Date: November 6, 2015
Contact: Amy
Craver, 907-683-9544
Florence Rucker Collins, 94, an important contributor to Denali
National Park and Preserve’s long history of scientific research
and a charter member of the Denali Subsistence Resource Council
(SRC), died Wednesday morning at the Fairbanks Pioneer Home.
“Alaskans and Denali National Park and Preserve have lost a great
friend,” said Amy Craver, Cultural Resources and Subsistence
Program Manager at Denali National Park and Preserve, “Florence
was a researcher, and an advocate for subsistence. She led
Denali’s SRC for over 20 years.”
According to Craver, as chair of the SRC since its inception in
1984 Collins first offered her help and wisdom to park staff in
response to the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
Act (ANILCA). Collins was an invaluable asset to the park; she
helped park staff develop policies to address issues such as
access, customary and traditional determination, seasonal harvest
limits, eligibility requirements for subsistence activities, cabin
use, needed research, and how to reduce or avoid user conflicts.
In 2007 the National Park Service (NPS) presented Collins with the
NPS Summit Award for Lifetime Achievement in recognition of her
two decades of leadership on the Denali SRC, her contributions to
the park’s subsistence program and her conservation voice
throughout Alaska’s interior.
Collins, a geologist and aviator, was a strong advocate of the
provisions for subsistence in ANILCA that ensure subsistence
activities continue to be available to rural residents.
“She was a champion for promoting cooperation between subsistence
users and Denali National Park and Preserve,” said Craver.
“Florence's life of adventure, public service and leadership
inspires the belief that one woman's life can be exemplary in many
ways,” wrote Molly McKinley, Outdoor Recreation Planner, on the
Denali National Park and Preserve website at
nps.gov/articles/akwomen-florence-collins.
Collins first came to Alaska as a visitor in 1948 and returned in
1949 as a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Fairbanks.
A pilot since the World War II years, she joined a distinguished
group of Fairbanks women pilots and studied vegetated sand dunes
northeast of Lake Minchumina, a community with a large landing
strip located near the northwest corner of Denali National Park
and Preserve. In 1985 she published a scholarly article on the
vegetated sand dunes of the area.
She and her late husband, Dick Collins, built a home at Lake
Minchumina and raised three children, including "Trapline Twins"
Miki and Julie Collins.
With her breadth of experience and conservation ethic, she was an
important conservation voice throughout Alaska’s interior.