S2, Ep 83: People of Bristol Bay - Drew Hamilton of Friends of McNeil River

EPISODE SUMMARY

Guest: Drew Hamilton - President of Friends of McNeil River, outdoor photographer and bear guide (Homer, Alaska)

In this episode: Conservation advocate Drew Hamilton shares his journey from Midwest fishing roots to becoming an Alaska bear guide and his perspective on protecting Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine. Topics include bear viewing operations, McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, salmon's role in Alaska's ecosystem and grassroots conservation advocacy.

Key fishing techniques covered: • Early fishing memories with grandma's pancake dough balls for bullheads • Fly fishing on the Kenai River for king salmon and sockeye • Kenai River steelhead fishing • Understanding salmon runs and their ecological importance • Conservation-minded angling practices

Location focus: Alaska (Homer, Kenai River, McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, Katmai National Park, Bristol Bay watershed, Alaska Peninsula)

Target species: King salmon, sockeye salmon (reds), steelhead, bullheads (childhood), chum salmon

Equipment discussed: No specific fly patterns or gear brands discussed

Key questions answered: • Why should people care about Bristol Bay conservation? • How do salmon function in Alaska's ecosystem? • What is the proposed Pebble Mine and where is it located? • How can people advocate for Bristol Bay protection? • What is bear viewing and how does it contribute to Alaska's economy?

Best for: All anglers interested in Alaska conservation issues, Bristol Bay protection, understanding the connection between healthy salmon runs and wilderness ecosystems, and grassroots advocacy strategies

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. Welcome to the latest installment of our limited series, People of Bristol Bay. For the last 15 years or so, the proposed Pebble Mine has been discussed in one form or another. As time marches on, particularly in the Lower 48, we tend to lose sight of the actual people living and pursuing their livelihoods in Bristol Bay and Pebble's potential impact on their way of life. Once a month or so, we'll share an interview with you so these folks can share their love of the Alaskan outdoors and what the proposed Pebble Mine means to them. On this episode, I'm joined by Drew Hamilton. Drew's an outdoor photographer and a bear guide. He's also the president of Friends of McNeil River. Drew shares his passion for photography in the outdoors and why Bristol Bay is such a special place for him. I think you're really going to enjoy our conversation.

But before we move on to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. It would be great if you could subscribe to the podcast in the podcatcher of your choice. It would really help us out. And if you have time to leave us a review, that would be even better. And if you want to learn more about the organizations working to protect Bristol Bay, check out the links in the show notes to this episode. Now, on to our interview. Well, Drew, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

**Drew Hamilton (01:18):**
Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

**Marvin Cash (01:20):**
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. I always ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**Drew Hamilton (01:31):**
Oh, man. Well, it does go back a few years now, but I would say my earliest fishing memory, I grew up in the Midwest, and my grandparents had a cabin up in Minnesota. We'd go up in the summer near Bemidji. And it was so much fun because you'd have basically a free run of this place. And we would steal grandma's pancakes off the breakfast table. You're sitting there eating breakfast, and you'd pocket a couple of them to use for bait. And then we'd go catch bullheads off the end of the dock. It was, grandma's pancakes, bless her heart, they weren't necessarily the best, but they were great for catching fish.

**Marvin Cash (02:15):**
Outstanding and kind of an original homemade dough ball.

**Drew Hamilton (02:20):**
That's exactly what it was. Well, of course, then that prompts the question. Maybe she was just making them that way to prompt us to catch dinner. Hmm.

**Marvin Cash (02:28):**
Yeah. Yeah. If you found cotton or anything like that in them, maybe that would be the tip.

**Drew Hamilton (02:37):**
Yeah. Yeah. No, that was, and so that would have been back, yeah, in the mid-80s by now.

**Marvin Cash (02:44):**
Yeah. Very cool. And so when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

**Drew Hamilton (02:49):**
Well, I didn't get into fly fishing until I came up to Alaska. And it was, so this would have been in the late 90s. And so I was, actually a little backstory would set this up. I ended up, I was going to college out on the East Coast and I was going to international relations. And I determined that Washington, D.C. just wasn't for me. And so hopped in a Jeep, picked up a buddy in Iowa and drove all the way up to Alaska. And we were driving around looking for work. And we basically ran out of gas in front of a fishing lodge on the Kenai River. And so we stopped in to ask if they needed help. And it's summertime in Alaska, so everybody needs workers. And kind of got put in this fishing lodge lifestyle, never having experienced anything quite like it before. I ended up working there for eight years. I just got hooked at one meeting.

So that's where I got into the fly fishing. And so here I was coming in and I was a camp hand, but we met all the guys, we hung out with all the guys. And so I would just go fishing. Everybody after a long day of work, taking people fishing, what do fishing guides do, they go fishing. What do you do on days off? You go fishing. So that's where I picked up the fly fishing. And it really, I mean, living on the Kenai River, there's not, it's hard to come up with a better place to pick it up. And you can just walk down the river and you're living just 100 yards from the bank right there, right at the confluence of the Moose and the Kenai. You can go down and catch reds. They had a bunch of line class world records for kings off that beach. It was just an amazing place to pick it up. And then you've got this knowledge base that you got any questions, there's no shortage of people wanting to answer your question.

So we'd fish for kings, we'd fish for reds, and then in the fall, we'd go down, we'd fish for steelhead. And then it just kind of continued on, basically. So now, when I need a break from everything else, I revert back to those fishing routes, and I'll call up my buddy, who we've been fishing together for 20 years now, and we'll go hit the river.

**Marvin Cash (05:04):**
Very cool. And, maybe your buddy's one of these people too, but who are some of the most memorable people that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey, and what have they taught you?

