KAREN BREWSTER: This is Karen Brewster, and today is May 7, 2024, and I’m here in Anchorage with Kevin Keeler. And we’re at the Anchorage Field Office of BLM, out in the beautiful Campbell Tract. So Kevin, thanks for making time today. I know you’re busy.

KEVIN KEELER: My pleasure. KAREN BREWSTER: And you can -- KEVIN KEELER: Oh. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, so you’re more clear. KEVIN KEELER: You bet. KAREN BREWSTER: Um. KEVIN KEELER: I can be loud, too.

KAREN BREWSTER: Um, so we’re going to talk today about the Iditarod National Historic Trail, and Kevin is the trail administrator for BLM, Bureau of Land Management.

And Kevin, just a little bit of background before we get into the minutiae of the trail and your work. Uh, you know, a little bit about yourself, when and where you were born, education, coming to Alaska.

KEVIN KEELER: Sure. Um, my name’s -- Oh great. Kevin Keeler, and um, I’ve been living in Alaska since 1984. Um, I’ve got a master’s in Resource Management and Regional Planning from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Kind of, uh, moved north and west from my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Went to school in northern Wisconsin on the Great Lakes, and then, um, got an undergraduate degree there. Uh, moved west to do my graduate degree in British Columbia.

And then spotted an internship in Alaska, um, in 1984, which didn’t pay enough money at all. Was able to get another one, and went to work for State Parks for two years, starting in 1984 through 1986. Loved it. Realized that, oh my goodness, you could make a living managing public lands for outdoor recreation.

And it’s interesting to me that this time period was right around the time that a lot of things that we’re going to be talking about with the Iditarod National Historic Trail was happening. But that really wasn’t in my -- my view at that time, so I just didn’t know enough about that, and I was a 27-year-old in Alaska making his way with minimum funds, etc. etc.

So um, anyway, I’ve been with, um, the federal government for over 35 years now in whatever year it is, 2024. Um, have worked with EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) for a few years, National Park Service for 14 years, and then BLM going on 14-15 years, also. And a couple other jobs in between.

I’ve been the National Trail Administrator for BLM since 2004. Um, when BLM established a unified administrator’s position -- and when I say administrator, I mean under the National Trail System Act administrator. It has very specific definition.

Before that time, the duties were split between two persons within BLM. Um, and I got wind of the job and applied for it and was able to get it, which was pretty exciting at the time.

And have been working the job since that time because, really, a person could spend a lifetime working this job, and um, there’d still be plenty to get done. So that’s kinda how trails are, anyway.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok, so did you have another job with BLM before the trail job? KEVIN KEELER: No. No. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: I was with Park Service, external technical assistance program of the Park Service called Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance in Alaska, and we worked with local groups and governments on trails, greenway, open space, river conservation projects.

And during that time, I first became acquainted with the Iditarod Trail by doing a route study in Girdwood for the community of Girdwood about the reconstruction of the historic trail and the establishment of other new trails in the valley of Girdwood. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Because people were really interested in the history of trails in that area. Which ultimately led to the job that I have today, so um, I’ve kinda been doing Iditastuff since about ’92.

KAREN BREWSTER: Instead of Iditabike, Iditaski. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Iditastuff. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Historic Iditarod Trail stuff, um.

KAREN BREWSTER: So that route study, did that include the -- was that for the Crow Pass section of the trail?

KEVIN KEELER: No, that was for the -- within the Municipality of Anchorage, basically from tidewater to the Crow Pass trailhead. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And um, the Toohey family which owned Crow Creek Mine, who might be a good source to actually interview, if you want to focus right in on the Girdwood area. KAREN BREWSTER: How do you spell their name? KEVIN KEELER: T-O-O-H-E-Y. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, Cam Toohey and his mother, whose name escapes me right at the moment, ran the mine. It still may be owned by the Toohey family. It’s a tourist attraction. You can go do gold panning, and get married there, that sort of thing.

They were really aware of the old historic trails up around that area of the mine and had a good sense of them. And then there’s a whole bunch of trails in the lower valley, um --

And they pointed out the location of this trail paralleling Crow Creek Road, which turned out to be likely the, um, route built by the Alaska Road Commission and the Alaska Mines-to-Market program and abandoned in 1922.

And that parallels the current-day route of the Crow Creek Road, which was put into use in 1922, ’23. And it's just overgrown since that time. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So the route study worked with multiple parties within the municipality. The Girdwood Board of Supervisors, Heritage Land Bank for the municipality, municipal Parks and Recreation, Alaska State Parks, just a -- a cast of characters.

And organized all those folks, and um, developed a concept plan for the Iditarod Trail, the Historic Iditarod Trail in the Girdwood Valley. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Which was kinda my first brush with the Iditarod Trail.

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s a good pun, brush.

KEVIN KEELER: Yes. And boy, did we brush, too, ’cause it’s an alder hell down there.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. So part of that route study was to actually brush out and mark the trails in that area?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, we came up with a proposal that was then adopted as an element of the Anchorage Trails Plan. Um, it was also adopted as part of the Girdwood Trails Plan.

And with that approval, we were able to leverage challenge cost-share money that the Park Service happened to have at the time. We brought in Student Conservation Association youth crews, and we started to build out segments of the trail, some that were historic, some that were not historic. Um, but had more -- a more contemporary origin.

But basically, yeah, putting together what the alignment -- or a usable contemporary alignment that also included where possible the historic alignment, which is basically in the upper part of the valley because contemporary use, community uses have since superseded.

You know, my best estimate or guess is that the current Glacier Highway is on top of what was the old -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- Crow Pass Trail. And we’ve got maps from, oh, USGS.

When they did USGS bulletins, they included highly detailed topographic maps that showed the location of the trail, that sort of thing. But not to the level of accuracy that you can pinpoint where things were at that time.

They -- they may exist out there. I mean, I’ve got this hand-scrawled map by Colonel Girdwin. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Girdwood, who wasn’t a colonel, but he called himself Colonel, one of the founders of the Girdwood Valley, um, that -- that shows the trail up to the workings up in Crow Pass, or toward Crow Pass.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so, is that -- all that stuff that you just talked about, was that what is now the Iditarod Trail, or is it other trails in the region?

KEVIN KEELER: It is recognized in the Girdwood Valley as the Iditarod Trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: But to take a quick jump to, um, the roles of federal agencies who are administering national trails. Those agencies are supposed to certify sites and segments of national historic trails.

And BLM has never stood up a program to that extent yet. Might be standing it up here this coming year, actually. So that hasn’t necessarily been certified. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: But it has public and agency recognition. The Forest Service is heavily involved and has since taken over build-out of sections of the trail there. So um -- but it’s not part of the race route or that sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: No. No, but it -- we know the trail started in Seward. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: And though that is not where the race goes. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right, yeah.

KAREN BREWSTER: But then there’s been more effort recently about -- ’cause that’s all Forest Service land, right, from Seward to Anchorage, most of it?

KEVIN KEELER: Uh, generally. Basically, from Seward to Girdwood. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: And then from Girdwood to Anchorage, it’s Chugach State Park lands. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So um, although Anchorage used to be part of Chugach National Forest. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, I didn’t know that.

KEVIN KEELER: The original forest deed included everything from Anchorage all the way to Seward, pretty much, but a lot of it quickly got peeled off for purpose of the town site, railroad construction, that sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. Well, um, why don’t you talk -- If you could talk a little bit about what you do as the trail administrator. What does your job entail?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. So, um, generally looking at the National Trail System Act as the foundation because everything that we do in the federal government, as federal government employees, is based on law that authorizes and directs us to various tasks.

So the National Trail System Act is our organic act or foundation act. Then BLM as an agency, along with the other two agencies that are primarily national trail administrators, the Forest Service, US Forest Service, and National Park Service, are expected to carry out roles of trail administration.

And there are currently 32 national scenic and historic trails in the country, and the Iditarod National Historic Trail is one of the first crop of national historic trails that were dedicated by Congress.

The initial National Trail System Act was passed in 1968, and we’re looking at this administrative chronology that I’ve got up there. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: And then, when that happened, Senator Mike Gravel was also -- was very instrumental and involved in what was going on.

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race was starting up, and um, in 1973, the Secretary of Interior directed the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, which was within the Department of Interior, to study gold rush trails in Alaska, and completed this document that I’m holding up that nobody can see ’cause we’re just on tape.

It says "The Iditarod Trail, Seward to Nome Route, and Other Alaska Gold Rush Trails." That was our feasibility study for the trail.

I’m getting away from your question. I’m sorry. KAREN BREWSTER: No, that’s ok. KEVIN KEELER: I’ll get back to it. KAREN BREWSTER: No, it’s important background. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: ’Cause it kind of leads into what is -- why is there a trail administrator job in the first place?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Well, and what’s interesting is is that basically all the federal agencies didn’t quite know what they were doing back in the early days. Congress put together this law, which interestingly enough, was very strongly supported by Ladybird Johnson.

It was part of the America the Beautiful movement in the 1960s, and it was a companion to other envir -- important pieces of environmental legislation like the Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, etc. etc.

And so, 1968, President Johnson signed the National Trail System Act, and it established trails like the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Appalachian Trail, which were all, quote-unquote, “national scenic trails.” The category of National Historic Trails didn’t exist at that time. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: But there was a very big interest in national historic trails.

It goes back to the Daughters of the Revolution and this fellow by the name Ezra Meeker who used to barnstorm across America in covered Conestoga wagons in the turn of the 20th century, um, to publicize the Oregon Trail. He traveled across the Oregon Trail at that time.

So um, between 1968 and 1978, when the Iditarod Trail was established, there was this movement pushing forward for national historic trails.

Um, so the National Trail System Act is like a tree, in a way. It’s got all these layers -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: -- of amendments to it that have new laws or understandings or articulations of policy and expectations by federal lawmakers about who’s gonna do what within these agencies.

So back to the National Trail Administration, perhaps the most important thing that is supposed to happen, for the administrators, is that they are supposed to implement what’s called a comprehensive management plan for national trails.

Theoretically, every national trail has a comprehensive management plan. Typically, this is a concept plan. It’s not really an allocative plan, per se, that divvies up lands and tells you what to do with the lands. It’s more of a -- like I said, it’s a concept plan that identifies from 30,000 feet what’s supposed to happen. So, trail administrator is supposed to basically get this thing done here.

Um, the National Trail Administration, and the whole National Trail movement strongly rests on and is uniquely based in the federal government, on partnerships. It’s one of the first places in the federal government where basically, Congress said, and the president was given the marching orders and his staff, for the agencies like BLM and Park Service and Forest Service, go forth and partner with local groups.

Work on the ground to get these things done. We expect you to try to go to the lowest level possible on the ground, and engage these people in volunteership and management and partnership.

And what’s really interesting to me is that the Iditarod Trail really embodied that, the race trail, along with -- I hope that’s working.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, no, it’s good.

KEVIN KEELER: Good. Um, along with, uh -- The Iditarod, the folks who were doing the race -- and if you look at the bylaws for the Iditarod Trail Committee, Inc., the people who put on the race every year, one of their bylaws is to support education, improvement, conservation of the historic Iditarod Trail.

And if you look at the two logos, between the sled dog race -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- and the, um, National Historic Trail, you’ll see that they basically have the same dog on them, and the same sled. And -- and I believe theirs is also what we call this pregnant triangle. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: This three-sided shield, here, with rounded corners.

And that’s because Bill Devine, who was on -- one of the founders of the Iditarod Race Committee, was also one of the founders of the Idita -- and involved with on the Advisory Council for -- Federal Advisory Council for, um, the Iditarod National Historic Trail.

So there’s a lot of interplay, back and forth. Um, Joe Redington, I believe, in 1973 or whenever Ronald Reagan was elected president, went to Washington, D.C. with a dog team and marched in the inaugural parade held for Reagan, with his whole dog team. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: I mean, he was a PT Barnum of dogsledding. So there was a lot of advocacy for this group, for the trail to become this venue for contemporary day races, which was at time, back in the mid-1970's, or early 1970's, which is when the first races started. So they really grew up hand in hand.

Anyway, I mentioned federal advisory councils. One of the things that the law requires and administrators are supposed to do, and it’s still occurring today, is that federal advisory councils, which have stakeholders or representatives of stakeholders that are hand-picked and ultimately recommended by the Secretary of the Interior, they meet and discuss the progress of these comprehensive management plans.

So also going into the comprehensive management plan is typically -- and this is kind of a Planning 101 thing, but it’s important, is a resource inventory. What are the resources that are out there on the ground that bring this trail national significance?

And um, that was a big part of what the trail administrator did at the time, um, and -- and still to an extent does, depending on whether or not that’s pulled together, because it changes.

Um, you know, there’s -- there's a whole bunch of different national historic trails. And I’ve kind of jumped ahead. The category was established in 1978.

The Iditarod was one of the first, along with the Lewis and Clark Trail, the Oregon-California Trail, and the Mormon Pioneer Trail. Those were the first national -- KAREN BREWSTER: Historic trails. KEVIN KEELER: -- historic trails.

And amazingly enough, and I’ve got this here. This is -- I’ve got a document here that I had never seen until three weeks ago. Love this agency record-keeping. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: You know, stuff that goes on.

