| North Cascades |
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PURPOSE
This administrative history has several purposes: to provide a summary of the park's thirty year development, to present a synthesis of the many issues that have concerned park managers from 1968 to the present, and to offer an analysis of North Cascades and its place within the history of the national park system and how the politics of its establishment and its wilderness mission distinguish it from other national parks. This history is organized both chronologically and topically. The report is divided into three parts corresponding to three distinct eras in the park complex's history. In some cases, as with the discussion of the High Ross Dam controversy, this approach has been modified to provide better coverage of a topic. Within these sections, chapters address such recurring topics as administration, development, research and resource management, concessions management, hydropower issues, wilderness management, and land protection. The first part addresses the establishment of North Cascades as a national park; the park movement spanned more than seventy years, and the compromises necessary to preserve North Cascades bear significantly upon the park's management.
The second and third parts reflect distinct eras of planning, and are divided into the park's first ten years and next twenty years. These sections essentially provide the context for the birth and growth of a relatively young national park and provide readers with a thematic framework with which to think of the park's management history. The park complex's first decade of administration can be characterized by the Park Service's attempts to carry out the legislative mandates of the North Cascades Act, develop the new park's management on a strong foundation of research, advance a strong commitment to wilderness preservation, and contend with the often contradictory aspects of traditional park management. The last twenty years of management can be characterized by the Park Service's attempts to come to terms with the park's past as well as its future. On the one hand, the agency addressed long-standing management problems in its attempts to resolve hydropower issues and disputes over land acquisition and resource use in Stehekin. And on the other, the agency demonstrated its desire to place wilderness foremost in present and future management decisions with the creation of a wilderness district. At the same time, it sought ways to improve visitor services, for example, with the construction of a visitor center. This situation revealed one of the central themes of the park's management. Most visitors never strayed far from their cars, and the agency needed a facility to educate the public about the wilderness few would see.
http://www.nps.gov/noca/adhi-purp.htm