**Drew Hamilton (05:15):**
Oh, man. So working at that lodge, there have been a lot of fishing guides who have been there. Well, they've been there a long time at that point even. That was a long time ago now. And so I think the people that really come to mind are folks like Matt Duncan, Kent Johns, Steve Fickus, Ed O'Connor, Mark Geisert. I mean, these are folks that, they might not necessarily be huge names in the fishing world, but for somebody who's just picking it up and living in a lodge, they were really elevated to kind of legends in my mind, just watching them go down there and how they seem to be able to catch fish at will. I still run into them quite frequently. I just talked to Kent the other day. So we still keep in touch with those bonds that you make through fishing that stick with you. I mean, a lot of people say, oh, the people I met in college are really my best friends. I've known them forever. But for me, it was those early fishing buddies that have really stuck with me.

**Marvin Cash (06:23):**
Yeah, very, very neat. And, for folks that maybe don't know you as well as others, photography seems to underpin pretty much everything you do. How did you get into the photography game?

**Drew Hamilton (06:35):**
Well, and that was even kind of a weird thing. So much of what's gotten me to where I am is just saying yes to things. I never set out to be a photographer. When I was a kid, my parents ran a small town newspaper in Iowa, and I had kind of free run of the darkroom at a young age to keep me out of trouble. So I could go in and I could develop pictures. I couldn't touch the new stacks of photo paper, but I could, anything that had already been cut, I could make these cool L-shaped collages and things like that. And then my mom gave me her old AE1, kind of turned me loose. And then I took photography in high school. And then I kind of just stopped. It was just something fun to do at the time, but the skills were in place, whether I knew it or not. And then when I moved to Alaska and started doing all these interesting things, it turned out that photography skills were something saleable, where I would want to go out and see bears and things like that. And well, to get to do that without being independently wealthy, you've got to get paid to do it. And so being able to teach people photography or having a good eye for photography in conjunction with the skills that I picked up from moving and living around bears, just kind of, it was not intentional, but that's the recipe that made me a bear guy, basically.

**Marvin Cash (08:06):**
Yeah, very neat. Do you remember the first image that you sold?

**Drew Hamilton (08:10):**
It was, well, so even today, commercial sales aren't a big part of my business, but I do have a retail segment. And it was an image that I took, frankly, it's just you and me right here. Nobody else is listening, right? So I'll let the secrets out. It was an image I wasn't even trying to really make great. Like, we were walking, we were out in Kamishak Bay, and we're walking along the beach. We're looking out towards Augustine Volcano, and it's low tide, and there was a bear just walking along the waterline. And frankly, I didn't even look through my camera. I just kind of aimed it over towards the volcano, and with the bear, hoping that the bear was in the foreground, because I was pressed up against a rock wall trying not to scare the bear. And so I snapped off a picture and didn't even look at it until I got back to camp that night. It was just, it was well composed. It was, it was an iconic scene. And that was the first image that I started putting out there that really resonated with people. And when I do art openings or things like that, I'll still pull out that original image. And it's stood the test of time. People still respond to it. Especially for people that have spent any time out in that part of the world, if they've been to Kamishak or McNeil River, out that way. It is, it's a bear and a volcano in Cook Inlet, spread out in front of you, more on a landscape scale. It's not the, like, intense close-up that a lot of people are looking for these days. It's kind of more of a classic landscape that happens to have a bear in it.

**Marvin Cash (09:52):**
Yeah, very neat. Sounds like a National Geographic magazine cover photo.

**Drew Hamilton (09:59):**
Well, if you wanted to put it on there, I'd give them the right.

**Marvin Cash (10:02):**
There you go. Are bears your favorite subject to photograph?

**Drew Hamilton (10:08):**
I would say so. I have branched out over the years, so now I do brown bears here in Alaska. I do polar bears in Canada, and when it comes down to it, it comes back to my brown bear roots, I guess, and I do look forward more to my brown bear season every year than probably any of the other things that I do.

**Marvin Cash (10:32):**
Interesting. And, where did your appreciation for nature, because it seems that's just like photography, it's very, very clear that you have a deep appreciation for the outdoor world. Where did that come from?

**Drew Hamilton (10:41):**
Well, again it goes back to childhood. My parents really set me up for success whether they knew it at the time. But right near my house I grew up in a small town called Iowa Falls, and there's a local conservation area called Calkins Campus. And we would, in the summertime, we were always out there, running around in the woods, building forts. I was in Boy Scouts as well, so we'd go to Camp Mitigwa and, again, just run around in the woods. Some of my fondest childhood memories are just, I don't even know what we were doing, but I guarantee we were running around in the woods. And from there, I still, when I go back to Iowa, I still like to go take a walk, walk through the trails at Calkins Campus and see how it's changed. Everything's a lot bigger now, it seems. Maybe I was a little smaller. But, now you go through there and there are wild turkeys and there are white-tailed deer and things that I remember. I don't really remember seeing frequently back then. And now they're all over the place. And so it really, to me, I just hope that the kids that are growing up the way I did are able to get out there and experience. And they've expanded. They've got all sorts of great programs and educational opportunities and a little museum there now. So it really, it warms my heart. Every time I go back, I get real nostalgic. And I say, I've got to go to Calkins Campus and see what's new.

**Marvin Cash (12:17):**
Yeah, very neat. You mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you were in college and you piled into a Jeep and ran out of gas in Alaska. But what was the kind of the aha moment that you had? You're like, I got to get out of here. I don't want to be in the D.C. area. I don't want to be in international relations. I'm going to head to Alaska.

**Drew Hamilton (12:36):**
It was a very specific moment, actually. I was sitting in a microeconomics class in a basement classroom with flickering fluorescent lights and teal green paint that was peeling off the walls. And I don't even remember what the professor was talking about, but I was sitting there thinking, and it occurred to me that if I keep on this path, I was going to end up in rooms just like that one for the rest of my life. And from that moment on, I didn't necessarily have a destination in mind. I ended up choosing Alaska because I was born in Alaska. And so in some ways, it was coming home. There had always been this draw for Alaska. And I said, you know what? I can't do this anymore. I'm going to Alaska. And part of the decision might have been made because it was looking at the map as far as you could physically get away from Washington, D.C. and it was more about not necessarily looking for some place where I fit in. It was about getting away from some place I knew I didn't want to be and just going out with a sense of exploration and wanting to figure it out and having a little bit of time to go out and have some adventures and see what came up.

