Cook Inlet

Drew Hamilton makes a living by taking tourists out into the remote Alaskan wilderness to hang out with brown bears. No fences, no guns–just Drew, and the eight hundred pound, six and a half foot tall, Ursus arctos horribilis of southern Alaska. Most people call them grizzlies. These days, he does it, in large part, as a unique way to protect this magnificent landscape from the proposed Pebble Mine.

For the fifth installment of our Endangered Spaces series, our producer Jen Altschul takes us to the mainland of southern Alaska to to better understand the threats to this landscape and community, to better understand the economic drivers that keep the threat of the Pebble Mine alive and to meet the extraordinary people doing everything in their power to protect this special place.

 

To stay up to date on the latest from Pebble mine, visit SaveBristolBay.org and PebbleWatch.com

To stay up to date on Pebble particularly as it relates to McNeil River and the bears, visit: HelpMcNeilRiver.org

To see more of Drew’s photos, visit: DrewHH.com

Want to go see bears with Drew?! Check out: GoSeeBears.com

Check out a map of Cook Inlet here.

Music: paranoia XII by The F*cked Up Beat    • If Walls Could Talk by Jacob Bain & Nis Kotto    • Brand New World by Kai Engel    • Carried Away by Jason Tyler Burton    • She-Wolf In My Heart by Sergey Cheremisinov    • Spray Paint it Gold by Little Glass Men    • Equatorial Lies by Hayvanlar Alemi    • A Perceptible Shift by Andy G. Cohen    • Moontime by The IMG    • Global Warming by Kai Engel    • Rattlesnake by Fog Lake

Tracks provided by Free Music Archive and with permission from the artists

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5 Comments on “Endangered Spaces — Cook Inlet

  1.  by  Bonnie

    What a fascinating podcast! It really fleshed out my understanding of the Pebble Mine implications, and there’s potential for more types of disaster than I’d realized.
    I’m an east coast suburbanite who has only limited time in Alaska and know very little beyond the headlines on this stuff. But, after touring once with Brad and having being briefly introduced to Drew, I deeply respect their judgement on all things bear. I want nothing but the best for Alaska, in general, and for the bears, in particular, and hope that wisdom and sanity are somehow restored to DC before approvals are finalized.

  2.  by  Jason Rupp

    Great job Drew, both informative and entertaining at the same time! I still cant believe that the Pebble Mine zombie is still alive, but with enough teamwork and hard work we can hopefully keep it dead! And never in my entire life did I think I would ever hear you referred to as a pool shark! Long live the bears!

  3.  by  Keith andrews

    Amazing episode and information on Pebble mine. How did this episode come out exactly at the same time as a massive earthquake goes through Anchorage and takes out huge amounts of infrastructure?!

    I think it emphasizes the volatility of the area where the mine Wants to be,and the area wear they would be transporting the ore.

  4.  by  JoeRay Skrha

    I turned off Rachel to listen to the podcast on Grizzlies… Great program. Thank you …