An Act relating to use of a snow machine within the James Dalton Highway corridor to establish, maintain, and service traplines located outside the corridor.

Senate Bill 391 would allow trappers to use snow machines within the five mile corridor to access their traplines. Currently, Alaska Statute 19.40.210 bans, with limited exceptions, the use of off-road vehicles within five miles of the right-of-way of the Dalton Highway starting at mile 57 - the Yukon River crossing - and extending 357 miles north to the Arctic Ocean.

The fact is, the state has not actively enforced this statutory ban. Nevertheless, this has not stopped the federal government from co-opting the state law. Using the Alaska statute cited above, the Bureau of Land Management is closing long existing trap lines and threatening to tear down cabins unless the trappers resort to non-motorized access.

Senate Bill 391 seeks to remedy this situation by allowing for the use of snow machines within the corridor for the express purpose of establishing, maintaining, or servicing a trapline located outside the corridor. To the extent that trapping is a seasonal activity, each trapline needs to be re-established on an annual basis. However, it is the sponsor's intent to provide a measure of relief to those trappers who have been operating in the area over the last several years.

# # #

14 Viewer(s)