Author, retired biologist and former Kenai National Wildlife Refuge manager Robin West spoke about the myriad of experiences he had throughout his 30-year long career in the Fish and Wildlife Service during a presentation Tuesday night. The Homer-based nonprofit Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges hosted the event, which was held in person at the Refuge headquarters in Soldotna and online via Zoom. The organization also hosted watch parties in Homer and Anchorage.
Nearly 150 people total logged on via Zoom, attended one of the watch parties or watched the talk in person in Soldotna. West divided his hour-long presentation into three categories: the history of conservation in Alaska, his time working in the parks and a solo canoe trip he embarked on down the Yukon River in 2019.
As she introduced him, Friends Vice President Poppy Benson said one of her favorite of West’s stories was when he came to Alaska on a one-way ticket with two suitcases, a few apple crates and a rifle case.
“That’s the kind of story a lot of people have,” Benson said with a chuckle.
West grew up in Grants Pass, Oregon. After graduating from the University of Oregon in 1978 with a degree in wildlife science, he moved to Alaska and began working on a project analyzing asbestos on the Yukon River.
“Just to boil it down, literally everything you looked at had asbestos in it,” he said. “It was natural coming out of the Cassiar mountains. But whether it was brown bears or salmon or whatever we had, we found asbestos.”
West said since the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environmental Conservation were still in their early stages at the time, the Department of Fish and Wildlife would occasionally “pick up some of the slack” on environmental research.
Decades later, he returned to the river where his career began. In 2019, five years after he retired from his Portland-based position as the Regional Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, West embarked on a solo canoe trip down the Yukon River. As he paddled 158 miles from the Upper Yukon near Eagle into the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Central, he saw firsthand the effects of the hot, dry summer. In his presentation, he described watching spruce trees ignite “like Roman candles” during a raging wildfire and battling a vicious upriver wind that occasionally blew him into overhanging trees or branches known as sweepers.
“There’s only so much one person could do with a loaded canoe,” West said. “I’d have to get around those sweepers in order to proceed. So I just went when I could. I may sit for six hours and paddle for one, or I might paddle for 12 hours straight. That was not what I expected at all.”
During this trip, West had the chance to reflect on his career, which took him to the northernmost reaches of Alaska during his time as a fisheries biologist in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, southwest to the Izembek Refuge where he studied marine mammals, and down to the Kenai Peninsula, the area he now calls home. The adventures he had in Anchorage, Oregon, Yukon Flats and beyond served as the foundation for one of his four books, titled “Thirty of Forty in the 49th: Memories of a Wildlife Biologist in Alaska.”
“It shares many personal stories, but also touches on key environmental issues of the time: designation of wilderness, subsistence use of fish and wildlife, and the spiritual connection people have with pristine, far-away places,” reads a description on BookBaby, where the book is available for purchase. “The author concludes that Alaska and the world are changing, but thanks to the foresight and hard work of many, much of the wild treasures of Alaska are protected — being much the same now as in decades past, and with the hope that they will always remain so.”
West has authored three other books: “Strong Legs and a Full Quiver,” “D.B. and the Redemption of John Mead,” and “Is the Left Ever Right?” Each one draws from West’s experiences as an avid outdoorsman.
West and his wife Shannon moved back to Alaska from Oregon in 2023. They’ve settled in Soldotna with their labradoodle Elu, but they continue to travel extensively — they’ve visited all seven continents and over 40 countries together.
“You know, we’re in a place right now, politically, administratively, economically, where there’s a lot of discussions about lots of different issues,” West said. “Fundamentally, though, what we enjoy, what we work with, what we study, what we cherish, is land. Refuges are just a part of that story. In Alaska, though, with nearly 80 million acres — it’s quite a story.”
For more information on upcoming Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges events, visit alaskarefugefriends.org/calendar.
