Mr. TAYLOR. But the former contractor did? Mr. HANSON. There has never been any boating to my knowledge in the park area. Sightseeing into the park by bus is the means of getting people into the park where they can view the wildlife and Mount McKinley. Mr. TAYLOR. You have no horses here either, then? Mr. HANSON. No horses. And our buses are in very deplorable condition. In fact, almost every trip when we send a bus out in the park, I met them at the door to ask how the trip was and did they get to see the mountain and so forth, and they used a few foul words; if it hadn't been for the blankety-blank bus they would have enjoyed the trip all right. Then I decided not to ask any more questions, smiled, and opened the door for them. Mr. O'BRIEN. Is there any demand or request from visitors for horseback riding? Mr. HANSON. Only 1 or 2 requests. Mr. O'BRIEN. That would be rather expensive to maintain, wouldn't it? Mr. HANSON. Yes, horses in this area would be very expensive to maintain. But our transportation system here is completely gone. I think if we had any complaint at all, we had some complaints, and it was almost entirely traced to the transportation system. Mr. TAYLOR. I wonder what would happen if you had, say, a half a dozen jeeps that might be rented to individual tourists when they come in here? Mr. HANSON. I would think it might be an idea, but because Alaska is still in the development stage the people coming from the States, we have found, are not enthusiastic about joining in the pioneering end of it. They would like to have a little more comfortable accommodations and facilities and equipment. Now the busses we have-we have, for instances, busses that are partially operating, and the one you rode up on from the train is the best one. That has cushion seats. The other one has hard seats. When you travel-most of the tourists we conduct into the park are conducted to a point named Mr. Eielson or Camp Eielson, 60 miles in the park, and if you traveled 120 miles on one of those busses over some of the mountain roads on those hard seats and a little cool weather, the attitude of the public when they come back is not too good even though they have seen the mount or even though they have seen the sheep. And let the weather be bad, lo and behold. can't recall the number of times that the equipment broke down, but more than a dozen times the busses would break down and the motors would burn out or the bearings would burn out, and the people would be stranded out in the park for some times 2 and 3, one time a little over 4 hours in cold weather without any heat or means of getting back, and they missed their train. I Mr. O'BRIEN. Do you think it would be desirable to add that in the figures? Mr. HANSON. That is included in there. Mr. JACOBS. $32,000 is in this $100,000. Mr. TAYLOR. Wasn't the average tourist quite surprised to find the commodious facilities that are here? Mr. HANSON. Yes, very much so. I would say they were very pleased, in my opinion, with the facilities, with our services, and 71498-56pt. 2-2 with the services of the hotel employees, and with the food as a whole. But their main complaint was the transportation into the park, and I don't blame them. Mr. ABBOTT. Were some of them a little disappointed to learn you can't see Mount McKinley from here? Mr. HANSON. Yes. Mr. ABBOTT You are not able to palm off the other mountain as McKinley? Mr HANSON. No. Mr. ABBOTT. Do you have any people who come in for mountain climbing purposes? Mr. JACOBS. We do. Of course, McKinley is the climb, and presently we are anticipating a climbing expedition from England. It, of course, is quite an undertaking. We do expect them in the latter part of this month. Mr. ABBOTT. But Mount McKinley has been scaled? Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I am sure the representatives of the National Park Service and Mr. Hanson would join with me in expressing the regret that Mr. Grant Person, the superintendent of the park, is at a superintendents' conference elsewhere and is not here to greet you, because you would find him a truly Alaskan—what should I say-character? Mr. JACOBS. Sourdough. Mr. BAITLETT. I think that properly applies. He is one of the people who climbed Mount McKinley. He is a delightful man and a very efficient superintendent. Mr. O'BPIEN. We regret he is not here, but I am sure the gentlemen who have spoken have been most informative. Mr. ABBOTT. One or two other points. Could you comment on your water situation here? Mr. JACOBS. It is bad. It is very bad, and we are trying to make temporary repairs to it. Mr. ABBOTT. Could you describe the source of supply and how you get it? Mr. JACOBS. It is a drainage and merely an open pond, earthfilled dam, and subject to everything. Mr. O'BRIEN. Mention having been made of the water supply, it of course raised in our minds the possibility of a very large additional expenditure. I think perhaps you should explain that. Mr. JACOBS. The present water supply intake is inadequate, and we are presently planning an underground type of intake which we hope will work. We believe it will. And if it does, it will be relatively inexpensive. We can probably do it out of money we can scrape together. However, that is only part of the picture. Our headquarters-it is proper to digress, I believe. Your whole utility system in Alaska is a very difficult one. It is my hope that you people could come to headquarters in the bus. It is only 2 miles. We are working on our system up there now. I would like to show you what it looks