Remembering Dan Evans, Conservationist-in-Chief

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz was leaning on President Gerald Ford to veto legislation creating a 393,000-acre Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the “land of 600 lakes” between Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes.  

Enter three-term G.O.P. Gov. Dan Evans of Washington, given a ten minute Oval Office audience. Evans borrowed a friend’s Mountaineers photo/essay book. He told Ford about taking his boys over Asgard Pass into the Enchantment Lakes in the midst of a storm.

The meeting stretched to 45 minutes, and a converted President Ford signed the legislation. The Alpine Lakes, a half century later, have become vastly popular and an advertisement for living here. A lottery determines who gets to visit the Enchantments.

Nor was Evans finished. The governor’s last year saw Shi Shi Beach and Point of Arches added to Olympic National Park, and creation of a Skagit Eagle Sanctuary, protecting one of the nation’s largest winter concentrations of its national symbol.

Later, in the U,S. Senate, Evans would craft a million/acre Washington Wilderness bill plus legislation creating a Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. When more than 90 percent of Olympic Park was given wilderness designation, the wilderness was named for Evans. In his 90’s, Evans managed a vigorous hike en route to the dedication ceremony.

Dan Evans, who died this week at 98, had music in his soul. He was a lifelong Republican, part of a now critically endangered species of conservation-minded members of the Grand Old Party. Nowadays, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference has panels debunking Theodore Roosevelt.  

Evans came by his love of mountains and wild places as a Boy Scout, hiking out of Scouts’ Camp Parsons on Hood Canal. He would deliver one line over and over: Once wilderness is penetrated by development, it is forever lost. Hence, it is best to be generous with protection.  

He became governor just as societal values were changing, with a public realizing how exploiters were despoiling the Evergreen State. A full page picture of Bellingham’s polluting pulp mill graced Life magazine’s first cover issue on the despoiling of America.

Evans was not of the keep-everybody-out-but-us species of environmentalists. He wanted folks to visit protected places, agitating in recent times to reopen the flood-damaged road up the Stehekin Valley into the North Cascades National Park.

He helped create that national park with a timely intervention in closing days of the Lyndon Johnson administration. An engineer by training and temperament, impatient with jargon and posturing, he sensed what levers to pull and when. The “timber beasts” were not the enemy but fellow Republicans to be reasoned with.

In retirement, Evans and former Senate campaign rival Mike Lowry midwifed the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, identifying endangered places and getting money to protect them. Numerous blue herons in the Puget Sound area owe life to this effort.

Evans kept hiking, delighting in taking rebuilt knees on a vigorous trek up to Talapus Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. He went skinny dipping upon reaching the lake.

It was always so with Evans. My mother went on a backpack trip with Evans along the route of the North Cascades Highway, then under construction. Evans, then governor, would be up early, doing the grunt work in camp, packing up portable latrines. 

Much later, I drove up to the “magic Skagit” for dedication of the eagle sanctuary. A caravan of vans arrived, carrying State Land Commissioner Bert Cole (a Democrat) and executives from Crown Zellerbach, intent on claiming credit after making a minimal contribution.  

Evans looked to a few people, and gave orders with his eyes. He led up away from the parking area, over cow pies and into wetlands to watch the eagles. That trek was muddy but wonderful. If you want to appreciate Dan Evans’ contributions, hit a trail or walk a beach and just look around.