First of all, let me make it plain to everyone. All navigatiable waters in Alaska belong to the state of Alaska. The Yuikon River belongs to the State of Alaska. The Federal Governments authority ends at the high water mark on the river bank. The only authority they have is patroling the river for people sneaking across the border from Canada. On that one issue they have authority. But the Border is a long ways upstream, not down in the Yukn/Charley area.
As for boat safty inspections, the state does not bother on rivers. Life Jackets, everyone carries and uses them. Fire Extinguisher, Few people mess with them. They get lost, set off by mistake, or just plain forgotten. Every two or three years I will throw one in my big boat, then it will disappear. No big deal, I'll get another one someday, no one worries about it when all we are running is small outboards. Boat registration, again state does not enforce it on rivers, why are the Feds looking to enforce a state issue. Normally the Feds could care less about state issues. Boat registration is something new, the folks that live in town usually get their boats registered, because they get checked when the boat is sitting in their driveway or at the local boat ramps around town by city cops. The folks out in the bush don't have anywhere to register their boats without coming into town, and the State Troopers look the other way. Some of those older folks may go two, three, or more years without coming into town. Plus living in the bush, they probably never even heard of registering their boats. I own seven boats, and have not bothered to register any of them. Not going to either.
Got this from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner.
National Park Service rangers arrest 70-year-old Central man
by Tim Mowry / tmowry@newsminer.com
FAIRBANKS — National Park Service rangers arrested a 70-year-old Central man last week on the Yukon River in an incident that has U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski calling for a “full review” of what happened.
In a letter to National Park Service director Jonathon Jarvis, Murkowski asked for an explanation as to why Jim Wilde, a longtime resident of Central, was stopped and arrested following what park service officials said began as a routine safety inspection.
Wilde was arrested by enforcement rangers on Thursday on the bank of the Yukon River in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. He spent three days at Fairbanks Correctional Center before he was arraigned in federal court and released on his own recognizance on Monday. Wilde plead not guilty and a trial is set for Nov. 30.
Wilde is charged with four misdemeanors — interfering with agency function; violating a lawful order; disorderly conduct; and operating an unregistered boat. Each is punishable by six months in jail, a $5,000 fine, or both.
Wilde’s attorney, Bill Satterberg, called the arrest the result of “badge-heavy park rangers.”
Satterberg described Wilde as “a classic, old, crusty Alaskan” who will have his day in court.
According to the charges filed by assistant U.S. attorney Stephen Cooper in federal court in Fairbanks, Wilde threatened, resisted, intimidated and intentionally interfered with a park ranger during an official duty; fled when he was ordered to halt; and recklessly created “a risk of public nuisance and violence by engaging in threatening and violent behavior in the form of maneuvering his boat toward the path of a law enforcement vessel, and in other ways.”
Cooper would not elaborate on any details of the case, saying he was “strictly limited to the public record.”
Reached at his home in Central on Tuesday morning, Wilde declined to comment publicly on the case and referred all questions to Satterberg.
According to Satterberg, two park rangers flagged Wilde down as he, his 73-year-old wife, Hannelore, and friend Fred Shank were boating up the Yukon River near Woodchopper Creek, downriver from Eagle, while hunting Thursday. The rangers wanted to board Wilde’s boat to perform a safety inspection, Satterberg said. Wilde told the rangers it was unsafe to board his boat in the middle of the river and said he would go ashore, according to the attorney.
“Nobody boards each other on the Yukon River,” Satterberg said.
As Wilde motored to shore, the park rangers followed him. One of the park rangers had a shotgun pointed at Wilde as he headed toward shore, Satterberg said.
After reaching shore, Wilde was anchoring his boat when “the next thing you know he was knocked to the ground,” Satterberg said. “They roughed him up a little bit by rolling him around in the mud.”
One of the park rangers then drove Wilde’s boat and the two passengers to a park service cabin about five miles away where they stayed until Saturday when a friend picked them up.
Wilde was transported to Eagle on Thursday and then to Fairbanks Correctional Center on Friday.
Murkowski issued a news release late Tuesday afternoon calling the circumstances of the arrest “questionable” and the behavior of the arresting officers as “provocative.”
“The initial reports I’ve received indicate that Park Service personnel overreacted in this case,” said Murkowski, who is involved in a campaign to keep her seat in the Nov. 2 election. “This incident calls for a full review of exactly what happened.”
National Park Service spokesman John Quinley declined to discuss any details about the incident and said the charges against Wilde “stemmed from what began as routine contact with a boater on the Yukon River.”
Quinley said the park service annually conducts more than 100 such inspections in the preserve.
“The kinds of things we’re looking at are life preservers, fire extinguishers, boat registration, hunting licenses and tags if it’s hunting season,” he said.
As far as Murkowski’s request for a review of the incident, Quinley said “that’s between the director of the park service and Sen. Murkowski.”
“The park service will respond to her letter but what it says and when it’s said will be up to the director,” Quinley said.