**Marvin Cash (14:05):**
Got it. And so you move out there. You were lucky. It was summer. Everybody needed a little extra help. At what point during your time in Alaska did you realize that you wanted to be a guide?

**Drew Hamilton (14:18):**
It was a couple years in where I was actually out in the south side of Lake Clark National Park. And I was standing there and watching. You're standing there over this sedge meadow right on the coast and look out and there are 40, 50 bears. And I was thinking, well, how can I do this more? Like what's going to keep me in places like this? And it was guiding. It was not something I was necessarily called to. I hadn't been trying to set it up that way. But it was the mechanism that was going to keep me going or keep me living in places like I was at in that moment. It was one of those. It was another epiphany that just said, I want to do this. I want to be here. How do I do that?

**Marvin Cash (15:17):**
And I guess from there, if I remember correctly, you ended up spending five or six years living in a bear sanctuary.

**Drew Hamilton (15:26):**
Yeah, and a lot of that, again, it was not planned, but it's a career path that I wanted to work at McNeil River. But it was saying yes and looking at having an overarching goal of being in these wild places and saying yes to opportunities as they came up, being in the right place, knowing the right people. And so working at that fishing lodge, they happened to run a bear viewing camp. The reason this is all coming back to bears is they owned a bear viewing camp out in Lake Clark National Park. And so at that camp, I got a lot of on the ground experience with bears. I ended up switching and working at another lodge for a couple of years where we did bear viewing and fishing trips. And through that experience, I ended up getting hired on by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to work at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, which is the largest congregation of brown bears anywhere on Earth.

So it's a little parcel of state land. It's tucked in the corner by Katmai National Park. It's very small relative to Katmai Park around it. And in 1957, the Alaska state legislature set it aside because they wanted a place where bears could just be bears. And they don't do much marketing. It's a state program. But you go out there, and they only take 10 people at a time. It's a lottery system to get in. You apply. You win. You go out. You get a four-day permit to go out there and watch bears, and you're escorted by a Fish and Game staff, which would have been my job at the time. And to sit on a river that's got a run of chum salmon going right in front of you, and to have, well, the most bears I ever saw in a quarter-mile stretch of river right there was 78. So you're sitting there, no fences, no nothing. You're looking at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and you have 78 bears spread out right in front of you.

I know to a lot of people listening, it sounds crazy. You've got this ingrained fear of bears or things that could hurt you. So it does take a little intellectual processing to get to the point where you realize that, hey, these bears aren't here for us. They are here in spite of us. We go out, we behave in a way that the bears find predictable. And over time they go about their business. They don't even look at you, frankly. We're just that small group of well-behaved humans who sits on the side of the river and they probably think we're nuts. We're not fishing. We're not doing anything that the bears are doing. We're just sitting and watching.

And the bears get to the point where they realize we're not a threat. And even beyond that, taking it to the next level, a lot of bears realize that, particularly the females, will realize that we are not a threat to the point where they will actually seek out proximity with these small groups of well-behaved humans because we act as a barrier to other bears. So you'll get bears that will come take a nap next to you because basically they know that no other bears are going to come through you to get to them. You've got their back, basically. So you start to have these amazing experiences where, for example, say there's one female bear that would have cubs every few years. And she would seek us out and she would leave her cubs at our feet as she would go fish. Because she knew that nothing's going to come through us to get her cubs. And it's being that, playing that active role in everything that's going on with the wildlife is kind of eye-opening. Because in today's world it feels in a lot of ways that we're so removed from natural processes and goings-on of an ecosystem or of an individual animal. They just seem removed. And to go out there and interact with it in such a way is transformative. Like, I don't know anybody who's gone to that place who has given it a negative review. Like, it is life-changing for everybody that goes there.

**Marvin Cash (20:09):**
Yeah, that's absolutely fantastic. And, you talked about some of the things you had to work on, like getting comfortable being around bears and all that sort of stuff. Who are some of the people that mentored you on your journey to becoming the bear guy that you are today?

**Drew Hamilton (20:23):**
Well, the person that first clued me in to what was even possible with these animals was that first summer when I went out to Lake Clark National Park. And the guy whose land this camp was on had been living out there basically by himself since 1967. And so he had a 17 and a half acre property that he acquired and then Lake Clark National Park sprung up around it. So you've got this inholding. And one of the first times I went out there we walk out to the meadow to see all the bears and they're just spread out there everywhere. There are probably 15 or 20 of them. And I looked down and there's this blue tarp down in tall grass and he had his outboard motor all taken apart on this tarp and he had been working on it and then he decided to take a nap. He'd fallen asleep right there on the tarp. And it was a beautiful day, just laying in the sun. And that's when it occurred to me, if this guy who's lived here successfully for however many years, decades at that point, if he is comfortable with it, maybe these bears aren't the bloodthirsty killers that I've been brought to believe. I mean, you read all these media accounts of dangerous encounters at night or whatever. And yes, there are those experiences out there that are, frankly, they're all presented through the human lens. We presume a lot about what we know about bears, particularly in those books. But what you don't hear about are the tens of thousands of positive interactions that happen every summer.

I mean, there's a whole visitor industry in Alaska where people come from outside specifically to see bears. Like, I'm not some crazy fringe guy that's out doing this. It's an established industry. There was an economic impact assessment done or an analysis done a couple years ago looking at the bear viewing industry in South Central Alaska. And these are a lot of homegrown businesses. We generate about $40 million for South Central Alaska through our bear viewing industry. And it generates about 500 jobs. So it's not like my job is unique. Like if you go to Homer, which is where I call home these days, like you drive through town and there are, everybody's advertising bear viewing these days. And if you look at our visitor guide, Homer is the self-proclaimed halibut capital of the world. And yet if you look at our visitor guide, if you looked at it 20 years ago, of course, it's going to be some giant barn door halibut on the cover. But as of today, you're looking at a bear on the cover of it because it is an important component to our diversified tourist economy here in South Central Alaska.