And it’s a letter from Senator Mike Gravel to BLM, dated July 26, 1978, saying, "Dear Joette Storm," who’s public information officer for BLM, "I’m delighted to be able to tell you that we are at long last able to pass legislation in the Senate creating a new category of national historic trails within the national trail system and designate the Iditarod Trail as a component on that system. Similar legislation's already been passed by the House. I’m optimistic the Senate and the House will be able to resolve their differences quickly, and we can see this legislation signed into law within the next several weeks. Enclosed is a copy of the Congressional Record containing the final Senate bill, my remarks, and those of several other Senators on this legislation. With kind regards, signed, Senator Mike Gravel."

So BLM, um, was kind of in this holding pattern for a number of years, partly because people didn’t know how to manage these things. They didn’t even know what they were.

There’s actually still some discussion about, you know, what is the vision for a national historic trail? A national scenic trail, the concept is real easy. It’s a line of dirt. Maybe it’s from Mexico to the Canadian border, sort of thing. It’s easy to envision what that is.

But nowadays, we have national historic trails that include things like the Trail of Tears, the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights Trail, um, that represent these major changes in, uh --major things that happened that shaped us as a country and that have national significance. I’m still explaining --

KAREN BREWSTER: No, that’s good. This is good.

KEVIN KEELER: What my -- my role as the administrator is, other than knowing all this stuff, ultimately.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, no. This is great. This is -- You know so much, and it’s great background.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. So um, BLM, you know, as I have got up here on this chronology that we’ll load up here ultimately, um, was given a mandate to go forth and develop this plan, develop inventories. And this was back in 1980 and ’81. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, this was back in the days before GPS. Basically, they were flying around in, you know, Cessna bush planes from 19 -- the 1970's or 1960's, trying to identify sites.

Things weren’t as overgrown as they were in the day. What I was left with when I came on, though, was non-digitized, non-GPS records of things. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So part of what my job more recently has been, um, doing is, uh, trying to find the location of these various sites and segments. And we’ve actually been fairly successful in finding these sites and segments.

Because if you can’t -- if you don’t know what you’ve got and where it is, you can’t really manage for it. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So the other part about BLM in general is that BLM, um -- and Alaska’s very different because BLM’s administering the Alaska Statehood Act and transferring a hundred million acres of federal lands to the State of Alaska. BLM’s administering the transfer of Ala -- Native Claims Settlement Act lands, forty million acres of land.

Many of these acreages have been passed, or I should say, include segments of the Iditarod National Historic Trail. So protection, identification of those routes is very important. So that’s a big part of the job is trying to update that these days.

I mentioned the partnership aspect, which my job involves. Um, and that is the support for non-profit partners who do good works on the behalf of the trail.

And you look around the country, you’ve got organizations like the Pacific Crest Trail Association, PCTA, or the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

These organizations have been around for a long time. For instance, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, um, you know, 60, 70 years that sort of thing. That had been identified generically in the National Trail System Act.

And often times, it’s easier for the federal government to get things done when the federal government doesn’t have to actually do it, given the amount of red tape that we get, um, that’s incumbent on our operations to get business done.

So BLM -- or the Iditarod National Historic Trail had a federally chartered advisory council, and it ran for two ten-year periods up until 1999. And then at that time, BLM decided that it would be more appropriate for that advisory council to be sunsetted. And this included people like Judy Bittner and Dan Seavey and a host of other --

KAREN BREWSTER: Leo Rasmussen. KEVIN KEELER: Leo Rasmussen, etc. etc.

Many people who were involved with the advisory council basically helped charter this non-profit, which has become BLM’s major non-profit partner for doing work on the trail.

For many years, BLM didn’t have a good sense of whether or not it had authority to spend money outside of BLM lands on this. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And that was a fight that we had to undertake. Basically, correcting mis-impressions within the agency that we couldn’t spend money outside of BLM lands.

Even though BLM only today owns about 200 miles of the active routes of the trail out of 2400 miles of the trail system. And of that 200 miles, about 100 miles is on the main trail, the main Seward to Nome. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Uh, trail route.

Um, so it -- it took a while for us to convince upper level administrative gatekeepers, non-national trail administrative gatekeepers, grants people and contracting people, etc., etc. um, that we had authority under the National Trail System Act and the Federal Lands Policy Management Act, or FLPMA, etc., etc. to go forth and partner with these folks.

And transfer them money to do good works like the work you’re doing right here, like interviewing me, uh, because you’re funded by a grant from the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance, which is our partner today.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. That’s what came out of the advisory council? KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Was the Trail Alliance?

So I just want to back up a second, that BLM decided to sunset that council. Why?

KEVIN KEELER: Um, at that point, and I’ve -- I've kind of jumped away from the history of the comprehensive management plan.

The comprehensive management plan was, um -- well, the resource inventory was completed in 1982. That’s a large-format document that’s available online, basically 11x17 documents. KAREN BREWSTER: Boy.

KEVIN KEELER: Uh, there is a bunch of previous work that went into that that are kind of seminal to that. Original files that can be found on ARLIS (Alaska Resources Library & Information Services).

Um, the plan was completed in 1982 as a draft, and then it languished for four years. And the original one had recommendation. As I mentioned, it’s a concept plan. But the original one had recommendations for expenditures in it. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And these are questions that I’d really love to know from the other people who were involved, was a bit more about, uh, you know, what was the decision-making that went on behind that, behind, you know, the back and forth on including this.

So ultimately, that was stricken from the plan. The money amounts. It was removed. And that was probably really a good thing that the amounts were -- were removed.

KAREN BREWSTER: Because that comprehensive plan came out in -- KEVIN KEELER: 1980. Well, initially 1982. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: It wasn’t adopted until 1986. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: So finally it was adopted. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: And um, what do we got there going? Um.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that’s why I was wondering -- the thinking behind, why switch from an advisory council to the Trail Alliance?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, to a certain extent, it’s a more effective organization. When it’s an advisory council, they can tell the agency what to do, but the agency doesn’t have to do what people advise them. And basically, nothing gets done.

And um, at this point, this was very early in -- and I use the term national trails -- in the entire, I would call nationwide trails movement, people didn’t quite know how to partner back in those days. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: The administrative mechanisms weren’t finely tuned. It was kind of an amorphous thing. BLM didn’t quite know what to do. BLM had these stranded lands out, you know, we -- we did some things.

BLM built some safety cabins out on the trail back in the late '80s and early '90s. Built four different public shelter cabins, rehabilitated the Rohn, old CCC shelter cabin that had been built on the Rohn airsight. But beyond that, it didn’t -- didn't quite know what to do. It was --

But as -- as the organization sunsetted, it became apparent that the way to really get things done was to follow the -- the model that had been provided with these other organizations from the Lower 48, like I mentioned that, um --

KAREN BREWSTER: Like the Appalachian Trail?

KEVIN KEELER: The Appalachian Trail. And, you know, I -- I have clippings that I’ll provide you, and maybe ultimately they can be loaded up, um, that um -- (looking for documents on his computer) Ok, where was I here? Let’s see if this’ll, uh --

KAREN BREWSTER: Because -- so the council was sort of like a -- within -- it was a BLM, I mean, group? I know the people on it were not all -- versus, like the Alliance is like a friends group? KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Is that kind of the difference? KEVIN KEELER: Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: So the council was administered, I guess that’s the word, by BLM? KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. And it didn’t have -- it didn't have the authority to go forth and acquire things or spend money to do things. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Whereas now, the Alliance, um, has the opportunity to, you know, do things for us. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: That are really important. That we otherwise have trouble, um, getting done.

KAREN BREWSTER: So does the -- the Alliance still provide feedback to you guys and suggestions of, we’d like you to do this or do that, which the council would have suggested?

KEVIN KEELER: They do. They do. They play both a formal role and an informal role. In a sense, I’m -- you know, it's not -- I’m not an official ex officio member, but um, I’m an ex officio member of -- you know, I basically attend every monthly meeting that they have. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So we work very closely together on various projects.

And I was looking for an article that I do have that’s from the Anchorage Daily News, but I guess I hadn’t included it or found it at this point, that really describes how there was this intention to model a non-profit and management of the trail after, like, the Appalachian Trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: I mean, it basically says that, even in the headlines of this article. So I’ll provide that to you.

So, you know, at that point, people want to get stuff done. Alaskans are a bunch of doers, and they didn’t want to sit on their hands, and they’re tired of just advising and not having things happen.

And the BLM recognized that, too, and wanting to move forward, so charted the non-profit Iditaro -- Iditarod National Historic Trail, Inc., in 1999.

And BLM, using its authority, um, began providing funding through grants to the organization in the early 2000s.

So that’s another thing that I do. I’m the program officer for grants administration, uh, to this organization that’s now called -- it’s doing business as the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance. And I’m going to sneeze here in a moment, I can tell, so -- KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So um, you know, since that time, we’ve really enjoyed a fruitful partnership, in a way, because we’ve been able to work on a collaborative basis with the organization using the comprehensive management plan as a general guide to achieve the goals of the comprehensive management plan.

Let me mention one other thing the administrator does. I didn’t do it, but it -- it happened. After the comprehensive management plan was established, BLM wrote memorandums of either understanding or agreement, whatever, they’re both the same, with the State of Alaska, with Fish & Wildlife Service, with the Forest Service, that basically say, each of us will go forth and attempt to implement the recommendations of the comprehensive management plan to the best of our ability and within the limitations of our funding.

For the State of Alaska, this include Fish and Game, DOT (Department of Transportation), the Alaska Railroad, the Alaska DNR (Department of Natural Resources), signed off on by the commissioners of each of these agencies.

So -- which was very useful, and I believe the State of Alaska considers that to be still in effect. And ultimately use that as one of their authorities.

And I could be wrong. Leslie Schick might be able to tell you, um, one way or another on that one, or correct me on that.

The other thing that was supposed to come of this, which never has, and the National Trail System Act identifies that as something to be done as a task, which the national trail administrator is supposed to do, is that a authoritative description of the route should be published in the Federal Register.

And I have found in BLM records a draft version of the Federal Register notice that identifies the location of the trail, which is broken down into a primary trail and connecting trails.

Um, and it is described -- given the fact that there was no such thing as GPS, or barely was back in the day, and I’ve dated this to about 1987, um, it’s -- the location of the trail is described using the rectangular section survey system in township, range, and section. For -- describe segments of the trail.

One of the other things I haven’t mentioned yet, which is another duty of the national trail administrator, is to keep the authoritative set of maps for the trail. And Terry O’Sullivan, and other folks had done that previously. Basically, doing large paper atlases. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Um, at 1:63,000 of the entire trail. We still have those. We’ve since digitized them. Um, and use them as part of our legacy information collection.

Another person who would be really worth I think interviewing would be Steve Peterson. He was, um, I believe Park Service. I know he was a Park Service historian, and somehow he was brought over into this project.

And he created a lot of 1:250,000 scale USGS maps with locations of, uh, historic sites and segments along the trail.

Because again, there is this interest in, where is everything that’s out there? And what I’m describing is circa late 1970s, early 1980s, right now. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And a lot of the -- You know, not all of the information was right. Uh, the maps weren’t that good in those days. Um, you know, our USGS maps basically went back to Cold War-era, the mid-1950s.

Things change. Things grow over. People make mistakes about where stuff was located or mix it up.

And anyway, Steve would be a great person to contact. The Yarboroughs would be another great person. Linda Yarborough. KAREN BREWSTER: The archeologists. Mike and Linda Yarborough? KEVIN KEELER: Bingo. Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, they were also involved, and I’m not exactly sure how they were involved, but I’ve seen their names on a lot of maps.

So there’s a whole series of maps that were created that became the -- the -- their trajectory was to become the more authoritative map of the trail itself. And then, um, in those days, computer geographic information systems, or GIS, were just starting to rise up and um, so this information was transferred and conveyed onto maps.

BLM basically manages master title plats, um, on lands that it still owns, up to the point of the separation of those lands.

To a certain extent BLM would, or it was required under the National Trail System Act, and this is something that happened in a number of cases, but also didn’t happen in a number of cases, identify lands that were being transferred out of federal ownership.

A National Trail System Act right-of-way should be reserved on those lands. And so, nowadays you find on plat notes to the State of Alaska, and perhaps Native corporations, but it really changes on a case-by-case basis, plat notes that say, section blah-blah-blah, or township, range, section, subject to Section 70 of the National Trail System Act.

And there’s still a vast amount of undetermined legal interpretation about what that means at the moment. Because BLM in the 2010s -- because BLM owns the most national historic trail mileage in the entire country of any agency and deals with the multiple use issues associated with national trails, which means resource extraction, renewable resource development, transmission lines, um --

And also was required for implementing the National Historic Protection Act, NHPA, National Trail System Act, multiple use, BLM increasingly been confronted with these issues and has put together a pretty robust policy on how to deal with all of these situations.

So, you know, that was back in the -- back in the old days, I guess. You know, these things were getting onto a map.

And so, we’ve limped along for a number of years with, uh, like I mentioned layers of trees for the National Trail System Act, layers of trail data as it would stack up. As GPS became a technology that was useful for, um, the average person, there have been attempts to map the trail in various segments, the sites and segments. So that has occurred. But the data was stacking up.

