The Real ANWR

A Canadian mining corporation, Northern Dynasty Minerals, is trying to create one of North America's largest open pit gold and copper mines in the heart of Alaska's Bristol Bay - a wonderland of fish-filled lakes, rivers and streams - home to some of the last great wild salmon runs and rainbow trout.

Most Americans who keep up on the news are familiar with the fight over drilling for oil exploration in the ANWR preserve but the real threat to Alaska's fishing and hunting ecological systems is not ANWR, but rather the proposed development of an open pit mining district at the headwaters of the two most famous salmon producing river drainages in Alaska.