Stopping the Ambler

The Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is a complex of several land units in central Alaska that is larger than the state of Maryland and that is mostly designated wilderness. Even its National Park Service visitor centers are outside of the park itself, and visitors are advised to visit by plane or on foot. Even hikers are advised that there are no trails into the park. 

This wilderness is just part of what is at stake in an ongoing battle to prevent the building of the Ambler Road, a proposal whose quaint name belies the damage that it would cause if completed. It would, of course, also be very damaging to migratory wildlife and to the traditional practices of many indigenous communities. It would also provide some employment to some communities whose traditional livelihood has already been compromised by climate change.

Journalist Sarah Gilman tells the Ambler Road story in the. March 2025 issue of Sierra magazine. "Alaskan Tribes and Activists Are Ready to Resist Ambler Road, Again" is subtitled "The proposed route would slash through pristine Indigenous land." The keyword in all of this may be "again" because this is illustrative of many efforts to preserve wilderness in Alaska and elsewhere. Protection victories are always temporary; proposals to disrupt need only succeed once. 

When I read about this article in a review by one of my students, I was initially interested because my spouse and I are considering a visit to the Iñupiaq Heritage Center, part of an indigenous whaling community in Alaska. That center is several hundred miles to the north of the Ambler Road proposal, but Gilman does mention Iñupiaq among those who are contesting the project. In fact, she begins her telling of the tale from the point of view of Jazmyn Vent, a young woman who is both Koyukon Athabascan and Iñupiaq.

She quotes Vent as saying, “Once this road opens, there’s no going back.” This reminds me of a key lesson from a very different place that I have studied more extensively. The story of deforestation in Rondônia is largely that of a road-construction project that got out of hand. Planners who hoped to attract 10,000 settlers by paving the now-infamous BR-364 eventually saw 2 million people arrive.