Lower Forty-eight States Research Articles

Alaska's Conflicting Objectives

The formal treaty-making period between the U.S. government and Native peoples ended in 1871, only four years after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia. As a result, Alaska Natives did not enter into treaties that recognized their political authority or land rights. Nor, following the end of the treaty-making period, were Alaska Natives granted the same land rights as federally recognized tribes in the lower forty-eight states. Rather, Congress created the Alaska Native Corporations as the management vehicle for conveyed lands in 1971. The unique legal status of these corporations has raised many questions about tribal land ownership and governance for future generations of Alaska Natives. Although Congress created the Native Corporations in its eagerness to settle land claims and assimilate Alaska Natives, Alaska Native cultures and governance structures persisted and evolved, and today many are reasserting the inherent authority of sovereign governments.

Conservation Easement Tax Credits

Public concern about urban sprawl has spurred states to offer incentives for land preservation, such as state income tax credits granted to donors of conservation easements. This study examines the effect of these tax credits on conservation easement donations to regional land trust organizations in the lower forty-eight states during the period from 1994 to 2005. Regression results indicate that a state income tax credit has a statistically significant impact on conservation easement donations only during the initial period of implementation. The results also show that donation rates are significantly impacted by the extent of state park land holdings.

Reviews of Science for Science Librarians: A Bibliographic Examination of Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) Science

Grizzly bears inhabit wilderness areas in the northwestern region of the lower forty-eight states, western Canada, and areas of Alaska. Because of the settlement of the west and loss of prime habitat, populations declined rapidly in the nineteenth century, and in 1975 federal action was taken to protect grizzlies under the Endangered Species Act. Since 1950 about 722 technical papers have been written on the grizzly bear. Major research has focused on ecology, conservation, reproductive biology, behavior, dietetics, anatomy, and physiology, among other topics. Due to geographic distribution of the species, much of the research has been carried out by authors and organizations in western regions of the United States and Canada where major grizzly populations exist. A significant number of technical papers appear in three key journals: Ursus, the Journal of Wildlife Management, and the Canadian Journal of Zoology. According to data in WorldCat, about 1,167 records, covering monographs and technical reports, contain information on grizzlies and present research findings. The bulk of monographs appeal mainly to a general audience. However, citation analysis reveals a core of highly cited technical papers, many written with an emphasis on special themes or topics, whereas others focus on the grizzly itself, all together advancing the science on this species.

Late Quaternary chronology and extinction of North American giant short-faced bears ( Arctodus simus)

Eight new AMS radiocarbon dates on giant short-faced bears ( Arctodus simus) from the contiguous United States are reported, and previously published dates from across North America are reviewed and discussed. The dates deemed to be most reliable are on purified collagen samples, and these serve as the basis for interpreting the late Pleistocene chronology and extinction of the species. The oldest acceptable radiocarbon date from the lower forty-eight states is 34,080 ± 480 BP from Island Ford Cave, Virginia, and the youngest is the previously reported 9630 ± 60 BP date from Bonner Springs, Kansas. An additional date of 10,921 ± 50 BP on the same Kansas specimen indicates a precision problem in the age of this individual. Regardless of this anomaly, new AMS dates of ∼10,800–11,000 BP on A. simus confirm that it existed up to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and may have been one of the last megafaunal species to go extinct in North America. Further, these dates solidify the co-existence of these massive bears with humans of the Clovis cultural complex.

The (Post)Colonial Predicament of Native American Studies

For reasons having to do with both literary and political theory, post-colonial studies have largely ignored Native American issues in the United States, while at the same time Native American studies have remained ambivalent as to their potential position within a more inclusive, or aware, postcolonial studies. In this essay I argue that the indispensable and yet to date unexamined context for situating Native American literatures of the US within a (post)colonial context is federal Indian law, which perpetuates an ongoing colonialism for the 330 Indian tribes in the lower forty-eight states that come completely under its governance. Among its possible effects, I understand this context as potentially mediating current debates between Native Americanists from the nationalist and cosmopolitan schools of Native studies, though I use mediating here in its theoretical not its political sense, for I doubt these intensely conflictive positions will be reconciled nor do I necessarily have any interest in such reconciliation. My interest, rather, is in making a compelling case for the necessity of deploying federal Indian law in understanding Native literatures of the US. In order to exemplify this necessity, I sketch a reading of Leslie Silko's Almanac of the Dead in the final part of this essay.

