Two on the Alaskan Coast
Chapter 2, The Making of Inspiration Ridge Preserve
Inspiration Ridge Preserve encompasses two wildlife corridors connecting developed areas in Homer, Alaska to critical wildlife habitat. Ed Bailey and Nina Faust conserved this land in an effort to alleviate development pressure that would have cut wildlife off from critical habitat. This is the story of Inspiration Ridge Preserve.
Margaret (Mardy) Murie’s autobiography Two in the Far North provides a glimpse into her life with wildlife biologist Olaus Murie as they tracked caribou herds through remote Alaskan tundra. They often traveled by dogsled for months at a time, living in canvas tents and sharing their “front yard” with the wide array of wildlife they were studying and documenting as a part of a Federal wildlife study.
If you trade out the dogsleds for a 16-foot rubber boat and the tundra for the coastlines of the Alaska Peninsula, you can start to paint a picture of what Nina Faust and Edgar Bailey’s life was like in the early 1970s.
A still frame from Nina Faust’s film Making of a Refuge shows Nina and Ed sitting on the small skiff they used to survey the Alaska Peninsula coastline.
Ed’s work as a biologist required extensive fieldwork in the summer to help plan the conservation boundaries of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. As a high school English and math teacher, Nina used her “summer break” to volunteer alongside Ed. Together, they conducted wildlife surveys along the entire Alaska Peninsula coastline to help plan the future footprint of the Refuge.
A reflection on Ed’s life and work published in Homer News details what these excursions were like:
Trips were solo — just Ed and Nina — most of the time. They travelled along treacherous wilderness coastlines and offshore islands carrying all their food and supplies for up to a month in a 16-foot rubber inflatable boat. Their only way to contact the outside world then was an ELT (Emergency Locator Beacon)…. Each summer after the refuge field season, they floated remote rivers all over Alaska, including some of the largest and best known glacial rivers.
In Nina’s description of her film, Making of a Refuge, she notes that “today, USFWS does not let personnel do surveys in this fashion as it is considered too dangerous.”
A still frame from Nina Faust’s film Making of a Refuge shows Ed and two coworkers en route to survey the Islands of Four Mountains.
Despite the hazards inherent in their fieldwork, their surveys helped inform the final boundary and priorities of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and Ed went on to be the Refuge’s first staff biologist. Ed and Nina’s summer voyages transitioned to annual island biodiversity restoration projects, including trips to the remote Shumagin and Aleutian Islands, until Ed retired in 1995.
A still frame from Nina Faust’s film Making of a Refuge shows Nina enjoying her summer home in the field.
Retirement was just a word to Ed and Nina, and they didn’t let it get in the way of their life’s work championing wildlife habitat and watershed protection throughout the Alaskan coastline.
Ed and Nina co-founded Kachemak Crane Watch, a citizen science effort in Kachemak Bay contributing to a national database that helps track and understand sandhill cranes.
Sandhill cranes fly over Inspiration Ridge Preserve in front of a rainbow. Photograph by Nina Faust.
Simultaneously, they were warily watching as development expanded at a rapid pace in the Homer area. Ed and Nina feared these plans were not taking into account wildlife or watershed health. They attended development planning meetings to voice their concerns, but their voices didn’t feel loud enough for the wildlife and waters they loved. And so–in true Ed and Nina form–they rolled up their sleeves and set out to save watersheds and wildlife habitat in any way they could.
Still frames from Nina Faust’s film Making of a Refuge show Nina and Ed traveling through the Alaska Peninsula alongside fellow researchers to help survey wildlife and determine future refuge boundaries.