And going back to the original question, sorry, I got a little off track there, but it's got historical perspective as well. If you look back, the people I've worked with over the years that have influenced me, whether it was those first interactions with Wayne at Lake Clark National Park, or working for Fish and Game, where you have access to all the biologists and the people who have been doing this as a career for 20, 30 plus years. You think of Larry Aumiller, Tom Griffin, Polly Hessing, Derek Stonorov. Like these are people who have been doing, some of these people have been doing it since the late 60s going back. And the knowledge base, the passion is still there 40, 50 years after they started doing it. And it was a community that just kind of, it fit for me. It fit what I was looking for at the time. And it also met that requirement of getting me to these wild places.

**Marvin Cash (24:42):**
Yeah, very neat. And to kind of help us in the Lower 48 that are a little bit more, I guess, geographically challenged about Alaska, can you tell us, give us a better idea of kind of exactly where you guide, do bear guiding now?

**Drew Hamilton (24:56):**
Yeah, so if you're looking at your map of Alaska, Anchorage is in South Central, right down at the bottom. And then down below it is the Kenai Peninsula. And so the Kenai Peninsula is a jut of land that's about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont put together. And then if you drive all the way to the end of that, there's one highway that goes down. The Sterling Highway takes you down to Homer. And it is kind of famous for being the end of the road. So Homer is this jumping off point. So you get down, we hop in a plane at Beluga Lake, a floatplane. And then we'll fly for about an hour to the southwest. And that gets you to the north end of the Alaska Peninsula. And the Alaska Peninsula is the part of Alaska that juts out in a long arc out towards Russia. It ends with the Aleutian Islands going out that. We're not going that far. But if you kept going that way, that's what you'd run into.

**Marvin Cash (25:56):**
Got it. And so you get to Homer at the end of the road and you're in your floatplane. What does a typical bear guide trip with you look like?

**Drew Hamilton (26:06):**
Well, so we do a bunch of different kinds of trips, depending on what people are looking for. For the first part of the summer, well, in a normal summer, we do a lot of day trips. So these are folks who are touring around Alaska. They're the free and independent traveler, and they'll stop in. And bear viewing is just one day on their dream Alaskan itinerary. And so they'll come down. We'll meet in the morning at Beluga Air. We'll put on our hip boots and we'll fly out, climb in the back of a Beaver. And even getting in an airplane, a floatplane like a Beaver is an experience in and of itself. And so we hop in, we'll fly for about an hour over to Katmai Park. And we hop out and suddenly you're in this different world where you've got volcanoes and glaciers. And then the whole place just turns out to be crawling with bears. So we'll go walk around for six hours or so. And then we make our way back to the plane and fly back to Homer doing the same trick in reverse. And then it's in, in a lot of ways, those early season day trips basically work out as a nine to five for me. I ended up sleeping in my own bed that night. I just went down to the office basically.

And, from there, as the summer progresses and we get into, say, late July and August timeframe, we start flying over towards Bristol Bay. So we'll actually go to the other side of the mountains into Katmai Preserve. And these are more, well, you'd describe them as high-end camping trips. Like we'll go out and camp for a few days at a time. And what we specialize that time of year is the high-end photography tours. Like if you were looking at fancy photos of bears, it was probably taken by a high-level photographer who's gone on one of these like small group. Like we really only do it for two or three people at a time. On day trips, we can take a full Beaver load, so we'll take six. But on these camping trips, it's very, very focused. You don't have a lot of other people around distracting or conflicting goals on what people want. So we'll get out there and we'll have a meeting and say, okay, what's our shot list? What are we looking for? And then it's my job to figure out how to get those shots in the least impactful way. Like we want to go out there and we want to have no impact on the bear's behavior. And that's how you get, frankly, that's how you get the most natural bear shots. You know, if you look at a bear image and that bear is staring right at you, suddenly there is a photographer in that picture. That bear is aware or that bear cares that you're there for some reason. Something has been done to get their attention. But to really tell the story of the bears, you need to have it be more natural. You have to show that bear going about its business like you're not even there. And that's, frankly, in my opinion, that's where the best bear imagery comes from, is you are so naturally part of that system that's going on there that the bear doesn't even care that you're there and it's going about its behavior like nobody's there.

**Marvin Cash (29:29):**
Yeah, very, very neat. And, I think you mentioned earlier in the interview that, the most bears you ever saw on a quarter mile stretch were 78. Are Alaska grizzlies different than the bears that we carry bear spray for down when we go fish in Montana and Wyoming and places like that?

**Drew Hamilton (29:46):**
I guess we do need to go a little bit into what's the difference between a brown bear and grizzly bear. And we'll even throw Kodiak bears in there because that's usually the next question people have. So if you boil them all down to their Latin name, they're all Ursus arctos. They're all grizzly bears. And the brown bear, Kodiak bear, grizzly bear distinction, at least in Alaska anyway, is more geographic. So you can break it down. Grizzly bears live up in the interior of Alaska or up on the North Slope, someplace where they don't have access to salmon. Brown bears live on the coast where they do have access to salmon and can get much larger. And then Kodiak bears are basically brown bears that happen to live on Kodiak Island. So it really breaks down geographically. And then it's confused by the fact that once you cross over into Canada, whether they eat salmon or not, they're all called grizzly bears. So really, you can kind of use the terms interchangeably, but to an Alaskan anyway, using which term is going to tell you where you're seeing that bear.