Just in the past year and a half, we, through a nationwide contract, hired a firm to go through all of our data, put together a geodatabase system, and we’ll be launching a publicly facing geodatabase of trail locations, um. And so that continues to be one of the roles of the national trail administrator.

I have been going down some rabbit holes, and I kind of -- I’m not sure I finished the whole publishing of the trail location in the, um, Federal Register. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Two weeks ago, I was at a meeting of my national trail administrator colleagues in the Lower 48, and um, I basically asked everybody to put up their hands. I think there was only half of the national trail administrators there. Um, about sixteen people or so. How many people had published their right of way?

Almost nobody has in the federal government. Um, there’s been a lot of confusion about what that means. Again, what the implication of what right of way means, etc. etc. etc.

But there have been some workarounds where people have actually identified the routes within their comprehensive management plan, and then published the comprehensive management plan availability in the Federal Register and taken that to mean that. But there’s never been a legal challenge to these agencies for not doing that thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: So --

KAREN BREWSTER: So I have a question about, you know, the official trail mapping. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: So I know in, you know, ’73 when the -- the race started. Well, actually, ’67 there was the centennial race. KEVIN KEELER: Mm-hm.

KAREN BREWSTER: That kind of was the precursor to it. You know, they were using a trail. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: That -- and in the first race out to Nome, ok, they’re calling it the Iditarod Trail, so, you know, Joe Redington, Dick Mackey went out and -- KEVIN KEELER: Yep. KAREN BREWSTER: -- you know, re-found parts of the old trail. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: And, you know, people from the villages went out and -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: -- marked the trail and all that. So didn’t you already have that route known?

KEVIN KEELER: We did. Um, to an extent. Because, um -- You know, a couple takeaways that I’ve realized over the years is that dog mushers, and often times winter trail users, take the path of least resistance.

Um, things may have been done a little bit differently in the old days for other purposes. Um, the sled dog race is a race, and people are moving at different speeds.

In the old days, a hundred years ago, people were hauling thousand-pound loads of gold or other equipment or materials, moving very slowly. Twenty-five miles a day or that sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Whereas today, routes might be on rivers for expediency. In the old days, it may have been put up on the bank or shoreline.

For instance, the Yukon River, and this just happened this past year, but it’s notoriously much colder on the river than it is up the bank a little ways. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And when we’re talking minus 55 versus minus 20, that’s a big difference. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And so, the needs and uses of the trail, the historic trail, were really different. So if it was convenient to bypass a section, that was done back in the day. There was not -- and there was the lack of resources, too.

As I mentioned, the trail guides that were written by the Goodwin Expedition were never found. You know, one was lost in this fire in the National Archives, the one that supposedly existed.

KAREN BREWSTER: And Goodwin is the first one who kinda mapped it out? KEVIN KEELER: Right. He was hired by the Alaska Road Commission. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: He was a reconnaissance engineer. In 1908, he was charged by the Road Commission to look at a route between Seward and Nome and to determine its feasibility and demand for it. At that time, he identified it as being feasible, but not having the adequate demand.

Then in 1910, gold was discovered in this little backwater slough about a hundred mil -- no, about two hundred miles south, hundred miles south of the main route of the Iditarod that he had looked at.

Um, and all of a sudden, all kinds of people stampeded there.

KAREN BREWSTER: And that was the town of Iditarod? KEVIN KEELER: And that was the town of Iditarod and Flat. They were really two towns co-located closely together. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So in 19 -- when was gold discovered? Oh, my goodness. KAREN BREWSTER: You said 1910. KEVIN KEELER: 1910. It was -- was it discovered in 1910? Yeah. But I might be wrong on that. And well, you know, you can see it in the movies -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: -- that sort of stuff. KAREN BREWSTER: That’s all the history -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- that we have in other areas.

KEVIN KEELER: Yeah, we've got those numbers, exactly right. But it took -- it took a couple of years for people to actually get to Iditarod. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: It was so hard to get to. Anyway, the town of Iditarod was founded because you -- that’s as far as you could drive a steamboat on the Iditarod River. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And it was seven miles over the hill to the little town of Flat, where the gold-diggings were, um --

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. And that trail, the Seward to Iditarod part that was being used by those miners was mostly winter use?

KEVIN KEELER: Yes, it was mostly winter use. Um, and back in the day, um --

KAREN BREWSTER: ’Cause some people walked it. They didn’t -- KEVIN KEELER: A lot of people walked it. Actually, more people walked it than mushed it. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: And there was terms. Uh, one of the wonderful period pieces, um, by Edgar Cadwallader is along the lines of "Back in the day, there were two ways to get to Iditarod, mush or mush dogs."

So mush was a derivative, I think, of the word "marche." KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. KEVIN KEELER: The French word. March. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So many people just snowshoed. Um, and back in the day, the federal government had basically a hands-off policy on it.

If people wanted to build a roadhouse along the trail, and, you know, charge for meals and blankets and stew made from bony snowshoe hares and whatever.

KAREN BREWSTER: And dog barns.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. And dog barns. They could do that sort of thing. So people did that. People basically started setting up roadhouses every 20 miles along the trail.

People would march up the trail, and like the one chronology that you have there on your list of resources. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: With the guy walking out.

A lot of people would walk in about this time of the year, a little bit earlier. And we’re talking in early May here, but in March or so, they would, you know, catch the boat back to Seward, you know.

And if there was a train, there really wasn’t a train over the Alaska Railroad, because there's too much snow in Grandview. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: They would get themselves up to the end of trail. Maybe they would take a steamboat, another packet steamer to Anchorage.

KAREN BREWSTER: They’d get to Hope and then across to Anchorage?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Go to Knik, and then start out on the trail from that location and snowshoe from that location. And basically take about two weeks to walk to the towns of Iditarod or Flat.

And then they would turn around and do the opposite the next fall. Which is pretty amazing, really. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: In my opinion.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. So how did it -- the Iditarod to Nome section, because that was not what was used by the miners? They didn’t walk or mush to Nome, did they?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Well, you know, the -- the story of the settlement of the Interior of Alaska is kind of, um, these populations coming from both directions.

Because at the time, the settlement of Nome was the second or third largest city in Alaska. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: It was easy to get goods and people and etc. etc. services to Nome.

People hit the beach or basically turned Nome into a boom town around the turn of the century in 1900, after the gold rush --

KAREN BREWSTER: The Klondike, yeah. KEVIN KEELER: -- of the Klondike petered out. Everybody came down the river when they heard there was gold discovered in Nome. Nome was discovered. It was easy to travel the coast.

There was also already a lot of existing small settlements. People set up roadhouses.

People had built roadhouses with this giant rush down -- down the river from the Klondike. For instance, they would get off at Kaltag and walk over what’s called by some today the Kaltag Portage. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: To Unalakleet.

And then maybe walk the rest of the way or try to catch a boat, if it wasn’t frozen, to Nome.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and you say, the -- the Kaltag to Unalakleet was a traditional Native route. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Yes, it was.

KAREN BREWSTER: As were some of these other segments. KEVIN KEELER: Right. And then it was built up by the Alaska, the WAMCATS (Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System) trail, which is a telegraph system KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: That was built in the early 1890's, and its description is covered in this BOR study that I mentioned here. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, so cabins had been pioneered across there.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, so all -- yeah, all this history is in those -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- original resource surveys -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- and things? Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: So basically, the -- you know, people were coming from both sides of it. And um, the area where the Iditarod Gold Rush is, it’s like a thousand river miles to the Pacific Ocean from that location. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

KEVIN KEELER: So it’s really hard to get to. It's -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: That’s why it took so long. Gold was discovered whatever year. I'm -- I should --

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh yeah, you were looking it up.

KEVIN KEELER: Beaton and Dikeman were, da-duh, da-dah, da-duh, da-duh. Let’s see here. Alaska-- When did Beaton and Dikeman --? Ok, 1908, Johnny Beaton and Bill Dikeman, um, dug 26 pits around Flat, and then they hit pay dirt on Christmas Day. Um, it took -- KAREN BREWSTER: 1908?

KEVIN KEELER: 1908. It took -- Basically, word didn’t get back to Fairbanks until 1909. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: Fall of 1909.

People started out from Fairbanks. Fairbanks was there, and they had to do down the Yukon River to approximately where Ruby is, and pretty much people got all froze up. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: They didn’t make it to Iditarod. So nobody made it to Iditarod until June of 1910.

And there’s a New York Times clipping that I’ve got, it’s around, basically talks about, you know, a thousand tons of materials and ten thousand people, are at Iditarod and Flat with this boom, where finally people got through in June of 1910. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

KEVIN KEELER: To the community and threw up these, you know, little -- little shacks. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And, you know, basically cut down all the trees and tried to build as much as they could, but also brought a lot of dimensional lumber because there wasn’t a lot of lumber in the area.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, wasn’t there a sawmill in Ruby? Or was it not there yet? KEVIN KEELER: It -- I’m not sure if it was there yet or not. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: I really haven’t paid attention to Ruby too much. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: ’Cause it’s so far away. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: So, but it just took a long time to get to that location. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: For everybody.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and it’s interesting that it was called the Iditarod Trail versus the Nome Trail, because it does end in Nome. KEVIN KEELER: Well. KAREN BREWSTER: The Seward to Nome Trail.

KEVIN KEELER: The -- What the trail was called depends on where you were standing. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: You know, if you were in Nome, they would call it the Seward Trail. If you were in Seward, you might call it the Iditarod Trail, or you might call it the Government Trail.

If you go to Notre Dame, right in front of Notre Dame is a mile marker that says -- or a kilometer marker that says, "Kilometer 0." And my understanding is, all roads, the mileages to all roads in France, all old roads. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Go back to that Mile 0 at Notre Dame. So it’s the same sort of thing there.

KAREN BREWSTER: Isn’t it all roads lead to Rome? KEVIN KEELER: Exactly. Exactly. Right. The same sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: Exactly. So -- so it’s -- It's kind of the same thing. And the mileage has been a -- It’s a challenge. It’s been a challenge for a long time, what the miles are and that sort of thing.

But the comprehensive management plan settled on the term, the "Seward-to-Nome Route," to point out the importance of this main route became the primary route for people getting back and forth from, um, Iditarod to, um, Seward.

But I -- I didn’t entirely answer your question, is that there was a lot of traffic already going on. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Right.

KEVIN KEELER: There’s other gold fields. The Ophir-Takotna Gold Fields in the upper, um, Upper Kuskokwim River drainage, um, that had workings and settlements that preceded it with the town of McGrath. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So basically, it kind of -- You know, these communities started popping up and reinforcing each other.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and it’s interesting that in the designation, you included all the side trails. Um, yeah, we’re sort of getting off topic a little bit. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: But, um. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: It’s not just one single route. You’ve included all that other stuff.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Which --

KEVIN KEELER: Congress recognized the network. Some of the sled dog races, um -- The contemporary sled dog race, doesn’t follow, um, what was the primary route between Takotna and Flat. It follows, what for some reason I don’t entirely know, this segment of trail called the Hunter Trail, which is a northern alignment.

Basically, there’s a mountain range between, you know, the two of them. They’re a parallel route for a hundred miles that are separated by 30 or 40 miles of a mountain range. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And arguably, the segment that they run on has as much historic significance as far as I can tell, but it was a challenge to run the sled dog race there.

It’s -- it's an area that gets really deep snow, whereas this other section doesn’t have as much snow. It’s heavily windblown. It’s easier country to traverse. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: That sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: Um, you had predecessors as trail administrators, right? KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Terry O’Sullivan, Dean Littlepage. Mike -- was Mike --? KEVIN KEELER: Mike Zaidlicz. KAREN BREWSTER: Zaidlicz. He was before you?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. He handled the, um, administrative sides of things. And then there was, um, Jake Schlapfer. Um, Mike lives in Boise, as far as I know. Um, still. And probably could be found.

KAREN BREWSTER: So do you know -- Could you talk a little bit about what those guys did before you? I mean, like, Terry O’Sullivan was the first one, right?

KEVIN KEELER: Um, I believe so. I’m not entirely sure. KAREN BREWSTER: My -- my notes indicate that, but sort of, you know -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- what kind of things did they do?

KEVIN KEELER: So um, they were involved with, uh, construction of shelter cabins along the trail. Um, focusing mainly on BLM lands. Marking the route on BLM lands.

Administering permits for the events that occur on BLM lands. Um, because BLM has, um, a policy that when the federal public lands are being used for private purposes, you have to be permitted for that sort of thing.

Um, and there are -- The main events that occur are the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, um, it used to be called the Gold Rush Classic, but now it’s known as the Iron Dog. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Long distance snowmobile race.

It used to be called the, um, well, I’m blanking on it at the moment, but a muscle-powered race.

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, the Idita -- it was Iditaski, at some point, right?

KEVIN KEELER: Right, the Iditaski. Um, now it’s the Iditarod Trail Invitational Ultramarathon that occurs for a number of years.

There was a, um, serum run. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, right. KEVIN KEELER: Commemorative run, uh. I’m blanking on this guy’s name again. KAREN BREWSTER: That was Norman Vaughn.

