Harrowsmith – June 2019

Harrowsmith Summer 2019 | 87

U.S. National Park Service

volunteer Joe Wilkins

takes us up close and

personal to the Arctic

wilderness with his

book, Gates of the

Arctic National Park.

BY CATALINA MARGULIS

INTO THE WILD

A

longtimefanandregular

visitortotheGatesofthe

ArcticNationalPark,JoeWilkins

becamea U.S.NationalPark

Servicevolunteerafterheretired

fromteachingmathematicsatthe

UniversityofIllinoisSpringfield.

Inhisrecentbook,Gatesofthe

ArcticNationalPark:TwelveYears

ofWildernessExploration(Brown

BooksPublishing,2018),heshares

hisuniqueinsightintotheparkasa

volunteer.WespokewithWilkins,

whotalkedabouthisloveofthe

Arcticwilderness,aswellasthe

dangersandchallengestovisitors,

wildlifeandtheparkatlarge.

Harrowsmith:Whendidyoufirst

visitthepark?

JoeWilkins:I firstfellinlovewith

AlaskaandtheArcticenvironment

whenmymothergavemea book,The

RealBookAboutAlaska,whenI was

aboutfiveyearsold.Shewouldread

ittomeandtaughtmetoread

fromthatbook.SoI wasabsolutely

enamouredwiththiswholeconcept

oftheArcticwilderness.

ThefirsttimeI setfootinthe

BrooksRange,theareathatbecame

theGatesoftheArcticNational

Parkin1980,wasin1966.I wasa

youngairforceofficer,andI received

Arcticwildernesssurvivaltraining.

I fellinloveandhavebeengoing

backregularlyeversince.AfterI

retired,I becamea volunteerwith

theNationalParkService.Andthat’s

wherethe 12 yearsfromthebook

titlecomesfrom.

HS What’ssospecialaboutthis

parkinparticular?

JW

It’sspecialbecauseof

the sheer remoteness of it.

This park is almost the size of
Switzerland, and it’s surrounded,
in turn, by one of the largest
wilderness areas in the world.
It is this very remoteness—the
absolutely magnificent beauty of
the rugged mountains, the really
wild whitewater rivers—that
makes it unique.
Throughout the book, I identify
places that remind me of other parks
all over the world. One of the things
that has been really rewarding over
these 12 times that I’ve been up there
is that I drove the link of the Rocky
Mountains, up through Alberta,
British Columbia, the Yukon, up
into the Northwest Territories. I
really became acquainted with the
beautiful parks of Canada. I actually
drove the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk
Highway that runs through the
Northwest Territories up to the
JOE WILKINS