And so, yes, technically they are the same species that you're wearing bear spray for in the Lower 48. But even here in Alaska, you look at the temperament of a brown bear on the coast versus a grizzly bear, say up at Denali or a barren ground grizzly bear up on the North Slope. And I always hear people describe them as being more aggressive or something of that nature. And I don't quite think of it that way. And perhaps a more accurate term for it would be they are less tolerant of other bears. They're less tolerant of humans. They're less tolerant of other things that might impact their foraging ability. And so they, you look at it in the National Park Guide. If you go to Denali, you're supposed to stay 300 feet from a bear. Whereas on the Katmai Coast, no such restrictions really apply. They've got a 50-yard recommended distance. But ultimately, when you're in those situations, it's the bear that dictates the distance. It's not like we're just walking up to bears and taking their picture. Like you pick a spot and then you're behaving in that natural way that puts the bears at ease. And then the bears go wherever they want, like you're not even there. And so that's where proximity occurs is that they do feel comfortable walking by you like you're not even there. So, yeah, it comes back to those interior grizzlies. Don't think of them as more aggressive. Think of them as less tolerant. And anytime you're in their country, you need to be respectful of that space need. And so that's why the different recommendations for the different geographic locations exist.

**Marvin Cash (32:40):**
Got it. And I also know that you don't guide just for brown bears. What else do you guide for?

**Drew Hamilton (32:47):**
Well, since I now, disclaimer, brown bears will always be my first love. But I branched out. I go every year to Churchill, Manitoba to do tours to photograph polar bears, which is much, much colder. And then I will also go down, the last few years I've gone down to Mexico, the mountains of Mexico, about four hours west of Mexico City, to lead photography tours documenting the largest congregation of monarch butterflies. So these butterflies all come down from the east side of the Rocky Mountains. Basically, all of the monarch butterflies from east of the Rocky Mountains go to these small spots in Mexico. So you're sitting there. It's like being in a snow globe of butterflies, basically.

**Marvin Cash (33:37):**
Very, very neat. And do you guide people on the aurora as well, or is that just something you do for yourself?

**Drew Hamilton (33:45):**
Well, it's kind of true. For several years there I did aurora tours and, it's now something I kind of just do for myself. But, like I always love, I mean the monarch butterflies and the aurora are very similar in that when you're sitting there you're looking at this phenomenon that can't, I mean yeah you might have read the books and understand the science behind it, but when you're looking at it both of those things are, they're like magic. Like yes you see it but there's this disconnect in the explanations and what you're seeing in front of you. Like how can this be, how did this get to this point, or if you're sitting there watching the aurora when you've got one of those rip-roaring aurora shows where it feels like you've stuck your head in the chandelier and everything's dancing around and it's almost to the point where you can feel it. It's as close to magic as anything we have here on earth.

**Marvin Cash (34:52):**
Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. And, I have to ask you, I don't want to dwell on this too much because I feel like everybody has gotten as much COVID news as they want, not to minimize anything that's going on by any stretch of the imagination, but, how is COVID-19 impacting your upcoming guide season?

**Drew Hamilton (35:15):**
What upcoming guide season? It's basically, it's basically gone. I've been having conversations with a bunch of different operators over the last few weeks here, and everybody's kind of saying, well, are you going? Are you going to do it? We're looking at trying to balance, well, you're looking at risks is what you're doing. And you're saying, well, yeah, they've released the, or they've relaxed the requirements here in Alaska. We're still not letting people in. If you come to Alaska today, you've got to quarantine for two weeks. And Alaska, in a lot of ways, has been lucky. We haven't had a lot of the impacts that you've seen in the Lower 48. But it's because people haven't been coming here. And so suddenly we're opening it up and people are coming back. I mean, it only stands to reason that we're going to start seeing an uptick here. And if my business requires, crawling in a small plane with four strangers from parts unknown, I don't know what risks they have taken on their way to get there. And so everybody's kind of struggling with that in their own way. A lot of lodges have already canceled their seasons. We haven't officially pulled the plug, but we're monitoring every day. I mean, the best way to do this, it is an unstable business environment. You're trying to make these decisions. You don't have all the information. You don't know what the future holds. So it's been very difficult to plan and take bookings and things like that because you don't know what it's going to be like in a month or where people will be able to travel from in a month. And then, of course, you don't want to get sick and you don't want to infect your community.

**Marvin Cash (37:15):**
Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, I guess from down here in the Lower 48, I know there's been a lot of concern about the upcoming commercial fishing season and this huge influx of seasonal workers and, I guess, one, the transmission risk. But also, it's Alaska. This isn't like you're in a major metropolitan area with life flight helicopters and intensive care units. I mean, it's pretty remote.

**Drew Hamilton (37:42):**
Well, and so I don't envy the decisions they're having to make out in Western Alaska right now. It almost makes my little business decisions seem small, really. Yeah, they've got a lot of tough questions to answer here, and they've got to answer them soon. And determining who can come into these areas and what activities and how do you social distance and the whole mask question. It's a time of uncertainty for everybody. We're all kind of going through this together and yet in our own ways because it's impacting each of us differently. Each business has to look at their own business model and how they operate and recalculate those risks because everything you thought you knew is out the window. And being in the bear business, people probably would assume that the bears are the most dangerous part, but it's actually not. It's the wilderness experience. You look at where injuries might occur on a trip like I do, and it's not bears that are causing the problems. It's people falling in a hole or tripping over a log or things like that. And now you throw in the uncertainty that's been brought about by the COVID pandemic. And, yeah, it's forcing a lot of small businesses and big businesses, frankly, to just take a pass on summer 2020.

**Marvin Cash (39:13):**
Wow. Back to, I guess, more of the bear guiding stuff. What do you think is the secret, Drew, to being a good guide?

**Drew Hamilton (39:24):**
Well, it comes back to really do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Like when you're in there, you know the situation. You know what type of trip these people are expecting. You know what they've been sold. And put yourself in their shoes and think about the things that if you were the client, if you were the guest on that trip, what are the types of experiences you're looking to have and how can you do that safely? It's managing those expectations, knowing those expectations as if you were the one on the trip. And then really what the guide's job is, is to figure out how to do it all safely for all parties concerned, which is, in my case, the bears. The bears' safety, because if something goes wrong, if I do something wrong, the chances of a person getting hurt, yeah, they exist. But the chances of a bear getting hurt are much higher, right? So you have to have respect for the safety of everybody involved.

