When he started walking north from Yellowstone National Park in June 1998, Karsten Heuer wanted to move like a predator. He wanted to see the country as a grizzly or a wolf might see it -- far-ranging wolves and grizzlies. Heuer's goal was Yukon Territory, 2,200 miles north along the high mountainous spine of North America.
His purpose was adventure -- the challenge of trekking for a year through one of the world's great mountain ecosystems. He was also on a mission.
Heuer, 30, is a Canadian park ranger and wildlife biologist. He was inspired by the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Initiative (Y2Y, not to be confused with Y2K), an ambitious scheme to protect the integrity of wildlife habitat in the northern Rocky Mountains by linking the region's existing parks and wilderness areas into one cohesive whole.
Breathtaking in scope, the scheme involves 460,000 square miles from central Wyoming to central Yukon. It includes 11 national parks along with millions of acres of designated wilderness and public forest.
Existing protected areas would seem ample for wildlife until you realize how isolated they are from each other by roads, clear-cuts, mines, subdivisions and agricultural land. The pace of change is accelerating, with human population expected to double in 30 years. Even large parks like Yellowstone and Banff are in danger of becoming islands in a sea of human impact -- islands on which land animals become marooned and face eventual extinction through a lack of genetic mixing.
Y2Y would prevent that by maintaining -- and in some cases restoring -- natural travel corridors and buffer zones.
"Y2Y appealed to me," Heuer says. "I wondered if it was possible. What barriers existed? Were there animals moving now? What did local people think of it?"
He knew from his own research that animals like wolves and grizzlies travel long distances, sometimes hundreds of miles. So he decided to walk like a predator.
He planned his trek along paths a large animal might use. Often that meant following game trails through the most remote and rugged places in the region. The first summer, he hiked through western Montana and up the border between Alberta and British Columbia to Jasper National Park. In October, he stopped for the winter, but spent weeks placing food caches for the next leg. In mid-March, he was on the trail again, this time on skis. He switched to a canoe for part of the distance, and finally finished on foot, 15 months after he started.
It was true wilderness immersion. He swam rivers, encountered grizzly bears and wolverines, weathered ferocious storms, struggled through miles of dense vegetation and walked top-of-the-world ridgelines, accompanied much of the way by his border collie Webster and hiking partner Leanne Allison. There were times of excitement and exhilaration, but the high point, he says, was "the feeling of inner peace, of feeling wild again, connected with nature."
Frequently, he would emerge from the wilderness, meet a support van driven by his sister Erica, put on a clean shirt and give slide lectures about Y2Y at schools and community centers. Local reactions were mixed, as might be expected where economies are heavily dependent on resource extraction. Yet his message was less radical than some feared. Y2Y, he repeated over and over, is an attempt to manage for coexistence.
"We're not talking about a need for huge restoration," he says. "It's about learning what the existing system needs to continue."
The concept allows logging, hunting, mining and other human uses as long as they are coordinated with the needs of wildlife. "I think many people already see the sense in this idea," he says.
Supporters of Y2Y face an uphill fight. To be successful, the idea must gain support from a dizzying array of people and administrative entities including two countries, five states, two provinces, two territories and any number of smaller organizations, all the way down to individuals.
Heuer looks at it the way he viewed his great hike: one step at a time. "When I left Yellowstone, I was thinking of the next food cache, not the Yukon," he says. "That kept me from being overwhelmed by the scope of what I was doing."
So, too, with Y2Y. "It might take a long time," Heuer admits. "Even if it's a huge idea, it's important that we get started on it."
For more information: Yellowstone-2-Yukon, Studio B, 710 9th St., Canmore, Alberta, Canada T1W 2V7; 403-609-2666; www.rockies.ca/Y2Y.