KEVIN KEELER: Norman Vaughn Serum Run, it was called. With Norman Vaughn involved, which re-created the serum run between Nenana and Nome. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So the people in my -- who are my predecessors were involved in that.

They also provided, um, like I mentioned, assistance to partner groups for work. Like, when I was with the Park Service and we were working on building out segments of historic and contemporary Iditarod Trail in the Girdwood Valley, BLM provided helicopter -- I think they provided the helicopter rather than the money, actually, which was great. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, ’cause BLM has a very big aviation component. The BLM lands managed out of this Anchorage Field Office that I’m duty stationed in are basically all west of the Alaska Range. None of them are, um, attached by a contiguous road system. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: This field office is located at an aviation-based fire base. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Where fire ships used to fly out of. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: In the old days.

So BLM’s had a long-term component of operating in these hinterlands northwest of the Alaska Range, where the remaining, the residual, the yellow lands of BLM up there. KAREN BREWSTER: On the map, yeah. KEVIN KEELER: On that map, um, are housed. So we -- we have a big flying component.

The Rohn Air Navigation site, which was withdrawn by BLM’s predecessor, the General Land Office, for the Civil Aeronautics Administration, is continued to be owned and managed by the federal government.

That 1938 Civilian Conservation Corps-built cabin restored recently. It was restored. The roof was replaced in 1999 by my predecessors. The previous roof was a bunch of Avgas cans. They used to fly with Avgas cans. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: They make great shingles. Um, these ones were all rusted out. Somehow they found a whole bunch of -- an adequate number of new Avgas cans. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, cool. KEVIN KEELER: Flattened them all out, ripped the roof off, ripped the floor out, put a new foundation in in ’99.

And um, unfortunately, because of the rehabilitation practices, some of it continued to deteriorate, so two years ago, we jacked the cabin up, put a new foundation on under it again that’s more stable with all-weather wood and that sort of thing.

Um, that meets the State Historic Preservation Office requirements for historic integrity. Which they had to at the same time, so -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: But, basically, so that Rohn Air Navigation Site, which is a public shelter cabin open to all for non-exclusive use, it’ll easily be around for another hundred years if it doesn’t burn down.

KAREN BREWSTER: Was there ever a discussion about preserving any of the old roadhouses, or were they already all gone by --?

KEVIN KEELER: Most of them are -- were already all gone, because the old roadhouses are really organic materials. Basically, untreated logs, laid on the ground, chinked with moss.

Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ve got some alluvial fine beach sand, sort of starf (?) river gravel, that you can put in the roof. Again, covered with moss and that sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, these things literally biodegrade into the ground. Um, but like I had mentioned when I came on in this job, there -- the locations of these were often not known. Or they were mapped without GPS, and it was a very approximate location.

So I mean, I’ve had the privilege to relocate a number of these in the time, and it kind of adds an Indiana Jones element to the job.

That we go out and try to put together a whole bunch of clues, um, and what we have been doing, and what I’ve been doing in my position, is trying to bolster the capacity of local groups and governments again to mark the trail.

And so, in doing that, we got a good sense of what the trail looked like on the ground in the winter. And then using our aviation assets, have been able to overfly it in the summer time and check out these locations.

So for instance, the photo that you have. Where is Jukebox? (searching for website on his computer) Probably, um, right here. We were able to relocate this cabin. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And -- and we had photos of it when BLM had some dapper helicopter pilot fly there in the late 1970's with his polyester helicopter pilot uniform with epaulettes and stuff like that, standing in front of it with a measuring marker.

And then we were able to go back and relocate it, um, both by helicopter and then on the ground in the wintertime. And stand in front of it again, just within the past ten years.

KAREN BREWSTER: So there’s still a sign that -- there’s still some structural integrity there? KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Uh, no. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok. KEVIN KEELER: It’s basically a whole bunch of rotten logs -- KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: -- um, that have imploded. The roof collapsed, that sort of thing.

Um, but we relocated the Raven Creek Roadhouse here in Chugach State Park, for instance.

Um, one of the sites where we built a new public shelter cabin on with economic stimulus money that came down in 2009, 2010, we were literally flying materials in for the construction of the cabin and cutting an LZ, landing zone, for the site and discovered -- I look over, there’s a teapot on the ground. An enamel teapot.

And then I started to look a little bit more, and here’s a whole bunch of linear little eight-foot high spruce trees that are arranged in a rectangle. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: I mean, you start to look around, you find these artifacts. We found stovepipe, etc., etc.

So the place that we had decided to put a contemporary public shelter cabin had been the location of a previous roadhouse that the location was only hinted at or approximated back in the late 1970's.

They knew there was a roadhouse kind of in this area, but they didn’t quite know where it was. So it was this big circle on the map, you know. This American roadhouse is in this vicinity someplace. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: But nobody knew where it was until we stumbled across it, literally. So you can kind of stumble across these things.

KAREN BREWSTER: And so, in that case, when you find that physical evidence, does that get -- put you into a NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act), where you have to do an environmental impact and -- KEVIN KEELER: We had already -- KAREN BREWSTER: -- archeology and historic --

KEVIN KEELER: Well, we had already done all that stuff for the construction portion of it.

But finding historic artifacts like that basically put us on hold until we were able to get the State of Alaska -- because it’s State of Alaska lands. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: Um, into the site, and basically identify the extent of the historical artifacts.

And, you know, we basically flagged it all off. Didn’t work in that area. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: They recorded everything, and then we continued with the work on that sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: So did you build the cabin on the exact site, or you moved it --? KEVIN KEELER: We had moved -- KAREN BREWSTER: -- so you didn’t disturb the original.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. We had moved it so we wouldn’t disturb it.

An interesting thing to think about that site was, too, when you look around at the site -- and it was a riparian area right next to the river with very large spruce and mature birch mingled. This is the Interior of Alaska, the North Fork of the Innoko River, um, and we’re -- we're talking, you know, two to three-foot trunks, sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: When you stand where we located that site, and you look around you, there was not a spruce tree in sight. Meaning they had cut down all the spruce trees to build the shelter cabin at the time.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. I was thinking they burned for firewood. KEVIN KEELER: Well, and that, too. Yes, exactly. So -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, but one of the things I wanted to point out, what has happened with the administration of the trail and my role in it is that, um, our efforts, um, are divided, not necessarily equally, but depending on the -- the timing of -- of things, and opportunistically on trying to get a certain level of conservation or protection for the trail.

So in 2008, there was a move -- the mid-2000's really, local partners wanted to get new safety cabins built. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: The folks in McGrath, the McGrath Trail Blazers, wanted to get a cabin built north of Ophir as a safety cabin.

Um, none of that had been est -- there was no State of Alaska recordation of the trail, no establishment of that legal interest. So the State of Alaska in 2008, with some federal money that came through Senator Ted Stevens directly for the Iditarod Trail, other money that BLM passed through the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance, formed an Iditarod Easements project.

And Leslie Schick, one of the people that you had mentioned, was involved in that project.

And the State of Alaska at that time established, I think it was something like 1800 miles of new easements for the trail, which had never been done before.

And so, there's a lot of rear-guard action happening in terms of establishing legal public interests that identify the resources at risk or resources of merit that are out there.

Because unless you have that public interest established, potentially new land uses that could negatively affect the resources can occur.

Um, they were able to establish that, and then they also basically put fairly wide right-of-ways in, anywhere from a hundred feet to four hundred feet. They allowed -- made allowances for the establishment of public shelter cabins, for signage on the trails, and that sort of thing.

And really to an extent, I feel like my job has been just a continuation of what the Alaska Road Commission and Walter Goodwin was doing, because to make trails work, you have to be able to find them on the ground. You have to be able to find your way on them. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: There’s safety infrastructure that’s needed on these. So shelter cabins were an important feature a hundred years ago, along with trail marking, using the tripod, which is part of the Iditarod National Historic Trail Alliance and has a very interesting story in itself. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Maybe I’ll get to in a bit.

But we were able to garner federal economic stimulus money in 2009, 2010 and build or rehabilitate seven new or existing public shelter cabins on the trail.

One of them was an old ARC, Alaska Road Commission, roadhouse. ’Cause you had asked about are there many roadhouses -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- really used. And there really aren’t, unfortunately.

And this one was called Don’s Cabin by the Iditarod Race people, because a doctor who ran the sled dog race in the 1980's spent a bad night in the place, but it saved his butt, basically.

And it had about as much structural integrity as a chicken coop or a lettuce crate. And Dan Seavey had threatened to burn it down. Yeah, you can take that, Dan.

Anyway, but ultimately, some money was garnered by the State of Alaska, the Iditarod Easement Project. We provided a little support to them. The Iditarod Alliance provided support to them. It was able to be reconstructed in a historically appropriate manner, um, to meet the needs of historic preservation integrity.

And other new shelter cabins were built, too. Basically, because there’s this giant holes on the trail between the Kuskokwim and the Yukon Rivers of 200 and 250 miles, where’s there’s literally no place to get out of the weather.

There’s like a couple patches of big spruce that you can hide from bad weather the size of this office that we’re in right now. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: But that’s about it. Otherwise, it’s 200 miles of Charlie Brown Christmas trees, and the wind blows like a bat out of heck there, and, basically, you can die there on those segments.

So building those cabins between the now riverside communities of rural Alaska and the Yukon and the Kuskokwim Rivers has promoted more use and connectivity between the villages on both of those.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and you mentioned that folks in McGrath were interested in this. That there's this partnering with the villages. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: Say, you know, this is our part of the trail. KEVIN KEELER: Yep. KAREN BREWSTER: And we take some -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- pride and ownership in that.

KEVIN KEELER: They do. They do, definitely.

And so, when we did the project -- um, the shelter cabin project, the Iditarod Alliance actually bought the materials for us.

They hired someone who led a Youth Service Corps to be the general contractor, who turned around then and hired kids from the local communities to actually work on the crews to build these cabins.

BLM provided the aviation materials, mobilization expertise. I mean, basically we were flying 26 tons of materials. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow. KEVIN KEELER: To each of these cabin sites. Leaving behind 13 tons of cabin. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So, you know, we’re flying DC-6's with Everett’s Air Cargo out of Fairbanks. We used Northwood Lumber, who’s out of Fairbanks. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: You’re probably familiar with them -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yes. KEVIN KEELER: -- since you’re from Fairbanks.

Load ’em on these DC-6's, fly ’em into Flat, and then we would meet ’em with a helicopter.

We would long-line these to these locations, and then fly in the crew of kids and their crew leader, and within a week, they would build the cabins up. KAREN BREWSTER: Great.

KEVIN KEELER: So we were able to build five cabins, uh, in that -- that process.

Um, they -- we followed with more trail marking, and um, way-marking, trail way-mark signage, safety signage.

Because when you’re out on this 200-mile stretch of Charlie Brown Christmas trees, every river crossing looks the same. It’s real easy to not quite know where you are or how far it is to the next safety cabin. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So these safety shelters were an important part of the history and the heritage of the cabin -- um, or of the trail itself.

I might mention, too, that -- I had mentioned that there was this -- during the gold rush, this heritage of people coming along and building out their -- their own roadhouses.

And um, the roadhouses would get named and known for their proprietor. Like French Joe owned the roadhouse just north of the Alaska Range in the vicinity of Egypt Mountain and served the best ibex around, which was basically Dall sheep -- KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: -- which he would hunt. They would go out and hunt for this sort of stuff.

There was a roadhouse on the Anchorage side, or the Southcentral Alaska side, um, Upper Skwentna, run by a woman by the name of Madam Pants. And this is because it was a woman who wore pants in those days. KAREN BREWSTER: That’s right. KEVIN KEELER: How shocking! KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So anyway, there’s -- and where I’m going with this is, that when the gold rush dwindled away and the Iditarod use dwindled away, um, in the early 1920's as the railroad was built north of the Alaska Range, new freight trails were established on the north side of the Alaska Range.

The trails on the south side were abandoned, and um -- but still there was relevancy and importance for the shelter cabins.

So for instance, the picture in the Project Jukebox, uh, header there, is of a shelter cabin built by those fellows, because they continued to carry mail overland. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, right.

KEVIN KEELER: And had the mail contracts. The hired carrier routes, the HCRs, just like we see on semi-trucks today. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: They were hired carrier routes by the U.S. Postal Service that would carry the mail from Takotna to Flat and that sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And we’ve got the letters and what they were supposed to stock each cabin with. KAREN BREWSTER: Great. KEVIN KEELER: And, you know, how many frying pans and cast-iron stoves, and -- KAREN BREWSTER: Cool. KEVIN KEELER: -- etc., etc.

KAREN BREWSTER: So you’ve talked a lot about all these things that -- that have been accomplished with the trail and with your -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- work and your predecessors’. Now it can’t always have all been easy? KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: What about some challenges you’ve faced along the way?

KEVIN KEELER: The biggest chall -- Well, there’s a couple different challenges. One is, um, getting all the resources, uh, getting adequate resources to build capacity for -- to do this work.

KAREN BREWSTER: So funding? KEVIN KEELER: Funding, basically.

Um, I’m -- my position is housed here in the field office, and that was because the original members of the Federal Advisory Council were very concerned that if this position was in the state office, nothing would get done.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of flipped around the other way. With this position being in the field office, it’s subject to doing field office work, as compared to higher level, uh, collaboration and cooperative projects. 30,000-foot level projects.