**Marvin Cash (40:31):**
Yeah, got it. And I always ask all of my guide guests to share one of their craziest guide stories or experiences.

**Drew Hamilton (40:42):**
Oh, man. Okay, let me think on this one for a sec. It would probably be, and frankly, it's a little funny that there aren't even any bears in this story, but it was a weather situation. We're out on the Alaska Peninsula. A lot of this weather is blowing in off the Gulf of Alaska. It comes out of the east. And we were out at McNeil River. We were in the middle of a 17-day storm. I think it was 2017. And it's the only day I've ever canceled bear viewing in the middle of the trip. We took off with the group, and we're walking up this creek. And I know the tide's coming in and we've got a strong wind and I just had a bad feeling about it. So I pulled the plug. I turned around and said, hey, everybody, it's not worth it today. We're going back. And by the time we got back to this little spot where we were going to have to cross, the tide had come in and been pushed in more by the winds and the storm surge to the point that we ended up hunkering down in this little corner for probably two and a half hours before somebody from camp could come get us in a boat. And what made this whole story so crazy is there was so much water, so much more water than was anticipated, that he was able to drive the boat, the skiff really, I mean, it's a 23-foot skiff. He was able to drive that boat up the trail with the lower unit fully in the water to pick us up and get us out. So, yeah, it just goes to show that when you're out in these remote places, it's not necessarily the wildlife that can be potentially dangerous. You have to have your finger on the pulse of everything that's going on because it is not the bears that will get you. It's the weather. It's the tide. It's everything else. So you just have to have a full picture before you go into the situation.

**Marvin Cash (42:35):**
Absolutely. And kind of a related question, I always ask all of my guide guests to share what they think the biggest misconception is folks have about their life as a guide.

**Drew Hamilton (42:48):**
I think when most people think about guide life, my guiding is a little different, particularly the international stuff. And while it's not necessarily a bad component, it is more impactful on people's lives than people realize. But they say, oh, it's great that you get to travel so much. While I do like to travel, there is another side to that, and it means you're away from home for months at a time. It means you're living in hotels. It means you're eating in restaurants, and a lot of the routines that kind of come with day-to-day life are thrown out the window. So you have to come up with new routines that fit you to get you through those times where you're away from home. So yes, it's great to travel. Yes, it's great to see these places, but there's a cost associated with it, whether it's being away from loved ones, whether it's not being able to have your routine at home, or being able to connect with your community, you are kind of floating around in space and time. So it's a decision that everybody has to make to decide whether they are suited for that style of life.

**Marvin Cash (43:54):**
Got it. And in addition to being a bear guide, you're also the president of Friends of McNeil River. Can you tell us a little bit about that organization?

**Drew Hamilton (44:06):**
Yeah. So Friends of McNeil River is a small nonprofit that basically popped up to protect or to advocate for the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and the bears that frequent it. So we look for things that would impact the sanctuary, whether it's a Pebble Mine or other industrial processes or just changes in regulation that would have a negative impact on this place. And those are the battles we fight with the mission being to protect that special place and that special congregation of bears.

**Marvin Cash (44:48):**
Got it. And just in case I have listeners that don't know this or not, I mean, the Pebble Mine issue has been around for, I guess, the better part of 15 years. The Army Corps of Engineers, I guess, right now is, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, committed to, I guess, making their decision on the final environmental impact statement and potentially issuing the first federal permit for the mine. And, to help our listeners understand, where is the proposed mine in relation to where you bear guide?

**Drew Hamilton (45:22):**
So the proposed mine is at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery. And so it's over on kind of the north side of Lake Iliamna, which straight line from McNeil River is probably, we'll call it 100 miles. It is quite a ways. Now, what people don't realize about the Pebble Project is the scale of it. I mean, we're talking about what would be the largest copper mine in the world. And it's in this remote area, and it would require huge infrastructure corridors to get the ore in and out. There are huge power demands that you are running into this remote area. And when we talk about wilderness, like this is, Alaska holds the last intact tracts of wilderness in the United States. Like this is the last of its kind, whether it's the last sockeye run that Bristol Bay has, or whether it's the last truly wild places Alaska represents, or should represent, or that's what it represents in my mind. And so you're looking at the scale of this project and realize that it will forever transform this place, this wild, natural place that's been as it's been for thousands and thousands years into an industrial complex, an industrial mining complex. It's taking what will be, we've got 8 billion people in the world, these wild spaces are getting rarer and rarer every day, and it's going to throw that away for short-term gain and to line the pockets of a select few.

**Marvin Cash (47:12):**
Got it. Now, obviously I think people understand, with the salmon fishery component and the impact on commercial and recreational fishing. But can you help our listeners understand kind of the function that the salmon perform in the broader Bristol Bay ecosystem?

**Drew Hamilton (47:32):**
So any terrestrial abundance that we see in Alaska on the coast anywhere, out in Bristol Bay, out in Anchorage, anywhere that has salmon, comes back to the salmon. The salmon are the conduit from the very rich marine ecosystem and the terrestrial ecosystem. So they're born in their natal stream where they're born, and they might spend, depending on the species, they might go straight out to the ocean. They might spend a couple years hanging out in the freshwater before they go out into the Gulf of Alaska in the North Pacific. And then they're basically gathering up energy and nutrients. And when the time comes for them to return to their streams to spawn, they are transporting everything that they've gathered up and transporting it up into the terrestrial environment. So if you go take a sample from any tree or any plant that you see in the southwestern Alaska landscape, you can trace the nitrogen in that plant back to the salmon. And so it makes, healthier ecosystems on land. It provides the things that have made this wilderness so great. It is an indispensable part of the ecosystem.

**Marvin Cash (48:59):**
Yeah, it's interesting. I always try to explain it to people that it's really like the salmon are the conveyor belt of nutrients.

