The first family took a break from rafting Idaho’s Salmon River and hung out on the shore. Rosalynn (left) and Amy Carter helped set up the chow, while Jimmy Carter played Frisbee on the banks. (Courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)
This column was first published on Rocky Barker’s “Letters from the West” blog on Dec. 30, 2024.
The most significant land conservation act in American history started on a raft trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.
Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29, 2024, at the age of 100, protected more than 100 million acres of Alaska public lands as national parks and preserves, national wildlife refuges, designated wilderness areas, and wild and scenic rivers. The 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act passed because Carter boldly used presidential power to make it happen.
The wilderness and national park legislation had been on environmentalists’ agenda since the 1960s, after the passage of the Wilderness Act. Several attempts were made to push it through, but each was stopped by the powerful Alaska congressional delegation.
Carter invited newly reelected Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus to Plains, Georgia, in 1976 to interview for Interior secretary. Andrus invited Carter, an avid angler, to raft down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho with their wives. Carter accepted, then picked Andrus to lead Interior.
Carter joined Andrus in Boise and flew into Indian Creek by helicopter in late August of 1978. Legendary outfitter Norm Guth guided them and their wives, Rosalynn and Carol, for four days through the heart of Idaho wilderness. Sitting around the campfire, Andrus told Carter he had the power to preserve the Alaska lands using the Antiquities Act, said the late Chris Carlson, Andrus’s longtime aide in his book, “Eye on the Caribou.”
“Can I do that?” Carter asked, according to Andrus.
“You have the authority sir,” Andrus responded.
“Let’s do it,” Carter said.
After Congress reached a deadlock on legislation that would protect the Alaska lands, Carter acted. He declared 56 million acres as a national monument. He set aside another 36 million acres he could add later.
Carter had forced the Alaska congressional delegations’ hand. They returned to the table and passed the bill with 106 million acres of protected lands. The law almost doubled the sizes of the national park and wildlife refuge systems and tripled the size of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
“Jimmy Carter was, with Theodore Roosevelt, one of the two most committed conservationists ever to occupy the Oval Office,” said Andrus, who died in 2017.
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