On Part 1, Bill Patton talks about his personal background and how he came to work in Alaska, his first summer of field work in northern Alaska, the nature of geological work related to oil exploration and how he got interested in geology, the Brooks Range traverse expedition in 1951, caching gas and using weasels on the 1951 expedition traversing the Brooks Range, interaction with Native people in northern Alaska, locations where he did field work, contact with Natives at Anaktuvuk Pass and experiences with Barrow, continuation of the 1951 traverse expedition and other parties that did similar routes before him, other field work he did, use of helicopters in geological field expeditions, changes in fieldwork methods from boats to weasels to helicopters, the joys and hardships of geologic fieldwork expeditions in the Arctic and the type of clothing worn, and some of his research work in other parts of Alaska and Russia.

On Part 2, Bill Patton talks about the geological connections between Alaska, Russia, and the Canadian Rockies and the organization of the Navy oil unit, his graduate work at Stanford University researching rock formations in the Brooks Range and Canada, his years of doing summer fieldwork and the involvement of his family, using airplanes and helicopters to support fieldwork and nearly crashing in a helicopter, how to emergency land a helicopter and bear encounters during fieldwork, radio contact they had during fieldwork, the use of a new type of tracked vehicle, working with Natives on St. Lawrence Island, radio contact during fieldwork in the southern Brooks Range, being in the field during the 1967 Fairbanks flood, effects of the Gates of the Arctic National Park on geological work, first taking women geologists into the field, geological work near Wild Lake and in the Koyukok Basin related to oil exploration, industry interest in and exploration for oil and minerals in the Brooks Range and the impact of the Gates of the Arctic National Park, and the purpose of his research and use of his geologic maps for oil exploration.