Happy Walter J. Hickel Day of the Arctic!

“All of us own the seas in common. We own the air and space. If we can learn to use these resources productively for the benefit of all, not just for a few powerful groups or a handful of corporations, the world would stand today on the threshold of wealth and social advancement we cannot yet imagine.”

—Former Alaska Gov. Wally Hickel

On the day I was born, Wally Hickel was the Republican Governor of Alaska. On the day I moved to Alaska, Wally Hickel was the governor of Alaska for the second time, having run successfully as an Alaskan Independence Party candidate. On May 7, 2010, I was in Sitka, in the Pioneer Bar with a bunch of raucous Democrats who were there for the Democratic Convention. When word came that Hickel had passed away, things got quiet, glasses were raised, and eyes moistened. There was never one like him, nor is there likely to be again.

At the age of 21, Walter Hickel, a welterweight Golden Gloves boxing champion from the plains of Kansas where he was born on his parents’ dust-bowl tenant farm, decided he’d travel and seek his fortune in Australia. The prospect of waiting weeks for a passport didn’t appeal to him, so instead he boarded the steamship S.S. Yukon in 1940 with hardly a dollar to his name, and headed for Alaska. It was Australia’s loss.

Hickel joined Democrats in calls for Alaskan statehood during the late 1940s and into the 1950s. He engaged reluctant Republicans in Congress and in the Eisenhower administration, and softened those who were initially resistant to the idea of statehood. Eventually, enough Republicans were swayed, resulting in the Alaska Statehood Act in 1958.

During his first stint as governor, he helped to open Prudhoe Bay on the north slope of Alaska for oil development. when industry leaseholders announced their intention to leave, Hickel famously threatened, “You drill or I will.”  They drilled.

His term ended when he stepped up and became Secretary of the Interior under Richard Nixon. Environmentalists were outraged, and the Sierra Club, for the first time in their history publicly spoke out and opposed the appointment of a cabinet member.

Hickel, however, wasn’t quite what people expected. After the devastating oil spill in the Santa Barbara channel in January of 1969, almost immediately after assuming his new office, Hickel shut down oil drilling in the channel, and penned regulations to control offshore drilling, making the oil industry financially liable for oil well blowouts. He also advocated the institution of Earth Day in 1970, sending 1000 members of his department to speak at college campuses and other venues across the nation.

He also oversaw the permitting process for the Trans Alaska Pipeline and helped gain the votes to authorize its construction. He played a key role in the settlement of Alaska Native land claims, and advocated for the 200-mile limit to protect Alaska’s fisheries.

In July of 1970, he addressed the National Petroleum Council in Washington.

“Let’s find new ways, better ways of doing business so that our industries can prosper and our environment flourish at the same time,” Secretary Hickel said. “The right to produce is not the right to pollute. America must prove to itself as well as to others worldwide that it has the ability to clean up the garbage it has left in its wake.”

And thus he gained support from a bewildered constituency of environmentalists who had previously opposed him so vehemently.

Nobody could put Wally in a box.

He didn’t much care for his boss, President Nixon – particularly in matters of war, and the government’s relationship with the youth of the nation. After the bombings in Cambodia, and the bloody Kent State massacre, Hickel wrote a letter to Nixon, castigating him for his policies and attitude.

“I believe this administration finds itself today embracing a philosophy which appears to lack appropriate concern for the attitude of a great mass of Americans — our young people,” Hickel wrote.

Try to neatly categorize Wally Hickel at your peril. But, whatever he did, he always acted in the best interest of the state of Alaska. Shunning partisan politics, he advocated not for bi-partisan politics, but no-partisan politics. Alaska could use him right now.

Today would have been Wally Hickel’s 93rd birthday. To honor him, and his vibrant legacy, the legislature voted to make August 18, Governor Walter J. Hickel Day of the Arctic. A special nod went to Senator Hollis French who helped to make it happen.

The first one was celebrated on the 10th floor of his Hotel Captain Cook by family, friends, and those who share his vision for Alaska. I was humbled to be surrounded by the legacy keepers, and visionaries that will keep his memory alive.

Nils Andreassen, Managing Director of the Institute of the North addresses the gathering

Lt. Governor of Alaska, Mead Treadwell, and Governor Hickel’s head of the Department of Environmental Conservation, John Sandor.

The inimitable Walter Parker, known for his work in Alaska transportation, fisheries, telecommunications, land use planning, and oil spill response, mingles with guests.

Longtime Hickel aide, friend, Senior Fellow of the Institute of the North, and legend in his own right, Malcolm Roberts.

Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell, and one of Alaska’s founding fathers, and Constitutional framers, Vic Fischer.

Walter Hickel’s son Dr. Jack Hickel, and his mother Ermalee Hickel.

Comments

comments