trail Creek.

And then they had one in the winter that it went over up the Chisana Glacier and out that way.

Then they had horse trails that went from Chisana up to Bonanza Creek. I think they call that the High Trail.

And then there’s a horse trail that goes from one of those. That one that goes up Bonanza Creek, it goes down to Horsfeld.

BILL SCHNEIDER: I’ve seen that Goat Trail on the map and wondered about that. It looked pretty steep.

ERIC LARSON: Oh, it’s -- yeah. I think it’s just one way, from what I hear. I’ve never been over it.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Well, tell us about your interest and investment in the area.

ERIC LARSON: Well, I went out there in -- during hunting season in 1968 with my uncle. And I used to go out there every year with him until he moved down to Washington. And then I kept going out there myself.

And then Ivan Thorall, he ended up with Andy Kimik’s cabin, and then Ivan Thorall gave it to me.

So I still have the cabin out there and I go out there in hunting season most every year.

And then every year we go out there snowmobiling in the spring -- spring break. We go with the kids and a few other people go out there.

BILL SCHNEIDER: What’s the route you use when you go in with snowmachines?

ERIC LARSON: Well, we’ve gone three different ways. We’ve gone from Nabesna and up over Cooper Creek, what they call it. And then across down -- yeah, from Nabesna over Cooper Creek and then down Cross Creek and then over Chisana River to Chisana.

And then the other way is from Border City, they call it. It’s a lodge down by the Canadian border. And we go across Scottie Lake and hit the river at Mirror Creek and then go up the Chisana River until we get to Cross Creek.

And then we turn off there either at Wilson Creek or go up Cross Creek and then across the Chisana River again.

And then we’ve gone one other way. It’s from Beaver Creek, Canada. And we just follow Beaver Creek until you get to Baultoff Creek and you go up Baultoff Creek until you get to where it turns to the west, and then you go up over Braye Lakes and follow the Cat trail into Chisana.

NANCY LARSON: Needless to say, I’d follow him anywhere out there. He really knows the country.

BILL SCHNEIDER: How long a trip are those?

ERIC LARSON: Well, I think the ones from Beaver Creek and Border City are about seventy mile a trip.

And the ones from Nabesna, it's forty-five or fifty miles, I think. And they’re all pretty good trips.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah, yeah. It sounds like it would be fun to do that with dogs, too.

Okay. Well, Nancy, how did you develop an interest in the area? We have to get your mom out there.

NANCY LARSON: Well, I ended up talking my way into a trip into Chisana when Eric and Andy Kimik were going in hunting and I talked -- got myself invited saying that I’d be the cook.

And so Eric and I were out there for -- well, we were supposed to be out there a couple of weeks and it turned into a month. And he being the confirmed bachelor, that was news -- was all the way down to Washington and the relatives.

And so, yeah, that was in 1980?

ERIC LARSON: ’82 or ‘3 or something like that.

NANCY LARSEN: Well, we were married in ’83, so maybe it was ’82. I’m not terribly good with dates.

Anyway, so that was the first year that I had gone out there.

And I was born and raised here in Fairbanks, but it was some beautiful country.

So then I think it was a couple years later that my mom came out and stayed with us there. And so, she really liked the country, and her husband at the time was working in Prudhoe, and so they were looking for a place to call home.

They had a motorhome that they did a lot of traveling in and they were ready to put some roots down. So they bought a piece of property from Ivan and built their house there.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Ivan Thorall?

NANCY LARSON: Mm-hm. Yes.

BILL SCHNEIDER: And so seasonally you go out there, but you never had ambition to live out there permanently?

NANCY LARSON: No. No, I think it’s a wonderful place to visit, but I must admit I’m a little citified. And so -- I think the kids have always -- intrigued by it, but --

BILL SCHNEIDER: Well, for those who are listening and visitors to the park who will never make it out there, describe some of the characters, some of the people, that make that place special to you.

Give them a sense of the folks that create the character of the place.

ERIC LARSON: Well, I like -- you know, when my uncle used to go out there, he was a lot of fun to go with because he had lots of energy and he always liked to tell everybody where to go hunting and go up here and you can go hunt over there and, oh, that’d be a good place to go get a moose over there, sheep, or go down to the river bar and get a caribou.

And, you know, he liked to give orders and direct all the traffic.

And he’d get us all up early in the morning, get us going, and he was pretty entertaining.

Plus, you know, he had lots of drive and everything, and that was always pretty interesting.

And then Ivan Thorall, he’s kind of the same way, you know. And then he’d always -- when we were younger, you know, they -- both of them would give us a bad time if we didn’t get somethin’ and, you know, “What were you lookin’ at?”

And things like that, and remarks like that.

BILL SCHNEIDER: How did Ivan get into the country? We’re going to try to catch him on tape, but --

ERIC LARSON: Well, my uncle was taking -- when he took his Cat out there this Andy Kimik and Nick, they were working on the DEW-line or some government project on the North Slope, and they didn’t want to take time off in the spring.