So the comprehensive management plan that we have. Adopted in 1986. Has never been updated. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: It needs to be updated.

We do not have a trail-wide interpretive plan, which would be critical, um, and has been critical for moving forward with education and interpretation for the trail itself.

And this is because this position -- you know, the person in my position, me, until in the future when I retire, gets pulled in a lot of different directions and ends up maintaining these cabins and managing these permits that I mentioned before.

Basically, doing field office work as compared to national trail administration work. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: And that’s kind of an inherent challenge.

Getting the funds to our partner group. Our partner group has not been able to basically turn the corner beyond a volunteer working board to having the capacity of a paid staffer.

And at the meeting that I mentioned recently that I had with national trail colleagues, we had a very inspirational talk by Barney Mann, who was the ex-president for the Pacific Crest Trail Association, been heavily involved in that organization for years, a very strong non-profit throughout the West Coast. You can look it up, PCTA.org or something like that.

Um, and people asked him, what are the most important things that an organization can do to turn the corner or a national trail itself? And one of them that he said was, get paid staff on your non-profit to get things going.

The Alliance has never been able to do that. And this is not a diss on the Alliance at all, because I know how hard it is for a volunteer, non-profit working board of directors to try to accomplish things.

These things are doing -- people are doing this stuff out of the goodness of their heart, free, for hours and hours and days and months.

KAREN BREWSTER: So the -- the paid staffer would be BLM funding?

KEVIN KEELER: Um, it’s through -- We have a multiple year -- basically grant from the federal government. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Um, that is funded based on the amount of funds that are available every year that BLM's been able to provide.

There was a big bump-up nationwide, not this fiscal year, but the previous fiscal year, nationwide. There was extra money provided, congressionally designated by Congress. Three hundred thousand dollars.

We were able to pass a half million dollars to the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So they’re looking at hiring their first -- KAREN BREWSTER: Paid -- KEVIN KEELER: -- project coordinator at this time. KAREN BREWSTER: Good. KEVIN KEELER: I don’t think they’re going to go for an executive director, per se, to begin with. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: You know, to an extent, that’s their business as a non-profit, um, so --

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Um, so challenges within BLM that you faced or you were aware of in the past about trail decisions?

KEVIN KEELER: Um, a lot of it is outside of our, um, our wheelhouse, you might say, in a sense. A bunch of it has gone to the State of Alaska. The Chugach National Forest is the manager for the segments on the Chugach National Forest.

Um, they’ve done planning for and the build-out of significant amounts of contemporary trail on the Kenai Peninsula, which are not necessarily on the historic route.

It’s authorized also, but they never really -- it had never been codified in the comprehensive management plan. They just kinda went ahead and did it. And they’re going to hate me for saying this, but -- and that’s ok, too, you know.

KAREN BREWSTER: So that’s -- that's a challenge, is working with the other agencies?

KEVIN KEELER: It -- it -- it just takes -- it’s part of the -- part of why they pay us to do this job. There’s just a level of coordination.

The State of Alaska, with the change of administration, basically, they shut the Iditarod Easement Project down entirely. Even though there was funding available, it didn’t meet the needs of the current administration, or the priorities of the current administration.

So in 2013 or ’15, after establishing 1800 miles of new right-of-way -- the easy part’s the right-of-way. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Meaning that there are a lot of other harder parts that needed a lot more nuancing, uh, consultation, work with other parties. And there was funding available at that time.

The Division of Mining, Land and Water shut the project down entirely. They had PCS's, or full-time permanent positions in the org chart allocated to this. They eliminated them.

So, you know, basically, things have kinda gone on hold. And they actually even pulled all their information about the trail legal status off the website. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: There’s movement back to reinvigorating that again. Whether or not that’ll happen is -- is questionable.

Um, where -- where things ideally would go is that if the State of Alaska would designate the trail on State lands as a linear state park unit. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

KEVIN KEELER: The state manages the trail under Alaska Title 38, which is a multiple use mandate. Doesn’t have anything to do with recreation or conservation or interpretation.

And so it’s pretty low on the totem pole for things to get done. And fell off the totem pole, basically. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: To use a bad analogy or non-PC metaphor or whatever. Um, more recently.

So we have examples of the Kenai River Special Management Area of linear recreation, linear state park unit, managed under Alaska Statute Title 41.

Um, in my opinion, it would be -- really help advance the purposes of the trail, of conservation of the trail, tourism of the trail, etc., etc. if the state would do that sort of thing, because it could become part of our recreation and tourism portfolio, in a way.

Because the state does own sixty percent of the trail, basically, still. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And then holds another -- a lot of public, legal public rights-of-ways via RS 2477 routes. The Iditarod Trail has international recognition.

KAREN BREWSTER: But it is not an RS 2477 route, is it? KEVIN KEELER: Parts of it are, yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, parts of it are?

KEVIN KEELER: Yes, definitely parts of it are. The federal government doesn’t recognize RS 2477 routes. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok.

KEVIN KEELER: But off of federal government lands, the State of Alaska in the late 1990's, early 2000's, promulgated regs that basically said, "All RS 2477 routes identified as qualifying RS 2477 routes by a study by the State of Alaska in the late 1990's, are hereby established."

If you don’t want this thing, you have to make it a -- as an individual land owner, a proposal to vacate that. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So and the federal government also has what are called Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 17(b) easements that provide for public access across Native lands on contemporary routes. So there’s a whole bunch of different legal instruments or opportunities for the creation of this network.

And then there’s the actual use that continues to this day. I mean, it’s a vital route, overland route, connecting people from village to village. People travel to go to basketball games and go shopping. Um, especially along the river systems and the coastal areas where the communities are.

One of the things that I started to mention or wanted to mention was that historically, people -- the Native peoples who were living in the Interior, which there were not many people historically to begin with anyway. It’s a big empty -- I call it hungry country out there. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: Due to the lack of resources and the extreme cold. And another thing I was starting to allude to was, things a hundred years ago, it was a lot colder here. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: In Alaska. The records show when Anchorage went in, and I bet in Fairbanks, the records show that, too.

So overland travel was a lot easier. A lot less people. The Native peoples relocated to the major river systems where the schools were placed and the coastal areas. So there was kind of this adjustment of the population centers at that time.

People -- Native peoples took jobs cutting wood for steamboats. Um, the schools relocated on major river systems. The Yukon, uh, primarily, I’m thinking of right here.

The Upper Kuskokwim is more -- people are pretty much where they were in that time period. Coastal areas, Unalakleet to Nome, the settlements have changed.

Huge disruption and impacts from, of course, the Spanish flu influenza epidemics. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Um, incredibly tragic effects on people.

Along with all the effects of just Euro -- Euro-American diseases that had stricken the Native population from the time of contact. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So there’s a change in population centers. But I’m losing track of where I was going with all this.

KAREN BREWSTER: So -- yeah, well, so I’ll ask a -- a question about the layers of land use that -- KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: The complications of managing a trail over multiple land ownership layers. Private lands, you know, state lands. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Corporation lands, village lands. KEVIN KEELER: Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: And how do you handle that, and what are the challenges there?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, it -- right. And in the past, it was easier to work with the State of Alaska, but they’ve been absent, basically.

The Iditarod Alliance, basically, convenes a forum or a platform for the interaction of these different agencies. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So representatives from the Chugach National Forest attend almost every board meeting. Um, it used to be that representatives for the State of Alaska would attend almost every board meeting. They become a point of contact, a venue, for the discussion of these various issues.

Um, when there are, um, various land issues, land use planning proposals going on, they -- they’ll step outside of their role as a grantee and, you know, basically submit their comments about, you know, well, you need to pay attention, or remind BLM about its role in protecting, for instance, the BLM -- or BLM’s commitment through the Comprehensive Management Plan to the protection of the trail in light of land disposals under the Alaska Native Veterans Settlement. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: The Native Vets Settlement Act, recently.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that gets to my question about the -- the use -- permitted uses. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: And, you know, like the Iron Dog Sled -- Snowmachine Race. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Which was motorized use, versus non-motorized use. KEVIN KEELER: Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: Have those issues come up in discussions, and how is those decisions made?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, it’s interesting. And, you know, I’m going to -- I’ll provide this to you ultimately, um, because Senator Gravel and what I had mentioned. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Provided the proceedings of their hearing here, and there’s an extended discussion about allowing for the use of what was called in 1973, even then, snowmachines.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Not snowmobiles? K

EVIN KEELER: Not snowmobiles. Snowmachines. Not to be confused with things that make ice. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: In drinks and that sort of thing.

So it was recognized as a traditional use, even back in the early 1970's. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And this -- this race was occurring, and ironically -- and this is one of the takeaways that I’ve gotten. The big takeaways as compared to historic routes in the Lower 48, um, our continued use has helped preserve the trail today. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: To make it a living thing.

If this trail had not been used by these various people, in these various events, there would not be what I call a mechanical pruning going on. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: You know, you’ve got in some cases people who are out there brushing the trail. In other cases, they’re running snowmachines on it.

This use and these long-distance muscle-powered events, this use is basically perpetuating the integrity of this route. When you don’t have the use of that route going on, it will disappear.

And what we’ve seen now, and the Iditarod race marshal has told me this, and he’s on the board of directors for the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance, the shrubification of Alaska with climate change is dramatically demanding increased brushing of the trail.

Where the trail would need to be brushed only every four years, now it’s two years at a time.

There have been significant changes with climate change on the trail. In my almost 20 years of being administrator of the trail, we've lost about a month of winter in Alaska, in this part of Alaska.

Basically, what we have is a mega-transect, similar to the guy who walked across Africa -- KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. KEVIN KEELER: -- for National Geographic and did a mega-transect. We’ve got this mega-transect that’s been here at least since the early 1900s, where use has occurred and been recorded.

And, of course, you know, there was instances where we would have williwaws and big meltdowns, and etc., etc. that sort of thing. But we’re losing our shoulder seasons here. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: We’re having more frequent fall storms. Or, for instance, on this screen shot that I had here on my -- on my computer, um. That’s not it. It’s around someplace.

But, basically, of open water in Unalakleet. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Off-shore in March. We're having rain on snow events.

Um, we’re having a lot of significant climate change impacts that’s resulting in more danger to the trail users who are out there.

People falling through the ice and dying, literally. I know of people that that’s happened to.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, it’s interesting, as you say, this transect. It would be interesting to record the changes along that route. I mean -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- as a scientific study. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: Has that been thought about or done?

KEVIN KEELER: Um, the trail’s getting used by the folks who are doing permafrost monitoring. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: And I believe lake -- lake monitoring. But we haven’t really quite made the connection there.

We, BLM though, was able to get some funds where we’ve installed permafrost monitors on the trail, because there are hypotheses that north of the Alaska Range, we’re going to see significant loss of permafrost, which is going to result in the swampification of the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And the shrubification of the trail. Um, that didn’t really occur.

But it -- it’s kind of limited, or it really hasn’t considered using the trail as a mega-transect in a way that -- that possibly it -- it could be.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, because also people in the communities -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- could comment on -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- their observations.

KEVIN KEELER: Yes. And so, I have a person in Unalakleet that I would recommend. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: You contact. And I don’t know if you want me to just do that off tape, or -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, we’ll do it off tape.

KEVIN KEELER: Yeah. But he’s -- he’s mentioned -- and he’s been involved and instrumental in the early races up there. There was also, um --

KAREN BREWSTER: Actually, no. So, what’s his name? KEVIN KEELER: Uh, Ted Koutchak. (After the interview, Kevin said he mis-spoke and that the person he was thinking of was Doug Katchatag.) KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And um, there were a -- there were a number of races, shorter distance races -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- where people in the villages were still raising dogs. KAREN BREWSTER: Right, um. KEVIN KEELER: That sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: I know we’re running out of time, here. KEVIN KEELER: Ok.

KAREN BREWSTER: For you, right? And uh, so I did want to ask a little bit about sort of the -- the role and support of BLM as an agency for your position. And, you know, we talked about some of the challenges.

Have you felt that BLM has made the trail a priority, or they just kind of ignore the whole thing, they don’t want to deal with it?

KEVIN KEELER: Uh, it comes and goes. It ebbs and it flows, in a way, to an extent. Administrations change.

Um, nationwide we’ve had an effort to, um, increase the accountability of the funds that are made available for the trail. Um, but that has taken almost a decade to get that implemented.

KAREN BREWSTER: And what do you mean by accountability?

KEVIN KEELER: BLM is a very decentralized organization, and there’s a lot of, uh, local office discretion in terms of what the funds are allocated to.

And there’s also been a long-standing history of, I would almost call it an "emperor has no clothes" situation, where um, other monies -- where the pot of money is being expected to do two things, unrealistically.

The pot of money for recreation is also expected to do the thing for national trails and other things, and that was unrealistic.

And for whatever reasons, this has just evolved over the years, and finally within the past two to three years, nationwide BLM has gotten a dedicated budget activity code that everybody’s supposed to use for National Scenic and Historic Trails.

At the cost of, uh, defunding money that should’ve been originally put forward to these national trails, but had been designated for recreation purposes and other purposes.

KEVIN KEELER: The term is cross-cutting -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- within the agency.

