Alaska's map displays Hickok's legacy

"Dave played a very important part in laying the base for the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act," said Vic Fischer, one of the last surviving writers of the Alaska State Constitution. "He had a very objective approach to issues of resources and the environment. He was a policy person. And he based those policies on sound science and facts."

As a wildlife biologist, Hickok worked many years in Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managing wildlife refuges from Maine to Montana and weaving his way in and out of bureaucracy and the halls of Congress. He blended rigorous science with clear communication to achieve the best political policies.

After the 1964 Earthquake, Hickok was sent to Alaska as part of a top team of scientists and public policy experts to serve on the Federal Field Committee, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson. The team produced the massive, classic study, "Alaska Natives and the Land," which became the "analytic foundation" as Fischer said, for land settlements to come.

Walt Parker, a colleague from those committee days, said, "Dave had a tremendous talent for transferring knowledge between cultures. He got to know Native leaders very well and they respected him. His lasting legacy? The map of Alaska as it is now."

In 1970-75, Hickok directed the Alaska Sea Grant Program. In 1972, he created an innovative scientific research institute formally known as The University of Alaska Fairbanks' Arctic Environmental Information and Data Center (AEIDC)-- "if you can say it," joked one radio disc-jockey, "they'll give you a job."

With a team of scientists of every hue, graphic artists, mapmakers, librarians, and communication specialists, Hickok studied Alaska's resource problems from an interdisciplinary perspective and presented material to the public (and those creating policy) in beautifully created atlases, films, books, maps, comprehensive databases, library resources, seminars, reports and radio programs. His six Alaska Regional Atlases, coordinated by friend and colleague Lydia Selkregg, was AEIDC's first landmark project.

While Dave attracted the crème de la crème of scientists in Alaska, he gave jobs to a whole cadre of young people and thrust them into leadership roles. Dave hired dozens of us "youngsters," now in our 50s and 60s, and gave us opportunities of a lifetime. Here are a few of the far-flung alumni:

• Doug McConnell, an award-winning television producer and host in San Francisco, said, "Dave was profoundly human and yet larger than life ... in a sense he let me loose and gave me the keys to the car. We pioneered radio and television storytelling about science and the environment in Alaska and learned a lot through trial and error. It's fair to say, I loved him."

• Jill Fredston walked into Dave's office, unannounced, straight out of graduate school. Dave created a position for snow and ice right then and made her director of the new Alaska Avalanche Forecast Center. She didn't know beans about avalanches. She has gone on to become one of the leading experts and written two popular books on the subject. "Dave picked people first and then allowed them to grow into their jobs," she wrote.

The amazing part about Dave was that he believed in us. If we occasionally careened off-course, he fought for us and took the flak. I know I can speak for my "young" colleagues -- we felt lucky for the opportunities.

In high school, Dave was a champion gymnast. At 16, he fell and broke his back. He spent the next 70 years in varying degrees of pain, walking with a limp and often with a cane. He was also of Scottish ancestry. And so, to the Old Scot, I lift "a wee dram." Wherever you are, we hope you are running up mountains and doing triple somersault dismounts! You deserve it all. Thank you for a life ferociously and generously lived.

Nan Elliot is a writer and filmmaker. She is shortly off to Antarctica, which Dave Hickok would love.