Possibly any of us who are Alaskans and run riverboats could be Jim Wilde, the Central man the National Park Service took down in September and is now dragging through a trial in Fairbanks. I sat in a court room in Fairbanks for two days this past week watching the prosecution put on its side of the case, and I couldn't bear to stay to watch the 71-year-old Wilde testify. I'd seen and heard too much already.

I have friends in the Park Service. I generally like the people in the Park Service, and I'm a big fan of the idea behind the national park system in this country. But what I witnessed in Fairbanks made my blood run cold and started me to thinking. What I thought about is where I go to do what I do in the Alaska wilds, and one of the things I realized is that I don't go to the national parks in this state.

Actually, that's not quite true. I sometimes go to the national parks, but I can't recall a time in years when I've done that other than in the company of someone in the Park Service. It's like going to Ted Turner's 2-million-acre ranch with Ted Turner. It's a lot of fun, but you wouldn't go on your own because it's not your ranch.

All of which led me to another simple truth: I generally don't feel comfortable in Alaska's national parks because they are controlled by an occupying army. Alaskans are not visitors in the national parks. They are invaders. They are people who, as Ranger Joe Dallemolle testified in Fairbanks, must be brought into "compliance.'' I don't know how many times he repeated how he had to point a loaded shotgun at the head of a 71-year-old man to "gain compliance,'' but once was too many.

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