A Brooks Range hunting guide wants a permanent camp in the wild

A Brooks Range hunting guide wants to put down permanent roots in one of the most remote corners of Alaska — and the state is deciding whether to let him.

Rudy "John" Martinez, who runs Northern Sky Expeditions, has asked to build a small fixed camp at the confluence of Your Creek and the Middle Fork Chandalar River, about 24 miles from Chandalar Lake in the Eastern Brooks Range.

He's asking to swap out the portable-camp rule his current permit runs under — which forces a camp to pick up and move every two weeks — for a modest permanent setup: a skid-mounted cabin, a tent platform, and a pit privy, in place from May through October.

Northern Sky flies clients into the Brooks Range by Super Cub, then backpacks them into remote side drainages on foot to hunt Dall sheep, caribou, grizzly, and wolf. A guide operating there hauls in everything, and a fixed base camp instead of a tent that has to move every 14 days is the difference between a stable operation and starting over each fortnight in the wilderness.

That's also why the state doesn't just wave it through.

Fixed structures on remote public land in prime sheep and caribou country get scrutiny — for their footprint, for fairness to other users of the same drainages, and for what a permanent installation means in a place valued precisely for its lack of infrastructure.