Forecasting Ultimate Oil Recovery and Its Rate of Production: Incorporating Economic Forces into the Models of M. King Hubbert

Dwindling production of oil from domestic fields and rising consumption have increased U.S. dependence on imported oil to an all-time high. Concern about the effect of this dependence on economic and national security has focused attention on the domestic resource base: how much oil awaits discovery and at what rate can it be produced? We analyze the adequacy of domestic resources by updating and modifying in important new ways the models of discovery and production developed by M. King Hubbert. Hubbert’s models have been a lightning rod for debate about the future of oil resources because they have been the most accurate on record When we include real oil prices and the annual rate of drilling effort in Hubbert’s model of oil discovery, there is no evidence for claims that the secular decline in discoveries per foot of well drilled has been arrested or reversed in the lower forty-eight states. Our results indicate that there is little oil waiting to be found in unexplored sedimentary formations in the lower forty-eight states using conventional exploration techniques. Furthermore, we show that the declining quality of the resource base has offset the positive stimuli of price increases and changes in government policy towards a free market. Having passed through a period in which production in the lower forty-eight states fell 20 percent while real oil prices tripled, there seems little that the U.S. government can do to alter the bottom line for domestic operators so that U.S. production can displace imports to a significant degree. We conclude that the conventional supply side offers little room to manoeuvre around increased dependence on imported oil.

The Alaska Highway Development

Thirty-one years ago, in November of 1942, the Alaska Highway was opened for use as a military road. Built as a long-range defense measure, it was assumed that improvements would continue following World War II. Since that time, there have been many proposals to pave the road, but they have been blocked by political and economic considerations. The resulting highway had a good gravelled driving surface, but was rough and uneven. After the responsibility for the highway was transferred from the United States Army to the Royal Canadian Engineers, the terms of reference under which operations were carried out did not permit major road relocations. ... the alignment of the highway is essentially the same today as it was in 1943. The highway is Alaska's only land link with the lower forty-eight States and a major road serving the Yukon, yet of the nearly 1,525 miles of road, to date less than 400 miles are paved. The remaining 1,100 odd miles are at best a dusty and difficult ordeal .... With both United States and Canadian interest increasing toward the growth and development of the northwest, there can be little doubt that a paved road would be of substantial value to both countries. The present reaction to the issue of paving is somewhat a mirror of past negotiations. The federal governments of the United States and Canada are cool toward the issue, while local interest in both Alaska and the Yukon is quite high. ... Measures to improve the Alaska Highway have been periodically brought before the Canadian Parliament and the United States Congress, but a growing disparity of interests beginning in the 1950s, has made negotiations very difficult. ... The disparity in population and power between Canada and the United States has understandably created a defensive reaction on the part of Canadians which takes the form of sensitivity to any real or fancied slight to Canadian sovereignty. ... both countries now feel that the Canadian portion of the road would be better administered by Canada. Numerous bills were sponsored during that period for improving the road .... Subsequently legislation was introduced in the United States Congress which ... suggested an equal responsibility 50-50 capital outlay. However, the increasing cost-factor continually caused the demise of most proposals. ... The new bill [U.S. Senate Bill S. 2372] suggested that eighty per cent of the initial cost be borne by the United States as opposed to the 50-50 sharing proposal of two years before, and that Canada should assume the balance and undertake the general maintenance of the road. ... Similar bills were recently proposed and defeated in the Canadian Parliament. ... Subsequent attempts to improve the Alaska highway, or portions thereof, have been brought before the U.S. Senate, and have failed. ... it can be assumed that the tourist season affords the greatest number of travellers and accordingly the greatest difficulties (i.e. dust, gravel, mud, etc.). ... The travel pattern is uneven. There is heavy use of the highway in the south, and then the traffic pattern becomes very heavy again in the vicinity of Whitehorse. This seems to suggest that great numbers of travellers are using the ferry route as opposed to the highway. If this assumption is correct, then the paving of the 320 miles between Haines and Tok, and the 100 miles between Haines Junction and Whitehorse might prove to be less expensive and more beneficial to all concerned. ... The present traffic on the road averages 275 vehicles per day or 100,375 trips per year. According to the Alaska Department of Highways, paving the road will represent a saving in gasoline, time and wear and tear of over $4 million per year. It is also estimated that the anticipated minimum growth of travel will be ten per cent per year for the next decade. This means by 1980, the number of vehicles travelling that portion of the Highway will have tripled and the annual benefit will amount to nearly $10 million. For the entire period, the estimates are as follows: Construction cost - $43,200,000; Benefit - $70,709,260. The benefits generated by the savings will probably increase tourist travel. In turn this will necessitate increased facilities which undoubtedly bring a substantial increase in the number of visitors to the area. The number of tourists, however, should not be the major determining factor in regard to the paving issue. Whichever route may be chosen in the future for reconstruction and/or paving should be accomplished to serve the needs of the residents of Alaska and the Yukon. ...

Role Conflict in Native Communication

Those of us who are involved in native education in Alaska are in many ways more fortunate than many of you in this audience who may be concerned with teaching English to the Amerindian groups in the lower fortyeight states and Canada. I am afraid that our good fortune is not because we have pursued a more enlightened course of action with the native peoples in Alaska since the time of contact, but rather because the peoples with whom we work first met white people in quite a different way. One striking difference is the fact that Alaska was never invaded by white people anxious to exploit the land and resources as was the case in Canada and the lower forty-eight states. Alaska's native peoples do not regard themselves as a defeated race. No treaties were signed or broken. The native peoples of Alaska do not have a long, bitter, blood-stained history to look back upon and to brood about.