[cinematic piano music...]
(Female narrator) Imagine a glacier-topped volcano rising from the sea to heights of more than 10,000 feet.
Imagine hundreds and thousands of salmon swimming hundreds of miles to find their way back to the creeks streams and lakes where they were born
Imagine a place where your ancestors have lived for thousands of years.
Imagine coastal meadows with habitats so rich, hundreds of bears gather.
Imagine a cabin in the woods where you can explore the splendor that surrounds you.
Imagine if all this could be found in one place.
You don't have to imagine.
In southwest Alaska where the Alaska Range intersects the Aleutian Range, you'll find a complex of jagged mountains,
lakes,
river valleys, tundra,
and ocean coastline
This is Lake Clark National Park.
At more than four million acres, it is larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.
With its location on the pacific ring of fire, it's a geologically dynamic and diverse landscape.
Volcanoes, glaciers, and incredible scenery are just a few of the park's geologically noteworthy features.
But Lake Clark National Park and Preserve is more than just a pretty place.
It's a rich intact cultural and ecological landscape.
It's a place with diverse values and meanings,
where tradition,
innovation and creativity are all simultaneously
on display.
(Buck Mangipane) Having a system with such a diverse array of
ecosystems ranging from glaciers and alpine tundra to coastal forests and salt marsh vegetation,
all are equally important but provide a unique array of resources that support a wide array of species in which we're very
fortunate to have those systems intact.
We're at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run,
so it is one of if not the largest salmon runs in the world. So it's
nationally significant and and globally significant. It also is a really amazing
ecological system. It's a great economic system,
and it also is really important culturally and so it brings those three facets together here in one spot.
Sockeye salmon provide sustenance for a lot of the people that live in the region and they also bring a huge influx of nutrients
from marine systems in to inland systems, of which many of the species
depend on seasonally for food, some of which are our most iconic
terrestrial species such as brown bears and wolves.
So I think salmon are kind of a backbone specie to this ecosystem.
(Karen Evanoff) The Dena'ina people have lived in the Lake Clark-Iliamna
area according to our oral history thousands of years and
according to the archaeological record, the latest date we got I think is over 9,000 years.
[melodic piano music...]
We still live a subsistence lifestyle,
we get a lot of our food from the land and there's much more to it though.
There's a spiritual component. There's a
values and beliefs and whole way of life that revolves around living from the outdoors.
(Female Narrator) The arrival of Russian fur hunters and missionaries at the turn of the 19th century
and the influx of Euro-American prospectors at the century's end
brought change to the area that accelerated throughout the 20th century.
Spurred by the commercial canned salmon industry in Bristol Bay and the advent of aviation,
these changes had major impacts on the Dena'ina and the other residents of the Lake Clark region.
What didn't change for the people of the Lake Clark region was their connection to the land.
Living in this hard-to-get-to corner of Alaska is a challenge.
One that fosters a sense of self-reliance,
community and deep connection to place.
It also means that one often has to use the resources at hand to solve the day-to-day
challenges that come with living remotely.
One area resident who's well known for these attributes is Dick Proenneke.
The 1973 book One Man's Wilderness chronicles Proenneke's
experience building a cabin and living at Twin Lakes.
Dick Proenneke was a self-taught naturalist who lived
here at Twin Lakes a better part of 30 years between 1968 and 2000.
He wanted to see how good a cabin he could build
and he wanted to film it and so he cut logs
and he leveled his cabin site, and he dragged his logs,
and he ricked them up and dried, you know,
so they would dry over the winter and then he built his cabin starting probably in May
and finishing in very early August.
Proenneke was out there and he practiced concentrating on living life to its fullest.
His intellectual, his physical energy...
I've never seen anyone more tireless.
He had his values and that was in wilderness and in living a simiple life in harmony with
and in living a simple life in harmony with his natural environment,
keeping his own counsel and taking care of this land,
and being intimately acquainted with the wildlife and the flora the area.
He helped make this National Park a reality by his presence here.
His output as a journalist and his knowledge
and intimate acquaintanceship with his natural world.
You know, he was just a unique person and a great advocate for environmentalism and conservation
conservation, and taking care of wilderness,
and knowing that we are lessened if we diminish it in any way as a species.
(Female Narrator) While Dick Proenneke has become known for his
craftsmanship, self-reliance, and reverence for the land,
he is not unique among area residents for these traits.
For generations, the Dena'ina people have lived a lifestyle that embodies many of these same values.
More than this, the Dena'ina culture has sustained and enriched the lives of its people for generations,
and it's reflected in their connection to what is now Lake Clark National Park.
(Karen Evanoff) I think that the other important part of Dena'ina culture
is the deep respect we have for the land.
We see the earth, the land as a spiritual being,
as everything on earth has a spirit and we're not separate from it,
which is really important to remember as a people.
I think looking at the park or place as a vast wilderness...
words can kind of dictate the way you think about place even,
so wilderness can to me, is a word that can present a story of place being wild and untouched and separate.
Separate from us as human beings.
Again, it goes back to the inner relationship and it's about feeling place.
It's about connecting.
It's about being honored to be on this earth
and visit places that have open space and trees and mountains,
and is not developed through exploratory means.
We can learn a lot directly from nature.
Whether it's values or beliefs about who we are.