Jason Taylor (Photo courtesy of National Parks Service)
The superintendent of Klondike Goldrush National Historical Park is leaving Skagway this month.
Jason Taylor will serve as the new director for the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute in Missoula, Montana. He explained that the collaborative scientific body studies issues related to wilderness management.
“This institute serves the Forest Service, the National Parks Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Taylor says. “The Leopold Institute’s reason for existing is to do science and to make that research available to those resource managers.”
Taylor became the Superintendent of Klondike Goldrush National Historical Park in February of 2019. He first came to Alaska in 2011 and has worked in a variety of natural research and wilderness management positions.
He says his time in Skagway will be valuable in his new position because it helped him understand what kind of data is useful to natural resource managers. At the same time, he and his family are sad to leave the state.
“To be entirely honest, I don’t think it will ever leave,” Taylor says. “It will always be inside of us and we’ll probably always compare everywhere we go to Alaska, and everywhere will fall a little bit short.”
Taylor’s last day as superintendent was Friday. Angela Wetz, will take his place in August. She’s the current superintendent at Fossil Butte National Monument in Wyoming. She will serve as the acting Klondike Goldrush National Historical Park superintendent for up to a year until a permanent replacement is found.