KAREN BREWSTER: And -- and nobody followed that, "Ok, here’s money for the trail." Nobody followed whether it actually got used?

KEVIN KEELER: It was very hard to follow the -- that. Follow the money. And so, I think there’s been a number of years within the agency where monies have been diverted. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: That would otherwise be used to build up to capacity.

The agency sees the trail as a white hat, in a sense, but really hasn’t quite gotten behind it, or it’s been a challenge to articulate what to do with it.

Um, how it -- how it fits within this agency. BLM in the state of Alaska is dealing with like, issues of national, um, significance. So -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: The Ambler Road, the National Petroleum Reserve, um. Things that basically suck a lot of air out of the room. Take all the air out of the room, in a way. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And demand a lot of attention by the agency to these various subjects that they are handed to by the current administration. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: That’s in charge, and their management priorities, so --

KAREN BREWSTER: Right, so the trail is -- falls down --?

KEVIN KEELER: Sometimes it -- it -- it -- Right. It kind of gets lost.

We’ve used, um, centennial events, such as the centennial of the trail between 2009 and 2012.

The efforts that I mentioned between the State of Alaska, BLM, the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance, all those parties were the recipient of the Secretary of Interior’s partnership award for conservation in 2012. A nationwide award for partnership efforts.

So -- so it ebbs and it flows. And um, I think we’re back on the flowing side of things at the moment.

Things change with administrations also, so there’s a challenge of maintaining, um, momentum, and having a clear plan of what’s next.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, so that was my question is, what is -- what are you -- what would you like to see still happen on the trail that hasn’t happened yet?

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Well, update the comprehensive management plan. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Do a, um, trail-wide interpretive plan. Um, get our map inventory launched.

Ultimately, a consistent way-marking, um, and interpretive signage program in the villages that is Native place-based named.

Um, we had this opportunity to name these places, to put names on the ground that represent the -- the true Native peoples’ names for these places. And rather than naming these places for some obscure English lord. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: Who just happened to be friends with some explorer.

There are names that have strong meanings to the local peoples who still live in these places. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: And would create a point of pride. And --

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s a great idea. It’s like the ones they’re doing in Anchorage. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Exactly. KAREN BREWSTER: Like at Westchester Lagoon. KEVIN KEELER: Yep. KAREN BREWSTER: There’s a sign with the -- KEVIN KEELER: Right, yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- Native name and an explanation. KEVIN KEELER: And they have so much -- KAREN BREWSTER: They’re great. KEVIN KEELER: -- more meaning to them. So uh.

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s a great idea for a project. KEVIN KEELER: Yeah, so and -- and to an extent, when we were doing the signage, too, I was pulling my hair out, the waymark signage. I felt like I was helping to develop the signing standards for the interstate highway system. I was like, "Oh my god, this is going to drive me crazy."

But, nonetheless, you have this opportunity to communicate what -- what happened out there on the ground. And there is so many important stories that are out there, that are still untold, that are you know, barely known.

There are a number of, um, first-person stories. You know, we’re not separated that much by the people who gathered this information in the 1920's and the 1930's and set it down, wrote it down, and then have since passed on. We’re only a hundred years beyond, so. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, to -- to see those things -- I mean, I would ultimately like to see it be a point of pride. And it is a point of pride, but I think most people don’t recognize it out in the villages.

And that the local people take these on, play this more important role of engagement. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: But it’s a very difficult concept to convey. And it’s based on relationships with people. And you have to be there. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And traveling to the villages is extremely expensive and challenging. I mean, right now, a round trip ticket for us to fly to Unalakleet is a thousand dollars. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, you know, it’s like -- it’s nuts. But that’s another reason to have a large degree of local involvement. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: But, you know, there’s a certain amount of, um, colonialism, you might even say, involved in this. I mean, to an extent, this is a colonial trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Put together by the white man to exploit the gold laid out on what at worst -- important and historic pre-Euro routes. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: You know, the thing about a good route five hundred years ago is probably still a good route today. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And you still see that in the field. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: So anyway.

KAREN BREWSTER: So how much time do you -- have you spent actually out on the trail? Do you get that opportunity to go out there?

KEVIN KEELER: A fair amount. Um, I’m doing less now because of the challenges of, um, operating in the aviation environment to get to the field.

I mean, we’re in this weird situation, but I’m very aware of it, and that is that a hundred years ago, most of the operations would happen in the winter time, and the Alaska Road Commission would send Colonel Goodwin out. He’d be on the trail and start in December and get to Seward or Susitna Station in March.

They’d be on the trail 24/7. Now, we throw a lot of money at machines, and we are only out on the trail for short periods of time. Four or five days at a time. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: A week at a time. Um, I mean, one of the things that’s so obvious to me is, Americans are not a winter people.

And um, we bring all of our cultural baggage to this in the way we do work on the ground, and the way we conceptualize and travel across this landscape.

And the landscape was more forgiving in the wintertime, to an extent. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Than it is in the summertime.

Um, historically people traveled the routes by steamboat in the wintertime. Nowadays, we do it by aircraft. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: You know, we’ve got this amazing aircraft capacity.

So when I came on with the -- the job, I realized that we could do our work -- the work that we could do in the wintertime is a lot more cost-effective to do in the wintertime than it is in the summertime. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Nowadays, when we fly a helicopter, like four out of five of our cabins, or five out of six, are only accessibly by helicopter, and it costs us like ten to fifteen thousand dollars a day to launch a helicopter. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: It’s nuts how expensive it is.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and I was also thinking, as the trail administrator, having knowledge of -- of places and personal experience out there, you have a better understanding.

KEVIN KEELER: Yes, and that’s what made me realize -- I mean, some of these things about the routes, where, for instance, my experience on the ground --

Basically, I’ve been on the ground pretty much all the way from Rohn to Unalakleet. Um, and then done low-level, very low-level flights, um, and that’s all the BLM lands. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: The majority of the BLM lands. And then low-level flights from Unalakleet over the trail all the way to Nome.

But knowing how the philosophy of dog mushers and historic dog mushers, I’ve been able to suss out, for instance, where the trail might be in the Eagle River Valley. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: You know, and work with Chugach State Park and people who are interested in rebuilding the Crow Pass Trail there.

The current trail is on an alignment built by Girl Scouts, and the, you know, the local rangers at the time in the 1970's. And they put it in a really challenging location to maintain.

But, you know, if -- if you’ve been out on the trail in the wintertime, you realize, oh, the dog mushers are running down the flat part of the river bars that are in the shadows of the big mountains that one of the first Alaska Road Commission, um, explorers described as a mini-Yosemite. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm. KEVIN KEELER: Because it’s such a steep valley. And so, therefore, it was in the shade all the time.

And then they get to this point where there’s a whole bunch of big rapids below, which is the part that comes from the Eagle River Nature Center.

My best guess is that they’ve been using that trail that’s still used today. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: To get to Echo Bend, it’s called, from the Eagle River Nature Center.

Because that makes the most sense, given the -- you know, the trail -- KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: -- constraints and features.

KAREN BREWSTER: I have a friend who used to put in recreational hiking trails, and she always said, "The land told you where the trail would go." KEVIN KEELER: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: So -- so, if you get to know the -- the thinking of the historic trail users and their objectives at the time, you start to look at the landscape in a different way.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right, and I was thinking, too, you know, with place-based learning, which is the iTREC! thing, so it’s kind of place-based management. KEVIN KEELER: It is. KAREN BREWSTER: As the administrator. That it’s good to get out there -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- on the ground, on the land.

KEVIN KEELER: It’s critical. It’s absolutely critical to be on the ground. So a -- a large part of my early career was based on doing that sort of thing.

But it takes -- it’s an enormous amount of resources. And, you know, I’m pushing for people to -- that have dedicated staff who are helicopter managers.

I mean, I joke that it’s easier to launch a rocket to the moon than it is a BLM contractor.

KAREN BREWSTER: And in terms of the public education component. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: I mean, there’s a brochure about it that BLM has done.

What do you guys do for public -- public education, or has that kinda become secondary to the whole right-of-way and surveying and stuff?

KEVIN KEELER: No, it hasn’t. BLM provided, um -- and has provided over the years, basically, in-kind donations of staff time for the Iditarod Trail to Every Classroom. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, our -- our -- you know, there’s a couple of different ways of doing interpretation and education.

Um, and what we discovered early on is, not having a, uh, graphic interpretive plan to unify us. We had an attempt at it by a Forest Service enterprise team, and it basically crashed on takeoff. And they ultimately disbarred the organization that was doing it. But they had a great artist at the time.

So we realized that having a non-agency, an agency-neutral look and feel, because there was a lot of confusion about the difference between the race and the historic trail, um, that's -- we perpetuated that in -- in what we’re doing on the various printed brochures and that sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: But there’s a -- there's a need for a much bigger web presence, and hopefully that’s something that the Iditarod Alliance will be able to bring in the future.

The more educational side of things, for a number of years, about ten years or so, um, a consortium of BLM, Forest Service, and the Iditarod Alliance, um, based a program on the Appalachian Trail to Every Classroom project that was successfully instituted by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

Adapted it to the Iditarod Trail to Every Classroom called iTREC!. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: And put together a curriculum development program for K-12 Alaskan teachers.

Which is still incredibly important, and I think it’s incredibly important to provide outreach to the communities and provide the tools, place-based service learning.

With the challenges of COVID, and the fact that the turnover and bush community school districts is fifty percent per year, it’s staggering. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And cutbacks to education. Inability for these rural communities or school districts to provide, um, there’s a need to reinvent the model of iTREC!. And it may go by the wayside for a while.

But these things take an enormous amount of time. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. KEVIN KEELER: Like I mentioned. It’s just -- it’s challenging to get to these places. It’s -- COVID really shut down Iditarod Trail to Every Classroom.

And um, the Iditarod Alliance, Forest Service, BLM, Campbell Creek Science Center, um, worked together really closely for about a decade and successfully were able to reach out and reach something like over a hundred different school teachers to teach a concept of place-based service learning.

And, you know, that -- that continues, I think, to be an important model. You know, how we’ll be able to do it in the future remains to be seen.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, I know, like in the comprehensive plan there was a whole thing about exhibits. And -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- interpretive exhibits, and it’s like, well, wai -- what -- that’s never happened. KEVIN KEELER: Correct.

KAREN BREWSTER: Is there a hope to do that?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, so the -- the Forest Service has proposed adaptive re-use of the Begich Boggs Visitor Center (at Portage Glacier) as a visitor center -- partial visitor center for the Iditarod National Historic Trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh?

KEVIN KEELER: And one of the things -- you asked about institutional obstacles or challenges, is that if you look around the state of Alaska, the Iditarod National Historic Trail is identified as a conservation system unit (CSU) under ANILCA, CSU. Other CSU's are like Denali National Park and Glacier Bay -- KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: -- National Park.

And the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. All of these places have physical bricks and mortar visitor centers.

The Iditarod National Historic Trail does not have a bricks and mortar visitor center. I think that has been a major impediment for maintaining public recognition and understanding about what the Iditarod National Historic Trail is.

And so, to a certain extent, we’ve had this concept of having virtual visitor centers. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Because there are these gorgeous, one-of-a-kind, internationally unique visitor centers, museums on the trail. The Seward Library Historical Society (Seward Community Library & Museum).

The uh, is it Kanchi (sp?)? Or I’m screwing up the name. The -- Basically, the historic museum in McGrath (formally the Tochak Museum was re-named the Sally Jo Collins Museum in 2019 to honor co-founder and historian Sally Jo Collins). The Carrie McLain Museum (Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum) in Nome. These places have one-of-a-kind artifacts. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: For the trail.

I mean, to be able to stand and look at a spear that people used to use to spear bears. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Grizzly bears, now, we’re talking about. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: That the people in the Upper Kuskokwim used is like a very humbling experience.

Nonetheless, we don’t have that for the trail itself. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And that has been an impediment, I think, for the public enjoyment and understanding of the trail.

So the Forest Service has thrown out this idea to do a feasibility study. We haven’t had a conversation about it in a couple months now, just because of the challenge of getting agencies together and doing stuff. There’s, I think, a reluctance on the part of the agency.

There’s been a number of national trail visitor centers that well-meaning congress people have mandated on certain locations that may or may not be the best locations around the country for these things that have created an albatross around the necks of the agencies.

So there’s a lot of agency resistance to these sorts of, um, concepts.

And then there’s a whole -- you know, we -- we have the whole nationwide challenge of, what does a museum mean anymore? KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: International challenge, really, with the coming of the digital age.

But, for instance, you know, to take it in a different direction, I’ve heard about the state of Tennessee is working on a firewalled artificial intelligence (AI) with the support of the Cherokee Indian community that will tell the story via AI where you can have a conversation with a survivor of the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Which is --

KAREN BREWSTER: I’ve heard about that for Holocaust -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- um, survivors, as well. KEVIN KEELER: Yes, so.

KAREN BREWSTER: Which is just a fascinating concept.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Anyway, I -- I do think, though, given the fact that we have such -- we have a huge turnover of population in the state, something like fifty percent of the population of the state changes every ten years, and then we have a huge influx of persons with the tourism industry every year, I actually think that a bricks and mortar visitor center would be important.