They’d come back to Fairbanks and go out there, so they asked Ivan to go with them.

And Ivan’s kinda an outdoorsman, and so he felt like, I’d like to go, you know. So he ended up going with my uncle out there.

I think it took ‘em two weeks to get there, seems like.

BILL SCHNEIDER: How did they go that time? I mean, were they walking or horses?

ERIC LARSON: No, they had the Cat.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Oh, they took the Cat that time. ERIC LARSON: A cat and two, three sleds -- and -- and --

But it was kind of -- there was supposed to have been an awful lot of snow that year and they had to plow a lot of snow to get in some places, you know.

NANCY LARSON: Always up for an adventure. ERIC LARSON: Yeah.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So Ivan (his name was Iver) Johnson was in there first before Ivan Thorall? ERIC LARSON: Yeah. Yeah.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. And so they’ve been buddies ever since? ERIC LARSON: Oh yeah, yeah.

NANCY LARSON: Well, they both worked out of the Carpenters Hall up here. ERIC LARSON: Yeah. Yeah.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Were carpenters by trade? ERIC LARSON: Yeah.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Anyone else you want to mention out in that area?

ERIC LARSON: Well, Andy Kimik, you know. I went out there a few times with him, and -- but he kind of quit going out there after a while.

And then -- then in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s he went out there a few times.

But when the -- when the Park Service changed it over, it kind of ruined everything for, you know, people that didn’t have horses or good way to get around.

There were too many restrictions, and he was kind of disenchanted with it. And just wasn’t the same, you know.

BILL SCHNEIDER: That’s -- that’s a question that we always ask in these interviews, is what has the impact of the Park Service been.

And you were there before the Park Service and saw the Park Service’s involvement, and you’ve seen some changes. Probably some for the good, some for the bad.

Do you want to share some of that with the public?

ERIC LARSON: Well, like the change I've seen for the good is that, you know, they fixed up some of the -- they got some grants and fixed up some of the old cabins.

But then, for the bad that they, you know, the boundaries have changed where you can go with mechanized vehicles and, you know, it’s more restrictive like that.

Then the Park Service, they kind of give the guides leverage against the resident hunters, which is -- you know, you know, you can’t go where -- you can’t take a motorized vehicle here or there. And if you do -- and they can just get on the radio or the phone and turn you in and, you know --

BILL SCHNEIDER: How is that an advantage for the registered guides?

ERIC LARSON: For the guides? BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah.

ERIC LARSON: Well, it keeps them off the -- we can’t go hunting where they want to -- You know, it kind of keeps them -- keeps us from -- cuts our transportation off to get into certain areas.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Oh, I see, you mean, it cuts the registered guides' transportation?

ERIC LARSON: No, it cuts the resident hunter. BILL SCHNEIDER: Oh.

NANCY LARSON: We used to be able to stand outside of the big house where we live and look up on the hills and see sheep.

Well, I mean, there’s been enough of an impact that you have to go farther for sheep, and now that there’s been such restricted access, you know, with vehicles, then, you know, that makes it harder and harder to hunt.

And so, yeah, I mean that’s been -- it’s kind of been somewhat of a divide-and-conquer technique, I think.

Because my impression of the Park Service through the years has been that they really don’t want people in their parks. They don’t want people living in them. They would prefer to not have the in-holders, and so that’s in direct conflict with these people that live there.

And, I think, the sad part of it is that the majority of the people that lived in Chisana respected the land and didn’t tear it up, and that’s why it’s so beautiful and that’s why it became a preserve.

But to all of a sudden assume that they can no longer, you know, respect and take care of the land because it became a preserve is, well, somewhat insulting or frustrating to people that live in the area.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. What I was getting at though was I understand the resident hunters' concern for mobility. Being able to get to the animals.

But I thought you were saying, Eric, that that gave an advantage to the guide.

ERIC LARSON: Well, it does, because we can’t use a motorized vehicle to get further out from our cabin, so that’s less resident hunters there and the guides have that area in their control.

NANCY LARSON: I mean, they have horses, which can you know go out on these trails. And so you know they have more mobility because they live there and they, you know, have all of the horses.

Where the residents there don’t have horses. And so that cuts it down

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. I’ve got it now, so horses -- Is that what you were getting at? ERIC LARSON: Yeah.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So horses are permitted, but you can’t use something like a four-wheeler or --

NANCY LARSON: Right. And actually when you look at the tundra and the boggy conditions that you come across there, a four-wheeler does less damage than a horse loaded or a horse with a rider, because all of their weight is centered on four feet that tend to cut through.

And when you use a trail constantly, it tends to, you know, rip through and break down the tundra.

So you can certainly see the trails that the horses use. I mean it’s the same thing. I mean the caribou, you know, they have their trails and you follow their trails also, so --

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. Why do you think the Park Service has made that -- that differentiation? I mean, if it is true, as you say, that the horses create more damage than a four-wheeler, why are they restricting four-wheelers, you suppose?