**Drew Hamilton (49:06):**
Exactly. And you think of the Gulf of Alaska, particularly in the summer, when we've got near 24 hours of daylight, and there's a lot of photosynthesis going on out there. There's a lot of energy that needs to be transported before it can be utilized by us or the animals on land. It's part of a system, and that system needs to be intact for everything to be working properly.

**Marvin Cash (49:32):**
And you mentioned just a few minutes ago about the road impact as part of the mine infrastructure. And, depending on where the road goes, it's roughly 80 to 100 miles of road, some potentially through roadless areas, but we're recording this at the end of May. And I guess we found out about a week ago that Northern Dynasty had opted for an alternative path for its road. So I guess for people that have been following the proposed mine, the kind of originally preferred path was a southern road that would go very, very close to your bear preserve, would require an ice-breaking ferry across Lake Iliamna and then roads through roadless areas. And I guess we found out last Friday that Northern Dynasty and the Army Corps of Engineers had agreed to move the road on a northern alternative, which goes around kind of the northern edge of Lake Iliamna. I'm not familiar at all with Alaska or the geography. For our listeners, can you kind of tell us what that new road path area looks like and what the potential impacts could be?

**Drew Hamilton (50:45):**
Yeah, so they've switched to this northern route. Now, the mine site is still the same. You can't be moving that. You've got to go where the ore is. And so instead of doing the ice-breaking ferry and all this kind of technically crazy stuff, they've basically swapped the crazy stuff they had going on in the south for crazy stuff they've got going on in the north. So now they want to put an 80-mile road corridor that would go from the mine itself. There'd be a slurry line running alongside the road. There would be, it's going through mountains. It's going through tundra. It's crossing salmon streams. It's going across native lands to bring the ore out to Cook Inlet. Now, as soon as we heard this proposal last week, I hopped in a Super Cub and we flew out over it. And basically, they want to put the port right at the base of a mountain. It's this sheer, sheer cliff that they want to put a road right at the bottom. And you think about the potential for industrial accidents in a place like this, which is something that frankly hasn't been addressed in the EIS. And you're looking at this remote area. You're looking at this mountain. You're looking at these. You look behind you, there's a volcano right there. What could go wrong? And you realize that if anything were to go wrong in that spot, it would have an impact for miles and miles and miles and miles. Hundreds of miles in any direction have the potential.

Now, Alaskans know this. We've lived through industrial disasters before. If you think back to 1989 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the ecosystems that were damaged by that are the same ones we're talking about here today. Like the scale of these big industrial projects means that they have the capability of doing damage on that scale. I mean, it goes back to what the EPA said years ago, that a mine of this scale or a project of this scale can't exist without doing irreparable harm to the ecosystems that are so valuable for every other industry, every other lifestyle in the area. So here Pebble is saying, yeah, we'll move in. We'll be good neighbors. No, they're not going to be good neighbors. They haven't taken our concerns into consideration. They rushed the process. And frankly, it's really eroded my confidence in this system. Like all the politicians in the state, oh, we got to, this is why we have a permit process, et cetera. But Pebble has so fully committed to the political shenanigans to get this rammed through that when you look at the concerns that have been raised by Alaskans for the last 20 years, and then this final document is going to come out next month, and they're not going to be addressed in there, and it's just going to be rubber stamped.

Like, I don't even know how many hours of public testimony I've sat through on this subject, whether it was in Anchorage or Homer, wherever. And people get up person after person, 75% of the people who got up, who took their time to come down and tell their opinion to the Army Corps of Engineers, 75% of them were opposed to this project. And it's not just greenies. It's not just people who are so inclined to oppose any project like this. You get up there, it's Alaska Natives who are fighting for their salmon that their people have been using for 10,000 years. It's people who will get up there. You can picture the typical crusty Alaskan. They get up there in their coveralls, and they'll say, I've been an Alaskan for 40 years. I'm not opposed to development, but I am opposed to this project. Here's why, X, Y and Z. And there was a guy at the Homer meeting. He got up. He started his spiel just like that, and he said, I am opposed to this project. I've been building roads in Alaska for 50 years, and I know that the gravel out there is not of a quality that you can safely build these roads. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I said, I hadn't even thought about that aspect of it. But Alaskans are such a smart people. To live up here, you have to wear a lot of hats. And so for everybody that got up there to state their case against this mine, they've all got different levels of expertise. Everybody is opposed to it for their own reasons. But ultimately, what's brought us all together in these coalitions is that we are all opposed to it.

**Marvin Cash (55:31):**
Yeah, that's interesting. And, kind of to back out of it a little bit, I mean, how do you think, because obviously, mining and oil and gas exploration is a big part of the Alaskan economy. How do you think policymakers should balance those interests with other interests in the state?

**Drew Hamilton (55:49):**
It goes back, I think back to the book Bushrat Governor, which is the autobiography of one of our more famous governors, Jay Hammond. He talks about a situation in there where a project came across his desk and it was offering jobs, jobs, jobs. That's the key word these days. And he said, just take a second here, pump the brakes a little bit. Yes, it means jobs. But what is the cost of those jobs? Are you willing to sacrifice the 14,000 jobs a year that Bristol Bay provides? Are you willing to sacrifice the 500 bear viewing jobs for this, for this short-term, line-somebody's-pockets kind of project where they're one and done and out, that basically cuts off any of the economic activities that have been going on traditionally in this area. Like, what is the price you're willing to pay for those jobs? And frankly, when you look at this project, when you read the EIS and you realize that they're not even giving it the due diligence that it deserves, it just doesn't pencil out. They haven't released an economic report on this. Like they're saying, yeah, let's do this. But they're not giving us the facts to say, okay, this is going to bring in this many dollars this year, this year, and draw on the big picture kind of thing. They're just saying, yeah, let's go do this. It'll be jobs. And it's not, yeah, it's, you have to ask, what is the price of those jobs?

