Bokan Mountain
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gleb Mikhalev joined the Last Stands expedition as a filmmaker and photographer. Gleb is a freelance videographer who works regularly as a Director of Photography for VICE News, and also commercial fishes in Southeast Alaska. When the Last Stands team sailed into Kendrick Bay during our 2019 expedition, Gleb felt a strong connection and found himself fascinated with the history of Bokan Mountain.
Read on for some of Gleb’s reflections, and check out this article from Cascadia Times for in-depth reporting about how changes to the Roadless Rule might impact the permitting for a mine on Bokan Mountain.
When we plotted our course on the chart, Kendrick Bay appeared like a many-armed sea creature. It’s an expansive bay with branching fjords, and from the moment we swung the bow of the Murrelet into the entrance I could sense that we were someplace special.
After several weeks sailing around Prince of Wales, we had seen a wide diversity of bays and inlets, every place with wildly differing personalities. Some of these bays revealed themselves by how the light was held in the forested hills, others stood out through the texture of their rocks and beaches; a few were eerily quiet and still; yet others were loud with animal voice or the sounds of the wind tuning the forest’s trees.
There are worlds within worlds on Prince of Wales Island.
As we pass by the first islands of Kendrick Bay, the crew of the Murrelet is jubilant as we took note of certain features that seem to appeal directly to the homo sapien within. The wake from the boat began to break on warm south facing shores. The beaches were gently sloping, with generous deposits of dry driftwood that held the promise of bonfires to come. I saw several rivers with generous amounts of fresh-water weaving into the sea. Undoubtedly this is a place for salmon as well.
When we pulled into our anchorage I could already sense the diversity of life vibrating all around: fish leaping on the surface, beats of bird wings, and trails made by paws and hooves running through the grass and into the forest. I wondered how many people must have visited and lived in this bay over the 10,000+ years of known human relationship with Prince of Wales.
As so often seems to happen in these unique beautiful places there is an underlying threat: in this case the threat is Bokan mine. Bokan Mountain situated right above Kendrick Bay has been deemed by a US Geological Survey as having one of the largest deposits of rare earth metals in the United States. These rare earth metals like zinc, copper, and nickel are crucial for supplying the technology boom we are living through today and can be found in many of our personal and impersonal devices.
When we first walked into the forest we found the remains of an old mining camp. Stepping over broken glass, iron bits, and flakes of plastic it is evident that this bay had seen the power of industry before. Bokan Mountain had been mined for Uranium between 1957 and 1971. Today the US Environmental Protection Agency has called Bokan Mountain a “Superfund site,” and the mine is actively leaking radiation into Kendrick bay today.
None of us knew anything about there being a mine in Kendrick Bay before we anchored here, but it became immediately apparent that this project was abandoned without much forethought. We peeked into an old bunkhouse to see piles of leather boots, and scattered cookwares. Barrels of fuel sit uncovered, their surfaces holding pools of rainwater and sprouting rust. Tarps on old gear sheds have shredded in the wind and rain, and their tattered remains fluttered in the evening breeze.
Elsa and Mara goofing around on an old mooring buoy at abandoned mining camp
Alaska’s newly elected governor, Mike Dunleavy, has expressed strong interest in mining Bokan again, and with his request to Trump for the repeal of the Roadless Rule in Alaska, he has set in motion an unraveling of conservation protection that if completed will have implications not just for the forests, but for subsurface minerals. Dunleavy has also requested that the mine be declared strategically significant by Trump, which would expedite the permitting process. Read more here.
We proceeded to walk up the old mining road to Bokan Mountain, and as we wind through the forest, I thought about our mission to protect these forests, inlets, rivers and the life within them. The Roadless Rule has prevented most logging in the area surrounding the mine site, and the presence of old-growth forest seem to offer a hand in healing the disturbance of this abandoned project. An old-growth forest manages itself more efficiently than we could ever try.
Mara and Elsa looking out over designated roadless forest in Kendrick Bay.
As we gained elevation the ecology dramatically changed. Rocky outcroppings with colorful lichens and stunted hemlocks glowed bright in the evening sun. We’d gone from the sea to the peaks in only an hour. When we emerged into the alpine and got our first views of the valley and surrounding mountains, we’re shocked by the beauty. It felt like a national park.
The sun was setting soon and we had to hike back down. As we begin picking up our packs to start the descent back into the forest, we catch a last glimpse of the glowing face of Bokan Mountain and suddenly Elsa was inspired. “Let’s run up to those rocks up there!” she said, pointing to an outcropping across a valley. I heard myself start to complain about my growing hunger, and my readiness to sit by the campfire with a beer, but before I knew it I volunteered to go with her. Within seconds I found myself trying to keep up with Elsa. She seamlessly entered the thickets and bramble and started climbing elevation. She seemed to be flying along as I trip over myself clumsily getting snagged, tagged, and haggled by brush. We run like this for some time, scrambling up rocks, hurtling ourselves through and over squat alpine trees, past muskegs with colorful flowers, and over and across many mossy worlds.
Finally we come to the rocky peak that inspired our ascent. It felt like an unexplored planet. We were in the embrace of the alpine, and we can even see across the island to Mabel Bay where we had explored another Roadless Area before sailing around Cape Chacon and starting up the East side of Prince of Wales.
I felt the scale of Prince of Wales and imagined what it would feel like to summit these peaks and journey across the island. I was grateful to have followed Elsa on this sunset scramble. Contrary to my belief that I would feel more tired this place gave me renewed energy. As we descended back towards the bay I thought about how people deserve Kendrick Bay to be unpolluted and wild. They deserve a place they can spontaneously run through so they can see themselves in the world.
Reflecting back on our experience in Kendrick Bay, what is most troubling is how “distant people” can even talk about a new mine while the old one is actively polluting the area? At least clean up from the old mine before imagining new ways to extract profit. Mining companies will go to extreme lengths to finance mining operations in remote locations. But when it comes time to clean up their mess, more often than not, the company will simply declare bankruptcy and abandon their toxic legacy. Eliminating protections from the Roadless Rule will make it even easier for mines to be permitted in remote places like Kendrick Bay.
PHOTOS IN THIS BLOG: by Gleb Mikhalev and Colin Arisman.