Robert Kennedy Jr. came to Alaska to support Alaska's waterkeeper organizations. Yael and I were on the host committee for one of the events. I'd never heard him speak before, and I have to say I was blown away by the passion and quality of his conservation arguments. No other Democrat I've heard in years has done the intellectual homework that Kennedy has in arguing how a strong conservation ethic fits with democracy, free markets, and economic prosperity. I thought he went a little overboard generalizing about big business and Republicans, but I'd still like to read his book, Crimes Against Nature. Ari was so inspired by Kennedy's logic that he leapt into his arms and trimphantly raised his fist in a show of solidarity. Having won Ari's support, Kennedy should go far.
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McKinley For The Afternoon: April 16, 2005
- Ever the adventure-seekers they are, my parents wanted to take an afternoon off of seeing Ari to go see a little bit of Alaska. My wonderfully generous friend Chris Hodel agreed to take us up for a little flight. We flew about 45 minutes in his 206 up to the Mt. McKinley area, spent 30 minutes flying around, then stopped in Talkeetna for a walk and dinner at the Latitude 62 Restaurant. The flight back to town was only about 35 minutes. We flew a few hundred feet above the river for the first half of it, then climbed into the proper airspace before entering the pattern to land at Merrill Field.
Eddie & Jen's Wedding Weekend, San Francisco
- Eddie & Jen's Wedding Weekend was special in many ways: seeing a dear friend formalize the best decision of his life, bringing Ari to the town where Yael and I met, and most of all, catching up with dear friends.
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July 2005
Prince William Sound Flightseeing & Aerial Cinematography
We’re shooting a video for Rust’s Flying Service which will play on Alaska Channel and alaska.org. We need some air-to-air shots, so today we took a Dehavilland Beaver out to the Prince William Sound and shot it from a Cessna 206. Acquiring this type of aerial footage is complex. It has as much to do with the pilots as the photographer. Your pilot, in effect, is your cameraman, because he puts you in position for the shot. Bruce and Scott were great today. I came along and brought my still camera to capture some of what we were seeing.
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Lake George--Portage Lake on Steroids
Yael and Ari were in New York last weekend, so I felt compelled to take advantage of an opportunity to get out into the wilderness for a few days. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, so I reluctantly decided to go by myself. (Sometimes, I don’t sleep well in bear country by myself.) Jack and Brenda Barber of Alaska Air Taxi were kind enough to put me down at a famous lake called Lake George, tucked behind the front peaks and glaciers of the Chugach Mountains about 50 miles from Anchorage.
President Jimmy Carter In Alaska
I was invited to a luncheon today in Anchorage with President Jimmy Carter to honor the 25th anniversary of the passage of ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act. It was the last piece of legislation President Carter signed before leaving office, and he considers it his greatest legacy to America. (The photo at the left is me shaking Carter's hand--not exactly shot at what they call "the decisive moment".)
At that time, the Alaskan senators were blocking its passage. Carter’s Secretary of State, Cecil Andrus showed up in Carter’s office one day and said, “I’ve found a way around the impasse. There’s an obscure 1906 law called the Antiquities Act that allows the President to designate any area a national monument.” Carter was determined to get this legislation through. So he threatened to designate 56 million acres of Alaska as national monuments—at which point Alaska’s senators agreed to negotiate.
