Alaska. A wild, uncontrolled, untamed example of glory that cannot be found anywhere else. Untouched, untouched. The state has what many consider to be the last great frontier, with spectacular natural beauty boasting its craggy peaks, lush forests, pristine rivers and just about every activity offered within its borders.
With ridiculously adventurous ideas about rafting and sailing at its mouth, fly fishing, hiking, hunting its caribou and moose and, like many others, riding the state’s famous Dalton Highway, it ranks high on my bucket list.
The highway, built in the 1970s to connect Fairbanks to Deadhorse for mineral extraction purposes, is a 400-mile stretch that bisects the state and passes through some of the most desolate sections of federal public lands. Herds of caribou roam. Loamy hills that give way to vast forests and granite rocks can be seen from the back of your bike. And where the summer mosquitoes will make you hate your skin.
At least, it was federal public lands. Recently, the Trump administration’s Interior Department, in conjunction with the Senate, overturned the resource management plan through the Congressional Review Act—the first time it has been used that way—which then gave Alaska the once-protected 1.4 million acres around Dalton to manage itself, and fundamentally cut the protections it once had.
outcome? Less glory, more access to mining and development The major beneficiaries are Canada’s Trilogy Metals and Australia’s South32, the companies behind the Ambler Mine that recently got another life-saving shot in the arm from the current administration. Now the people of the state are considering what they want to do. But given the willful disobedience of our legislators when it comes to public lands, it seems another fight has erupted.
Removing the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan is part of a concerted effort by the Trump Administration to dismantle our nation’s public lands, our access to those public lands, and sell them off to extractive industries and developers – not even of whom are former Americans, i.e., the Chilean company that recently profited from the removal of Minnesota’s border waters protections.
Over the past two years, Trump’s public lands civil servants, through the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service, Congress, and congressional committees, as well as our own elected officials, have routinely attacked, developed workarounds, or simply decided not to listen to their own constituents in the wants and needs that directly impact our nation’s public lands. And the revocation of Dalton’s Resource Management Plan, along with the revocation of two public lands orders and countless other decisions, have resulted in the loss of protection for this still-wild place.
according to our friends fields and streams“Prior to this year, two Nixon-era public lands orders exempted BLM lands along Dalton from state transfer under the Alaska Statehood Act. But Congress’ removal of the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan and (Secretary of the Interior Doug) Burgum’s subsequent revocation of PLOs 5150 and 5180 opened the door for transfer.” The Alaska Statehood Act, which made Alaska a state – who could have guessed? – Said that the federal government was entitled to certain portions of the land and that Alaska had the right to take the rest as statehood.
And Alaska politicians want to give it to mining companies and developers. Prominent among them are those associated with the Ambler Mine.
The Ambler project took decades to build and involved decades of litigation. It has stopped, paused, and restarted several times, as Alaskans and fellow outsiders have come together to regularly sue the U.S. federal government and mining companies for their plans and ongoing conservation failures. Yet, despite public response and a continued effort to protect not just Dalton, but all public lands, the current administration is bent on going against the wishes of its constituents and selling off or giving away as much of our public lands as possible. All in the name of mining and fossil-fuel energy extraction. In fact, Trump, Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and the rest of the group behind these attacks continue to state this very fact in every executive order or decree they issue.
This includes the original press release announcing the move to Alaska, which we covered when it first launched.
Alaskans are now speaking their minds about what to do with the 1.4 million acres of land they just acquired. However, public comment was brief and ended on June 26, with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources stating, “DNR will begin outreach to communities along the Dalton Highway corridor and adjacent villages in the spring of 2026 to gather input on preferred access locations. This engagement may include community meetings, coordination with local governments and tribal entities, and opportunities for written input.”
This comes after saying in its announcement that it sees the existing restrictions along Dalton as “impacting access patterns for the general public and federally qualified subsistence users”, that is, they want to increase the routes, the largest of which is Ambler Road. As relayed fields and streams“That’s because the transfer of 1.4 million acres of land along Dalton could include the first 20-mile extension of the proposed Ambler Road.”
At the moment, the public comment period is over, and we’re waiting to hear what was said. But given that public comments have been largely ignored in recent months, including a proposal to repeal the roadless rule, which had more than a million people comment in support when it first became law, many are concerned that Alaska legislators won’t listen or don’t care to listen to what their people want and demand. And that energy extraction, which It’s not as fruitful as it was beforeNor is the American people expected to be returned, given priority over the opposition.
Hopefully, that natural beauty will remain intact. Hopefully, I and everyone else can experience it one day.