**Marvin Cash (57:38):**
Yeah, and kind of to build on a point that you made just a few minutes ago, how do you think the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic are impacting support for Pebble and opposition to Pebble?

**Drew Hamilton (57:53):**
I don't know that people have really had the time to process that, in that COVID is still actively going on and people are having to make these short-term decisions. They are looking at how do I get through this next week or how do I get through this next summer versus, I'm sure Pebble's going to spin it that, look you all lost these jobs but look we've got these other jobs now. The timeline we're talking, if this mine were to go in, one it would be years from now. It's not going to help us in the short term. And what hasn't changed are the systems that provided the original jobs and subsistence in the first place. But these salmon runs, if we manage them well and care for the environment, they will go on forever. Same with the bear viewing jobs. As long as you've got salmon, you're going to have bears there to eat them. So the underpinnings that made this area so commercially successful are still there. And if you protect them, they will go on and on and on.

**Marvin Cash (59:04):**
Yeah. And, I guess another question I would say is, if you're not an Alaskan or you're not an angler or hunter or a wildlife photographer, why should you care about the proposed Pebble Mine?

**Drew Hamilton (59:22):**
There are a couple angles to take on this. One is the precedent it sets. Like, frankly, do you think a company like Pebble Limited Partnership should be able to go into anywhere without a plan and just start messing stuff up, regardless of what the locals say? Like, you should have concerns about the process on how we've even gotten to this point. Are our systems so poor that we no longer have a voice as the people who would be most impacted by this project? And, there's a, think of it in the reverse of not in my backyard. What if this was going on in your backyard? Would you want to be treated, would you want to be subjected to this process of corruption and short-sightedness without having your concerns addressed? And also, from a different perspective, I mentioned it earlier, we've got 8 billion people in the world. Places like this, the last bastions of wilderness, are going to be the commodity. They are rare at this point. And in and of itself, that wilderness, that last bastion of wilderness needs to be protected so that generations from now, you can go back and show your grandkids what wilderness really looks like.

**Marvin Cash (01:01:09):**
And if folks wanted to get involved in advocating on behalf of Bristol Bay, what would you suggest that they do?

**Drew Hamilton (01:01:14):**
Well, so there are a lot of ways people can get involved, whether you go through, if you Google Bristol Bay and Pebble Mine, there are going to be a lot of options pop up. You can, whatever tack appeals to you or whatever part of this argument, you can go visit the United Tribes of Bristol Bay website if you want a native perspective on this. You can go to the Save Bristol Bay website if you want the fishing side of things. If you want to learn more about the bear side of things, you can go to friendsofmcneilriver.org. And there are actions you can take on our website to contact your federal legislators. We've made it super easy. And you can go in and put in your zip code and it's got a form and it will determine which legislators need to get your voice. And it's got some talking points already built in. But frankly, the most important thing right now is contacting your legislators. Your legislators don't know you're mad until you tell them. They're not sitting in Washington, D.C. using telepathy to know what's going on. You have to use your voice. You have to talk to them. And frankly, we're at the point where a lot of people say, oh, I signed the petition and I did this and that. No, you need to take the next level of action, which is contacting your federal representatives and telling them that Pebble Mine needs to stop. For whatever reasons, we've left a section, but you can put in whatever you want in there because everybody is going to have a different reason to be opposed to this mine. But whatever your reasons are, please use your voice. Let them know that this needs to stop.

**Marvin Cash (01:03:07):**
Yeah, and if someone wanted to support the preservation of Bristol Bay financially, what would you suggest?

**Drew Hamilton (01:03:16):**
Well, from the bear perspective, if this bear conversation has struck your interest, you can donate to Friends of McNeil River. We're a volunteer organization that 100% of everything that's coming in right now is going to amplify this message and fight the mine. But again, any of those, depending on your tack and your reasons, you could go to defendbristolbay.com and donate there or look for those organizations that are doing more than just putting petitions out there, which are the ones that are calling for action from Congress and direct your funds that way.

**Marvin Cash (01:03:56):**
Got it. And, obviously your brown bear season is a little bit up in the air right now, but what do you see maybe for your polar bear season or monarch butterflies? Is that something that you're looking forward to in kind of late 2020, early 2021?

**Drew Hamilton (01:04:12):**
Well, I've been, like so many people, I've really been focusing on the short term right now. And the fight to save Bristol Bay and Pebble has really taken up 99.44% of my time at this point. But I am looking forward to polar bears if Canada will let me in at that point. And frankly, I haven't written off this brown bear season yet because while I might not have the traditional folks coming in from outside to go see bears, I do have a buddy with a Super Cub and we're going to be able to go out and bring the bears to you. So we're going to be going out once or twice a week and generating bear content where we'll do some video clips. We'll do some still photography. We'll do a lot of Instagram stuff. Just so you know that the bears are still there. Because frankly, bears don't care about COVID. They're going to be doing their thing no matter what. So we're going to do our best to bring those to you. And if you want to follow along, you can find me on Instagram. It's Drew HH on Instagram, friendsofmcneilriver.org. You can sign up for our mailing list on there. We'll be posting content about bears all summer just to highlight the impacts that Pebble would have on these creatures.

**Marvin Cash (01:05:39):**
Yeah, that's really helpful. And I'll drop links to all that good stuff in the show notes. Fantastic. Absolutely. Well, listen, Drew, I really appreciate you because I know you've been busy. I think I emailed you about a week ago and you had four webinars in one week. I really appreciate you taking an hour or so to chat with me this afternoon. Thanks so much.

**Drew Hamilton (01:05:58):**
Well, it's my pleasure. Thanks for reaching out. And I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about fishing.

**Marvin Cash (01:06:04):**
Absolutely. Thanks again.

**Drew Hamilton (01:06:07):**
My pleasure. Thank you.

**Marvin Cash (01:06:09):**
Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, please subscribe in the podcatcher of your choice and leave us a review. And if you'd like to learn more about the organizations protecting Bristol Bay and how you can support them, please check out the links in the show notes. Tight lines, everybody.