Bill Sherwonit
Alaska Beacon
I suppose it was inevitable that I would someday write a commentary in opposition to the proposed Ambler Road. Both the Arctic region through which the road would pass, and the reason it’s a developer’s dream, are deeply connected to the path my own life has taken.
Along its 211-mile length, the road would skirt the southern foothills of the Central Brooks Range, a place that altered the course of my life.
Back in the mid-1970s, fresh out of grad school, I was part of a geology crew that searched those mountains for sulfide-mineral deposits rich enough to someday become a mine — or at least add value to already known deposits, thus increasing the region’s economic potential. Among my colleagues and bosses were geologists who in the early 1960s found a high-grade copper lode associated with what’s known as the Bornite Deposit, one of the major reasons the Ambler Road is being pushed.
While working in the Brooks Range — and especially its Ambler River Valley — in 1975, a series of events prompted me to question my life’s direction.
By the end of my second summer in the Brooks Range, it had become clear that I loved wild, undeveloped landscapes much more than the promise of rich mineral deposits that might be developed into mines — even more than geology itself, as recounted in my book “Changing Paths: Travels and Meditations in Alaska’s Arctic Wilderness.”
I left that profession and found a new calling, as a writer. I started in journalism as a sports writer, then became an outdoors and nature writer and eventually an essayist and author. Along the way I also became an advocate for Alaska’s wildlands and wildlife.
Since leaving the field of geology nearly a half-century ago, I have visited the Brooks Range several times. Though I love that entire mountain chain, I am most passionate about its central region, which so dramatically reshaped my life, especially that part protected by the 8.5 million acre Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Hence my interest in — and opposition to — the Ambler Road.
Though it would pass through only a small portion of Gates — and wouldn’t come near the park’s 7.2 million acre wilderness core — I’m convinced the proposed road would transform much of the adjacent region into an industrial zone. Many reports, articles and commentaries have identified the road’s likely harmful impacts to the landscape and its streams, fish and wildlife — most notably salmon and caribou — as well as indigenous subsistence lifestyles.
The overwhelming abundance of evidence presented by others is one reason I’ve chosen, until now, to largely stay on the sidelines during this battle, though I have presented my perspectives to the Bureau of Land Management during public comment periods.
I was among many Alaskans — and Americans — to celebrate when the Biden administration rejected the Ambler Road, formally known as the Ambler Access Project, in 2024.
Now President Donald Trump has re-approved the project, as he did initially during his first term.
Still, as reported by the Northern Journal and other media, the road’s construction is not a done deal, a reason for wilderness advocates and road opponents to be hopeful.
The Trump administration’s push to resurrect the Ambler Road is not my only concern.
Though not directly affected, I’m greatly disturbed by Congress’s decision — pushed by Alaska’s congressional delegation — to overturn another Biden-era decision, this time to approve what’s called the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan.
That plan was more than a decade in the making, with considerable input — and support — from Native residents of Alaska’s Interior. I’ve found Athabaskan elder Mickey Stickman’s explanation of the plan, and its importance to local residents, to be particularly compelling.
Unfortunately for Stickman and others who worked so long and hard on this plan, Alaska’s congressional delegation has sided with mine developers, Ambler Road proponents and corporations, while choosing to ignore the efforts of so many Alaskans, including tribal groups.
So for multiple reasons, I speak up now on behalf of wilderness, wildlife and Alaskans who will be harmed by not only the Trump administration’s actions, but those of our congressional delegation, who have chosen corporate interests over those who live closest to the land and depend on caribou, salmon, berries and other wild riches that have nothing to do with mining and other industrial development of our land.