On August 13, 1977, Cynthia Dusel-Bacon was working for her third summer as a geologist for the Alaskan branch of the United States Geological Survey. She was 30 years old and in excellent physical condition. She was field mapping, doing helicopter-assisted traverses of the Big Delta quadrangle. She had a geologist’s hammer, a walkie-talkie radio, and a rucksack with lunch, which she also used to stow rock samples she collected. The project chief believed “guns added more danger to an encounter than they would prevent”. Her views became policy on the project.Cynthia later said, in a taped interview for Larry...