It could convey a lot of these concepts that are confused in the general public’s mind about what’s the difference between the sled dog race and the historic trail?

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, what about exhibits at the public lands information centers, where there already is a bricks and mortar visitor center?

KEVIN KEELER: And that’s possible or feasible. I think that again, it’s a matter of building the capacity of the non-profit to do that. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: The federal government, BLM, used to have a person who was staffed to that, but -- or -- or provided some funding to that. I’m not even sure where the funding comes from the APLIC (Alaska Public Lands Information Center) anymore. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: I used to -- that was one of my first jobs in Alaska. I worked at the APLIC in 1986 or something like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, yeah, but -- yeah, so creating an exhibit-type thing there, that would be an Alliance project? KEVIN KEELER: Or a collaborative project. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: Between the Alliance and BLM. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Uh, but that’s the sort of thing that it takes capacity to do those things. And the more important things in some ways are bolting down the right of ways, dealing with land management plans.

BLM a couple years ago completed the Bering Strait Western Interior Resource Management Plan that covers 15 million acres BLM lands, and most of the BLM-owned sections of the main trail.

And in that section of -- or that plan, we were able to get in place the most recent and up-to-date policies for national trails to protect the values of the national trail itself. So it -- it just takes bodies to do things.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Well, it sounds like your job as trail administrator is very busy. You’ve got a lot of -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- things you’re doing.

As you say, you’re adding a section to the, you know, area plan, and you’re marking the trail, and you’re doing public education. I mean, that’s a lot.

KEVIN KEELER: It’s -- there -- there is a lot. And so, kind of like the person who’s spinning a lot of plates in the air on the Ed Sullivan Show or something like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. And then, yeah, and cooperating with other agencies and --

KEVIN KEELER: Right. So, to -- to get stuff done, you just need depth and qualified staff to do stuff. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So, it’s just a matter of staffing up to do that sort of thing. And to date, that has been a -- not the highest priority for all the agencies involved, unfortunately.

KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah. Well, and that’s what I was thinking. Like, yeah. BLM has so much acreage in the state, and one little trail, why do they care about it? KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right, exactly. Exactly, so --

KAREN BREWSTER: And -- and have they cared about it? And how that’s changed over time?

You know, at the beginning when Terry O’Sullivan or Dean Littlepage were in your position. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: I don’t know what kind of support they were getting from the agency.

KEVIN KEELER: Well, limited support. I mean, they had priorities at the time to do the comprehensive management plan.

Um, you know, whereas now, we’re matured a bit more. It’s a mature trail. It’s one of the first national historic trails -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- in the country.

Um, but, you know, you compare us to something like the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, which is very different than all other national historic trail, there’s a huge demographic change underway in terms of the supporters for, and the people who brought about the National Trail System Act amendments. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: That created the national historic trails.

So a lot of the people who were behind this originally are passing on. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So there’s a need for this re-envisioning. What is the vision for national historic trails out there, and what does that mean in Alaska?

You know, we’ve -- we've -- although we’ve got it, we’ve -- ironically, what’s going on now is that a hundred years ago, people were marching back and forth, mushing back and forth, up and down this trail for gold. You know, for their livelihoods.

Um, and nowadays, people are doing it for a belt buckle in a race. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: And they’ll come here -- You know, I’m dealing with, you know, people who are the heads of IT companies in the Bay Area who are coming up to ride this 350-mile bike race. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And test their mettle, you know, again, to get a coat -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- that has the logo, finisher, on it. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Or something like that.

KAREN BREWSTER: At least the sled dog race and Iron Dog, they do get some money, maybe.

KEVIN KEELER: Right, they get a little money, but um -- So it's -- it’s really interesting to see the change in times.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, and it does make sense that, you know, the first trail administrator would’ve had different things on their plate -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- than you do now. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Times have changed. The trails have changed. KEVIN KEELER: Yes.

KAREN BREWSTER: They had to do the first inventories and all that. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. They were --

KAREN BREWSTER: And you benefit from what they did.

KEVIN KEELER: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, questions I have, um, about some of the intents of the --

You know, one that we’re dealing with right now is we would really like to know, um, what some of the discussion was about the trails on the Kenai Peninsula. There’s a paragraph in there that talks about building parallel trails.

And that ultimately has an effect on what the Chugach National Forest will -- what steps they’ll need to go through to get these contemporary trails certified.

There’s a lot of sorts of, um, you know, thinking that’s been lost. The agencies disposed of a lot of records. Um, we’ve tried to keep track of as many as possible and whatnot, but just some of those philosophies, or when they came to a particular juncture, why did they choose the path that -- that occurred?

You know, I’d love to hear more about why they took out the dollar amounts out of here? Or were there other contentious issues in the comprehensive management plan, the early parts of it?

So, BLM -- it’s interesting that BLM has been handed the feasibility study responsibility for this new Alaska Long Trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Because I believe one of the reasons BLM was handed the administration of the national -- the Iditarod National Historic Trail was ’cause it was the least threatening of all the federal agencies.

’Cause this was in the days immediately following ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act), and people in Alaska did not like the federal agencies, and the lands that were quote-unquote “locked up” into expanded wildlife refuges and expanded national park units.

And so, BLM was perceived as a less threatening agency. And again, the same situation exists today.

Um, although BLM really doesn’t own hardly any of the potential Long Trail alignment. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, right. KEVIN KEELER: Um, which to a certain extent hinders --

KAREN BREWSTER: But you have the history of managing a trail already, even though it’s a historic trail versus a recreational trail.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. Yeah. One of the things that’s really a -- a challenge is that, you know, we talk about trail.

Um, the parts that we have are not in the beginning and end points. They are these little stranded sections in the middle of nowhere.

I mean, really in the middle of nowhere. We’re talking either side of the Farewell Burn, you know. We’re talking kind of in between, you know, 30, 40 miles west of the Yukon River. And, you know, 30 miles east of the Bering Sea sort of stuff. They just poof, start. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And for a trail to be unified for public use or -- or, you know, to become a public institution that is valued beyond just local knowledge, um, there needs to be a unified approach.

And it was, you know, basically authorized in the National Trail System Act. A uniform system of signage on the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: There’s a recognition that, you know, a trail connects Point A and Point B.

So BLM’s challenge has been for a long time, you know, we’ve just got these little short segments that really aren’t even a contiguous trail segment itself.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Well, and I did wonder why BLM was assigned this in the first place. And you’ve -- you've identified that.

KEVIN KEELER: That's pretty much, yeah. That’s pretty much it. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: The only reason I can -- as far as I can tell, you know. You can ask Terry O’Sullivan that. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Or Dean Littlepage that, too. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: And see what their take is on it. That’s -- that's my conjecture, basically. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: And again -- and BLM allows for the multiple use of these things. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: BLM is not a strict preservation-oriented -- I mean, we -- we follow the laws of the National Historic Preservation Act and stuff like that, but we have more flexibility.

I -- I do like to say, and it’s kind of tongue in cheek, but I’m going to say it anyway, um, you know, BLM is cool enough to manage Burning Man.

KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, they do? I didn’t know that. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. BLM is the -- we have a permit for Burning Man, just like we have a permit for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, ok. I didn’t know that.

KEVIN KEELER: So if we’re a cool enough agency to manage, you know, Burning Man, we’ve got to be kind of cool. And -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: -- flexible and adaptive and willing to work with people sort of stuff.

KAREN BREWSTER: Um, well, I know you have a time limit. KEVIN KEELER: Oh, that’s ok. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: This is more important.

KAREN BREWSTER: All right. Then is there other things that I haven’t asked about that you want to talk about? You’ve got this big pile of files over here.

KEVIN KEELER: Well, this was -- You know, just -- I just wanted to mention that letter from Mike Gravel.

KAREN BREWSTER: So the -- So these -- these big files, this is like the trails files? KEVIN KEELER: This was the case files. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: That, um, BLM was tasked with doing this, um. KAREN BREWSTER: The resources study?

KEVIN KEELER: The route study, basically, or the feasibility study is what it’s called nowadays. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And there was this recognition, there was this historic trail out there, but it was not designated as a historic trail. And people were wanting to have these events on it.

And so BLM had to actually start administering these permits. And there was a court challenge by, I think, the snowmobile people at the time, the gold rush, you know, that BLM didn’t have the authority to do that. And it came back, oh yes, BLM does have the authority to do this sort of thing, etc., etc.

So BLM does everything by case files. And these were the case files for the Iditarod Trail between the time that it was identified as a potential trail in the -- the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation Feasibility Study Gold Rush Trail and the time it was designated as a national historic trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: ’Cause as I mentioned, I read that letter from Mike Gravel. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Where he said, you know, good news, we’re -- we're moving forward on this. And BLM really did support and provided support for the sled dog race, like I mentioned. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Things were going on. We -- one of the things we’ve done over the years, and I -- I took it a lot farther was, um, we used to provide reflectors to the sled dog race to install out there on the trees. Because nowadays, and this is one of the changes, people nowadays -- well, headlights were invented.

A hundred years ago, people traveled mainly by daytime, but the actual trail, um -- the creation of the trail, there’s some differences there that I’ll mention, too, but so BLM, you know, looked for ways that we could provide support for um, the perpetuation of the historic trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So working with the sled dog group, um -- I think one of the things that I’ve got there that I’ll email to you on that administrative history, um, BLM is the, um -- they -- they call themselves the Alaska Fire Service (AFS), but they’re still BLM. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: They like to think they’re special and different, and they’re going to hate me for saying that.

But anyway, we got an AFS crew out and cut out this section of -- across the Farewell Burn, that was very obvious of one of the original Goodwin trails from 1910. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Which at the time, one of the first Native people who came across it and saw it --

This trail is straight for like, 50 miles, and basically, you can see hills in the Upper Kuskokwim back to the hills of the Alaska Range if you take a look at that. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

KEVIN KEELER: And one of the first Native people who came across it, and these are on some of these Steve Peterson maps, he called it the "All-Same-Bullet Trail." That, you know, if you shot a gun down it, the same bullet would travel the whole thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

KEVIN KEELER: So in the early 1970's, BLM got an Alaska Fire Service crew and swamped the whole thing out, cut the whole thing out. ’Cause this is what these guys do, you know. They cut fire line and -- KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, so, for instance, the first few sled dog races ran on the Kuskokwim River, just like the sled dog -- just like the historic trail did. And then they moved it over on the flatlands, and they, you know, they cut corners, and, you know, made segments shorter and stuff like that. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Which happened historically. And um, where was I going with this?

Anyway, so our way-marking signage program is a next extent of that, that we put distance markers out for the trail. So when you left a place of safety, you would know the distance to the next place of safety.

So like, when you would leave Rohn, there’s a sign that says, "Next safety cabin: 30 miles." "Nikolai, 75 miles."

KAREN BREWSTER: Just like the signs on the highway. KEVIN KEELER: Exactly. And then, so you start hitting signs on 20, 10-mile increments. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: "Next safety cabin: 15 miles." 10 miles, 5 miles. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: One mile. And then an arrow, cabin. So.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, yeah, and, as you say, like your reflectors. I was thinking, you know, in the old days, trails were marked with blazes. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: There were cuts in the tree. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: Then now you went to reflectors, and now you’re up to tripods. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: And signs.

KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Well, the tripods are interesting, too, and I didn’t get a chance to mention those.

But -- and I’ve never really done a definitive historic, you know -- there’s no definitive history on this, but tripods were commonly used to mark the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, the Goodwin and the Road Commission used them when they did their first push on the trail, and then again when they came across the trail in 1910.

Um, and this is because you don’t have -- basically have no vis -- nothing on the ground in your -- in areas prone to whiteouts. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Where you’re just in like a ping pong ball of visibility, and you can’t see.

So I’ve always wondered where these tripods came from, and lo and behold, I looked at what the WAMCATS used to do for -- the WAMCATS was the Washington-Alaska Military Communication -- KAREN BREWSTER: System. KEVIN KEELER: -- Telegraph System. They strung telegraph (wire), where they had no trees, on tripods. KAREN BREWSTER: Hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Well, where did they come up with that idea? They were part of the Army Signal Corps. Where did the Army Signal Corps come up with this idea?

If you look at pictures of the Civil War, when they were stringing tripods in bombed out areas, they would use tripods.

Where did those tripods come from? Well, you look at how they used to stack muskets in the old days. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: They would do tripods.

Ok, what do indigenous people around here use for drying fish? And saving poles, etc., etc., etc? Tripods. So tripods have been around for a long time.

So what we did was, when we built these cabins also -- ’cause I’ve been on a, um, mission to permanentize the marking of the trail.

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race puts out approximately ten pallets of survey lathe on the trail every year to mark the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh.

KEVIN KEELER: And then it just melts. The trail melts, the lathe falls down, and it stays there forever.

And so, when you’re out on the trail in the summer time, you can find and age these survey lathe that you find based on how much moss is growing on it and that sort of thing. And you’ll find big balls of survey tape in the trees. KAREN BREWSTER: Wow.

KEVIN KEELER: In the old days, people know that they would do something called "flagging a tree," where you’d cut all the limbs off one side of it. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: Um, the other thing that I wanted to mention about trails and how trail use is changed today is, in the old days, there used to be more people out on the trail, so the trail would get packed.