NANCY LARSON: 'Cause it’s much easier to get a four-wheeler in their then it is a horse. You can turn a four-wheeler off, throw a tarp over it, and leave.

To get a horse in, you know, is quite a trip through Canada. And, you know, the guides have the horses in there and some guides choose to feed their horses through the winter and some don’t and they fend for themselves. And so, you know, that’s been a problem these past few years.

And the Park Service gives out grazing permits, which a horse doesn’t know the little square that he’s supposed to be on.

So, you know, they end up on the -- the -- one of the runways. You know, they were planted for erosion control and so that’s pretty good eating for the horse which can make it for a hazardous situation.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So do I understand you correctly that you think that part of the thinking is that if they permit horses that they're harder to get horses in there, so there’ll be less hunting?

ERIC LARSON: I think that’s just the way those -- you know, the wilderness law is. You’re only permitted pack animals. See. That’s the way the law reads.

And you just can't go off -- You know, with a four-wheeler you can’t go off an established trail. But with a pack animal you can.

And that’s the way the law is. That’s the way it is in the states and it follows it through right up here.

BILL SCHNEIDER: But you're saying that that puts the local person at a distinct disadvantage unless they have horses. ERIC LARSON: Yeah. NANCY LARSON: Mm-hm.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. And so the idea then is how do you support horses there year round unless you are a guide? ERIC LARSON: Mm-hm.

NANCY LARSON: Right. And you know they -- they have their grazing permits, which unfortunately most of the country out there is not -- is not food that a horse, you know, can eat and get a whole lot out of.

And so they really need supplemental feed in there. And some of the guides choose to do that and others don’t. Other horse -- you know --

BILL SCHNEIDER: We should tell listeners on here that Nancy is an experienced horse person and so is knowledgeable about this subject. You’ve spent a lot of time with horses.

NANCY LARSON: Mm-hm. Yeah, I teach horse care and management along with riding with the pony club.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So, you know about these matters.

And starvation of horses has been a problem there, you’re saying.

NANCY LARSON: Yes. They’ve been wolf food.

BILL SCHNEIDER: And have you seen increased in wolf -- wolves out there?

ERIC LARSON: I can’t say that I have. So --

Then another thing the Park’s restrictive, you know, you can’t just go out and cut house logs down or saw logs down.

And, you know, you can’t take your Cat anyplace you want to in the woods or any place you want to. That’s it.

You know, they got -- You got to have a permit for this, and you got have a permit for that. You know, it’s just more restrictions.

NANCY LARSON: I think it would be easier to understand such control if there was a large influx of people into the area, and then you say, "Well, we're going to have to do some management here."

But because this is a stable population of ten to thirteen people, for how many years? You know, the restrictions placed upon the people that live there are frustrating.

BILL SCHNEIDER: And how does your mom make a living out there? How is she supported?

NANCY LARSON: They’re retired. So they're on a fixed income.

BILL SCHNEIDER: So they have -- they're able to ship in food that they use? NANCY LARSON: Mm-hm.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. But they do some hunting? ERIC LARSON: Oh, yeah.

NANCY LARSON: Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, that’s their -- that's their meat source.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Yeah. Before we quit here, would you give just a typical cycle of what a year is like for people today out there?

For you folks, its seasonal use. You're out there during certain seasons.

Is that fairly typical or is there a resident population that's out there? And what’s their year like?

NANCY LARSON: Well, there’s both. The seasonal and the residents.

And personally I -- I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying what their year is like. I mean, I’m out there a short period of time and actually I haven’t been out there for a few years.

I've been doing horse stuff, as a matter of fact.

But, yeah, so I don’t think that I would feel comfortable explaining it. Ivan would be a real good resource for that.

ERIC LARSON: Yeah. I think you need to talk to him.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. Maybe just one other comment on the guides.

The folks that are guiding out there with horses, are they staying out there year round? Or are some of them leaving?

ERIC LARSON: Well, I think, though, one guide, he stays there practically year-round except when he has to go down to the states to these hunting conventions, seminars, whatever it is. And then they book hunts out there.

And then the one guide, he's -- I would say he’s out there for six months. Him and his wife. And then they live in Anchorage.

And then, of course, they go out to sign up clients.

But they're twenty years older than the other ones. They’re in their seventies. So --

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay. Anything else we should add?

ERIC LARSON: I can’t think of anything.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Okay, well, we'll try to get a hold of the two Ivans. NANCY LARSON: Iver and Ivan. BILL SCHNEIDER: Iver and Ivan, okay. ERIC LARSON: Yeah.

Did you -- did you have their phone numbers or anything? BILL SCHNEIDER: I'll -- I have numbers for them, yeah. ERIC LARSON: Okay.

BILL SCHNEIDER: Thank you. ERIC LARSON: Yeah.