Some resources can be moved from point to point by truck, train, boat or plane. But these options were impossible for the North Slope oil discovered above the Arctic Circle, hundreds of miles from the Alaskan road system in one of the world's harshest weather zones.
In 1966 Walter J. Hickel, a millionaire real estate developer and entrepreneur, ran for governor of Alaska on the Republican ticket. Much to everyone's surprise, he won by a narrow margin of 80 votes.
Between 1902 and 1926 the federal government had set aside 54 million acres as national parks and wildlife refuges. All the rest was potentially subject to Native title. However, Congress had never made any treaties with Alaska Natives.
When the original engineers sat down to design the pipeline, federal geologists and environmentalists noted that unique obstacles, including permafrost and earthquakes, would challenge the idea that the pipeline.
With 75% of the 800-mile pipeline passing through permafrost terrain, the engineers came up with three principal redesign plans to fit the needs of each particular area.
There were only two police officers patrolling Fairbanks when the Trans-Alaskan pipeline project arrived on the scene. J. B. Carnahan was one of them. Then, almost overnight, the sleepy town of Fairbanks became a boomtown.
Different conservation groups had different objectives, but the 800-mile Trans-Alaska pipeline project rallied the environmental community in a way no other project had done before.