If you can imagine the ground, it would -- it would snow a little bit. Somebody’d walk on it or, you know, run a dog team across. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: It would snow, they’d do it again. It’d snow, do it again. Do it again, sort of thing. It would get continual use throughout the whole winter.

We don’t do that anymore. We actually kind of abandoned the trail until about -- many of the long-distance remote sections of the trail until about January or February. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And then we start packing it from the top down. Which is really different than the bottom up. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: So in the olden days, people probably could follow the trail at night. I mean, they would have a miner’s lamp, which is basically a candle in a tin can. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And they would hook it on the front of their dog sled, and you could go kinda bumping down the trail. You could feel where the trail is with your snowshoes. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: Which happened to be seven feet long, built by the folks in Ruby, and etc., etc. who were masterful with their ability to do these cross-country Interior sugar-snow -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Snowshoes.

Nowadays, you need reflectors because much of the race and the use has change to nighttime. It’s easier, actually, to travel the trail at night.

You’re also traveling by snowmobile at times. You can see better. You’ve got headlamps that shoot long distances. You’re not going to drive into trees like I’ve done on many cases.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. And the trail packing also shows you where the trail is? The -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Yes, but it, um, but it -- it does get lost in the frequent snow storms. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: That would occur throughout the year.

But in the old days, you’d be on the lookout for the tripods, or the flagged trees. Um, those -- those were the major symbols that were out there.

And then we have photographs of, like the tripod in Rainy Pass. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: And other flagged trees.

There’s -- In some ways, there’s a lot more use occurring on the trail historically, and a lot more people living in the Bush -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- than there is today. And --

KAREN BREWSTER: So how far apart do you put the tripods?

KEVIN KEELER: Good point -- question. So um, the main concept is to make them inter-divisible. And that means that when you are standing at one, you can see another in all conditions. So that’s anywhere from 200 to 500 feet.

So where I was going with this whole thing, too, was that um, when we built the cabins -- you know, I’ve been wanting to replace the Iditarod lathe. Um, we -- I’ve been wanting to build a better mousetrap.

Basically, took what are called landscape timbers from Home Depot that are like three bucks apiece. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: They’re a eight-foot-long round on two sides, flat on another. In the Lower 48 they call ’em "cherry peelers." They’re kind of the core of what’s been peeled for plywood and that sort of thing. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: They go for three or four bucks apiece. And we pre-fabricated them so we could cut them and built new tripods that you could prefabricate.

So when it came time to build the cabins out there, too, the Alaska Fire Service had asked me, "Hey, if you ever have any para-cargo (para=parachute?) needs, we’d be happy to help you guys.

And I was like, "Oh, you know, what? I’ve got like 25 pallets, 4x4x8, that were 400 pounds -- they weigh 400 pounds apiece. If you guys could kick these onto the route of the trail, we’ll come get ’em in the wintertime and set ’em up." So that’s what we ultimately did. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: As compared to the old days, when the people would be out there working and cutting these out of native timber, we bought these things from Home Depot.

We bought truckloads of these things. I mean, I shipped semi-tractor trailers up to AFS, and they flew them with their "casas" (?) and dropped these things and hit their GPS locations.

And then the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance hired, under agreement, local community folks, and basically paid them wages -- uh, not wages, but they paid 'em for rental of their snowmachines. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: They paid 'em for rental of sleds. They gave 'em a food stipend. They gave 'em a fuel stipend. Fuel, oil, and lube stipend. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: Because these people are donating their -- the equivalent of their personal car to do this stuff. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And the countryside beats you up. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: I realized that after I broke an idler arm on the mayor of Shageluk’s snowmachine that I was borrowing. And so we got our own snowmachines and staffed up, but -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: But anyway, so, we ended up doing that, and kicking these tripods and installing a lot of tripods.

KAREN BREWSTER: But out on the -- out on the river, or out on the sea ice, you can’t put those tripods? KEVIN KEELER: We don’t do the tripods out there. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And there’s still major segments of the trail that need new tripods, and, you know, it’s never been realized.

And to do this sort of stuff, it’s logistically challenging again. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: It’s very -- I mean, it just takes body. It takes energy to do stuff.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. Well, I did know that at some point, the Nome Trail Blazers went out and put tripods from the Nome end -- KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: -- out a certain distance. KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: I don’t remember. KEVIN KEELER: Right. Basically, back to the Yukon River. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: And they hung miles on the trail, which -- which are arbitrary. They’re based on Colonel Goodwin’s report that came up with 914 miles of the trail.

They started back -- counting backwards down from 914. KAREN BREWSTER: Oh. KEVIN KEELER: Or 938 from Nome. And they go all the way back to the Unala -- the Kal -- the Yukon River at Kaltag. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So, and they’re still out there on the trail. These things stick around forever. The, you know, biodegradation rate is like practically zero out there.

And so, that’s why -- I mean, I’ve found places where people wired up tripods, and they had like caribou or reindeer antlers stuck in them. That the animal -- KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: -- basically died. Basically -- KAREN BREWSTER: Oh, right. KEVIN KEELER: -- with the skulls, because people are using baling wire.

And it’s like, no, let’s do this right, sort of thing. So you know, we’ve got a better mousetrap, and um, it -- it could be a source of employment getting those tripods up again.

And they have a -- a legacy. I mean, they’re a legacy symbol, in a way. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: Which is kind of -- It's -- it’s very interesting, the whole --

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, I think also the idea of local, um, engagement and empowerment. KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: And this is our trail. KEVIN KEELER: Exactly. KAREN BREWSTER: All those things -- KEVIN KEELER: Yeah. KAREN BREWSTER: -- would be helpful.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. So we’ve, um -- the cabins that have gone in, the safety shelters, we built one north of Unalakleet, about 25 trail miles north of Unalakleet, back in 2010.

Almost within the first year, there was people writing in the log book, "Thank you for building this cabin. We were soaked to the bone, and etc., etc. And it’s really saved -- saved us."

These cabins really -- they save people’s lives. And the same thing with the Tripod Flats cabin, which is about 50 miles east of Unalakleet. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: So, you know -- And actually, they used to build these cabins near water crossings, because people often times would fall in, and otherwise, you’d die of hypothermia. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: I mean, "To Light a Fire" by Jack London. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: That story, it’s like, that sort of scenario would occur repeatedly.

KAREN BREWSTER: Right. So does BLM keep those old log books? KEVIN KEELER: Yes. KAREN BREWSTER: Because they must fill up at some point.

KEVIN KEELER: They do. And we bring the old ones back, and we put new ones out there. We photograph 'em.

I would love to scan ’em and digitize ’em and that sort of thing, but we haven’t really done it.

KAREN BREWSTER: But, you -- you sort of have a bit of an archive then here that you keep them in? KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Yes.

And uh, it’s very interesting to read the notes from Joe Redington, Sr. in his handwriting. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: From like, at the Rohn cabin in the mid-1990's or something like that or --

It’s -- it's very fascinating. Or even notes that you wrote yourself, fifteen years previously. KAREN BREWSTER: That you don’t remember. KEVIN KEELER: Wow, my handwriting was a lot better then.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, we’ve covered a lot. Um, and sort of, you know, jumped around, but, are there other things that you wanted to make sure we talk about that I haven’t asked about?

KEVIN KEELER: Not really. I bet there are, but um, and I will --

KAREN BREWSTER: I can always do another interview with you.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. Yeah. And um, probably not. I mean, it sounds like you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s been going on with the trail. KAREN BREWSTER: Well, this isn’t for me. This is for the future listeners.

KEVIN KEELER: Right. Right. Right, exactly. Um, no, but that leads to the questions themselves that are out there.

And um, like I said, we’ve, you know, got gaps in the knowledge. A large part of it is owned by the State of Alaska.

Um, the Iditarod Race Committee did a book, I was going to mention to you called "The Old Iditarod" by the old -- "The Iditarod at 50" by the Old Iditarod Gang. And that’s the people who first -- put the first race on. And Dick Mackey was one of those people. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And it explains a lot about the founding of the trail, the way-marking of the trail, clearing of the trail, back in those days. Um, so uh, I think I’ve pretty much covered it all.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. I think I do see the Junior Trail Blazers -- KEVIN KEELER: Right. KAREN BREWSTER: -- booklet. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

KEVIN KEELER: Sure, this is, um, a product from the Iditarod Trail to Every Classroom. And it’s a -- based on a junior -- junior ranger concept.

And basically, throughout the Department of Interior, there’s a big effort with National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, to engage children at a younger age. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: With outdoor -- um, public lands resources.

And so, um, this is, uh, communicating some of the major themes that we’ve covered today, um, in this conversation about the history of the trail, the use of the trail, the periods of significance, how people used to live on the trail, some of these -- these different features and aspects of it.

That will instill, hopefully, some enthusiasm in -- in these younger folk, and an opportunity for them -- It’s incentivized with them potentially getting either a sew-on patch or stick-on patches. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm. KEVIN KEELER: Um, and, um --

KAREN BREWSTER: And so how do you get this material to these children? Is it, you send these out to the local schools, or --? KEVIN KEELER: No, it’s -- KAREN BREWSTER: -- visitor centers?

KEVIN KEELER: I think through the Campbell Creek Science Center or the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance. I’d have to look at that. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. It seems like this -- KEVIN KEELER: I’ve been a little removed from it. KAREN BREWSTER: -- would be good -- Would be great to send out to all the schools in the communities along the trail.

KEVIN KEELER: Yes. Yes, exactly. And that’s part of the project work that we really don’t have the capacity to, but we look for our partners like the Iditarod Alliance to take on as a project. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok.

KEVIN KEELER: So to institutionalize that a bit more. And same with the visitor guides. KAREN BREWSTER: Right. KEVIN KEELER: These basic pamphlets, that sort of thing.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, that’s what I was wondering. Like are they at the Public Lands Information Center? KEVIN KEELER: Right. Maybe. I can’t answer that exactly right now. KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. KEVIN KEELER: Sorry, that sounds -- KAREN BREWSTER: No, no. KEVIN KEELER: -- pretty bad. I wish I could, but --

KAREN BREWSTER: That’s ok. Um, yeah, so anything else?

KEVIN KEELER: Uh, no, that’s it. I really appreciate the fact that the Alliance is interviewing folks, and I would encourage anybody who’s listening, if they have questions or want to discuss this further, to reach out to me, or um, the person who follows me in this position, because I won’t be here forever. And um, if they have historic resources that they would like to bring forward to contact the Iditarod Historic Trail Alliance.

There continues to be stuff that’s discovered these days that hasn’t been discovered, ever. Um, you know, oh, somebody’s going through Uncle Joe’s steamer trunk in Seattle and found this photograph of, you know, dog mushers getting ready for a race on Fourth Avenue of Anchorage in 1910. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: You know, never seen that photo. It did not exist in the public knowledge. KAREN BREWSTER: Right.

KEVIN KEELER: And these are important pieces of the jigsaw of history, you might say. The jigsaw puzzle of history. And really help our knowledge of that.

And so, donating that for the public good and use improves everybody’s enjoyment and understanding of how life was back in the day. Um, and uh, enhances the general knowledge and appreciation for the trail and the people who came before us.

KAREN BREWSTER: Well, it sounds like from talking to you that this job has really meant a lot to you. You’re very passionate about it. KEVIN KEELER: Uh, yes. I’d say that. Right. Right.

KAREN BREWSTER: This has been a good thing, having -- being the trail administrator?

KEVIN KEELER: It has been. It’s -- it’s -- it's got challenges equivalent to the size of the trail, but it also is as rewarding.

And um, this is something that, um, you know, in general on these sorts of things that have the potential to be here for long periods of time, I’m talking centuries, when you start to look at these trails, um, we have to recognize that our obstacles may be of similar magnitude.

And when you’re trying to protect something in perpetuity, it may take a heck of a long time to get that accomplished. It’s a long game, really. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah.

KEVIN KEELER: It’s a -- You know, like I said, to a certain extent, I feel like I’m still doing the same work the Alaska Road Commission was doing a hundred years ago. Um, but that’s ok.

And uh, it’s nice to have people follow in your footsteps, too.

KAREN BREWSTER: Is there anything you’d like to be remembered for, or what you think your legacy might be?

KEVIN KEELER: Well, being in the place to get the resources in place down to the legalization of the trail, the creation of the infrastructure that supports the use of the trail, that sort of thing. Um, that’s so people can get out and enjoy it.

I had started to mention, too, with the contemporary use that’s going on, especially the folks who are doing the muscle-powered stuff, and the miniaturization of photography, now we get a great window on what life used to be like in a vicarious experience for people around the world.

The more people who can use the better -- the trail, the better, in my opinion. KAREN BREWSTER: Mm-hm.

KEVIN KEELER: And uh, I’d just like to, yeah, continue to see that occur. And that’s, uh, to enhance that is -- would be gratifying.

But what’s most important is to get it -- get it on the ground so people can do it. KAREN BREWSTER: Yeah, right. KEVIN KEELER: So whether or not my name’s attached to it or not, that’s fine.

KAREN BREWSTER: Ok. Well, great. Thank you very much for your time today. KEVIN KEELER: You bet.