like and what we have to do to maintain water. That is true, of course, in the hotel area as well. We don't anticipate the line will need replacing other than the present system we are putting in now. It is necessary to lay steam lines where there are waterlines. You gentlemen may be familiar with that. And when you get a freezeup, something goes wrong-it is a winter operation and a critical one because, if allowed to go on, you are going to lose everything you have got. We have boilers. We fire them up and run the steam up and down. Your sewer lines are presently laid with the waterline, which, of course, is bad. That is the only way we are able to operate. In wintertime that is a daily operation when it is cold. If you go deep enough with the waterlines in permafrost it freezes up, so there is an arbitrary distance there. We go down about 4 feet. Mr. ABBOTT. How far is that water carried to the hotel from the storage source? Mr. HANSON. Approximately a mile. Mr. ABBOTT. How about your own facilities, your ranger housing? Mr. JACOBS. We are in pretty bad shape up there actually. We need a lot. Mr. ABBOTT. Could you describe it briefly? Mr. JACOBS. We need $100,000 for entire new facility system at McKinley Park. Mr. ABBOTT. Mr. Wirth over a period of months has touched on what is known as Mission 66, by which it is proposed-by designing a 10-year program to begin in 1956 on the 50th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service in 1966-to have brought up to standard, in anticipation of the great tourist facility increased usage, have brought up to a substantial desirable standard the facilities throughout the National Park System. We were advised before our departure from Washington it is hoped there may be transmitted in the form of either an omnibus bill or a series of Executive communications those things which would be included to accomplish Mission 66, which would require congressional legislation. Much of it lies within the budgetary and appropriations process. Has the development in Alaska, McKinley and the other areas, been included to your knowledge within that proposed program? Mr. JACOBS. We have ours in; yes, sir. Ours goes in. What we call a prospectus has been sent in, and it will be passed from committee to committee and come back to us, and the next step will be to work up estimates on this and that and get it in. Ours will be a part of the overall picture. Mr. ABBOTT. Have the several items you referred to this afternoon been included in that recommended development? sir. Mr. JACOBS. Not for the hotel, but for the headquarters area; yes, Mr. ABBOTT. I believe, Mr. Chairman, unless there are some other questions the members have or you people would particularly like to present, that is all I have. Mr. O'BRIEN. The hearing is adjourned. (Whereupon, at 2 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at the call of the Chair.) ALASKA, 1955 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1955 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRITORIAL AND INSULAR AFFAIRS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, Anchorage, Alaska. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a. m., in the public library, Hon. Leo W. O'Brien (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. O'BRIEN. The hearing will come to order. I would like to ask the indulgence of the committee, if I may, to make a brief statement at this point. I might say at the outset to the people from Anchorage that it is a great pleasure for me to spend what happens to be my birthday and 30th wedding anniversary in your fine city. My one regret is it is not my 30th birthday instead of wedding anniversary. One reason I desired to make a statement at this time is that a very charming and distinguished member of our committee, Congresswoman Green, of Oregon, will be leaving us this afternoon to return home for a very pressing reason, her son is to be married on Saturday. Some other members of the committee who are not with us now will be joining us later. Congressman Sisk, of California, is coming and possibly Congressman Chenoweth, of Colorado. The reason I wanted to make this statement is that I saw in a newspaper along the line several days ago a short editorial expressing the hope that the members of this committee had come to Alaska to search out the problems of Alaska to do something about them and not as tourists. I know that the tourist business is very important to Alaska, but I can assure you outside of the thousands of miles we have covered we have not been tourists. We have tried to work very hard. We have been in Alaska 1 week today. We visited Fairbanks, Nome, Point Barrow, McKinley Park, Anchorage, and other places. We have had many hours of public hearings. In fact, we even had a public hearing yesterday on the train from Fairbanks to McKinley Park, and our official reporter has hardly recovered yet from the task of hitting those keys along the way. Some of our members are ardent fishermen or hunters. They have not had the opportunity to fish or hunt, in fact very little opportunity to do any shopping. I must confess for those who look upon these trips as junkets that we have had some fun. We had a couple of rounds of ping-pong at Nome and a couple of rubbers of bridge. I would like to say to the people of Alaska that I would resent very deeply if any committee of Congress had the power over the affairs of my State which this committee has over your State. I assure you we did not seek that power. It was delegated to us. It was a responsi |