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WRANGELL-ST. ELIAS NATIONAL PARK, Alaska, Sept. 28 — Psalms sat on Papa Pilgrim’s right knee and Lamb perched on his left. Thirteen more of his children - all of them with names from the Bible, several of them packing pistols - crowded around. So did his exhausted-looking wife, Country Rose. It was a late summer’s evening in Hillbilly Heaven, a 410-acre ranch in the high country of eastern Alaska. Papa was talking about the abuses heaped upon his family by the National Park Service. His children and wife listened in worshipful silence. No one dared eat. Pilgrim, 62, whose legal name is Robert Allan Hale and whose past in the U.S. Southwest is as fairy-tale strange as his present in the Alaskan outback, explained how it came to pass last winter that he drove a bulldozer 14 miles across the national park that encircles his land. The Lord, Pilgrim said, told him that clearing a derelict mining road through the park was a loving thing to do. “In order for me to love my children, I have to be a provider,” Pilgrim said. “With great reluctance, I took the bulldozer and used the road. I had no idea what was in store.” Pilgrim’s passage on the Caterpillar D4 has resulted in an edgy standoff between his well-armed family and the federal government. The National Park Service has shut down the bulldozed road to his property, dispatched armed rangers to assess park damage and is pursuing criminal and civil cases against him and members of his family. The brouhaha over the bulldozer — a drama still unfolding inside the largest U.S. park — has made the Pilgrims actors in a national dispute over private access to federal land. National environmental groups are demanding that the Park Service prosecute the Pilgrims to the fullest extent of the law, while land-rights activists have embraced them as heroic victims of overzealous federal bureaucrats. Later this year, the Park Service will ask the U.S. attorney in Alaska to start civil proceedings against the Pilgrims. Cande
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