2019 Arctic Heart Expedition: Part Four

Life & Death

A caribou taken during a spring hunt in the Brooks Range.

Robert Thompson hauls two caribou behind a snowmachine.

Jaw bones from a Bowhead Whale on the coast of the Beaufort Sea.

On our first morning in the Arctic, Charly wakes me up early. He leans in the door of my room in his long johns and non-chalantly asks “Wanna see a polar bear?” F@$% yes, I do.

From the kitchen window he points to a cream colored dot moving across the sea ice at the edge of town. I throw on winter clothes, grab a camera with a long lens, and head outside. I have gone from fast asleep to absolutely wide awake in seconds. Seeing a polar bear has been a dream since I was small. From a snow bank on the edge of town I spot the bear laying near the tall wooden snow fence that slows the wind from the east. I snap several frames, wonder about moving closer for a better shot. But before I can fold the legs on the tripod, a snowmobile approaches the bear. Polar Bear Patrol. They are tasked with keeping bears away from town, trying to prevent the increasing likelihood of negative interactions between people and bears as deteriorating sea ice conditions push more of these arctic giants onto land.

Patrol fires a bean bag that startles the bear. He rises and initially starts towards where I’m standing. My right hand goes automatically to the handle of the pistol on my belt, my fingers brushing the grip just to check that it’s there. The other keeps training the camera on the moving bear. The patrol member pursues the bear on a snowmachine, turning him out and away from town toward the barrier islands that separate Kaktovik’s lagoons from the open ocean. The bear disappears beyond the gravel bar into the jumbled, broken ice of the Beaufort Sea. I’m elated.

Day two in the Arctic and I’ve seen a polar bear. Albeit at a large distance. But I got a quick glimpse and somewhere at the end of those tracks is a bear. That’s a place to start. This simple sighting, a relatively common occurrence for those who live here, is the fulfillment of a childhood dream for me. A polar bear in the wild. Among other tasks that day we find time to walk out on the ice, find tracks before they drift in, fresh scat. I take bearings and triangulate a position on my map.

Polar bear tracks in the snow near Kaktovik, Alaska.

The next morning I wake on my own. 4:45 am. I dress and head outside; start walking toward where I can pick up tracks from the day before. Before I even get to the mark on my map, I cut a fresh line of paw prints in the snow. Even with a dusting of new flakes and a breeze they haven’t drifted in. These are fresh, less than an hour old by my guess. I follow them back across the sea ice, back to the corner of town. They lead between two buildings and up to the front steps of a small house. And there in the front yard is a man skinning a polar bear. My heart drops.

I try to hide the disappointment on my face. I say hello and ask if I can join him for a little while.

George is gracious and invites me to touch the bear, to watch what he’s doing. I pull off my mittens and kneel in the snow. The bear is still warm, his ears impossibly soft between my fingers. I roll back his thick rubber lips, slide my fingers over his teeth, smell the last fading whisper of his breath. I am trying not to cry.

George is working with a traditional ulu, turning the thick, dark hide back and away from the flesh. Knuckling out the massive paws to keep the huge arching claws attached to the skin. Carefully parsing the tissue that holds the ears to the skull. His wife, Reeanin (this may be a misspelling of her name, if it is I apologize) joins him, working side by side in the early, warm light of the morning. I ask if I can take photos and they both say okay.

They roll the bear to it’s side, slide the knife along the bone and separate the hip at the joint. It’s a young male—three, maybe four years old, and a little more than 8 feet long. While they work George tells me that this bear has been spending more and more time in Kaktovik, particularly here in his yard where town meets the sea. Reeanin tells about the dog it mauled a few weeks ago that miraculously survived after being flown out to the vet. George talks about stepping out to walk their daughters to school and being surprised by the bear laying in their yard when they rounded the corner of the house. This morning, the bear coming up his front steps—exploring the door of their home—is the last straw. He opened the kitchen window and shot it at close range, knocking it down. I realize his gunshot is likely what woke me up.

I can tell he’s choosing his words and stories carefully, gauging my response. He’s waiting now to see how I’ll react. I tell him I understand; tell him honestly that I would do the exact same thing. I try to imagine what it means to be have a bear at the door with small children in the house. I lift the edge of my parka and show him the Smith & Wesson .44 loaded with high-grain hard-cast rounds that I’m carrying in case something exactly like this happens to me. He seems relieved that I’m not upset with him.

George has a right to take a bear if he wants to, and not just in self defense. Provisions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the law that governs the hunting of polar bears, allow for harvest by Alaskan Coastal Natives. But George makes a point to say that this wasn’t hunting. This was done out of necessity. A bear that’s too comfortable around people is dangerous. George and Reeanin have little kids. Something had to be done.

I agree with all this, but there is still grief resting like a stone in the pit of my stomach. A graceful, wild light has been put out. I understand that this is the way of things here. The Arctic is a place where life and death are always walking side by side—wherever you find one, the other is close at hand. This is true in many wild places, but even more so in the far north where human interference has not blunted the knife edge on which survival balances. From top to bottom the food chain is intact; a powerful, beautiful magic that is still often bloody and brutal to observe. And people, though dominant here as they are everywhere around the globe, are not as far removed from that chain as they are in lots of the modern world. Subsistence hunting is a very real part of life in this place and big predators are sometimes taken in legitimate acts of self defense. I know this. But I still can’t set aside a feeling of loss.

I snap a few more photos, thank them for their time, and spend the next half hour walking around town alone. I’ve just taken what will be, to me anyway, the most striking images of my trip, but they’re of something I never wanted to see. What do you do with that? I’m both disappointed in the outcome and humbled to have been there to see it. As a photographer I’m sad to know that the bear I was tracking—along with the chance to get more photos of him alive—is gone, but relieved as a person that no one has been hurt. I’m still trying to sort out exactly how I feel about all of it.

But here’s what I know to be true: polar bears aren’t declining on the Beaufort Sea because George had to shoot one at his door. Polar bears are declining on the Beaufort Sea because millions of people in the United States drive SUVs to soccer practice. That’s obviously a vast over simplification, but you get the point.

It would be easy to blame George, instead—to blame other coastal natives who have harvested polar bear, sometimes in self defense, sometimes as part of a hunting tradition that dates back to the earliest human inhabitants of this continent. I’ve been reluctant to share this set of images for exactly that reason—struggled with how to go about telling a story that is only partly mine because I see how easily it could be misused, misinterpreted. My fear is that someone will paint George as the villain. He is not. I hope, instead, that you see the complicated truth: we are all to blame.

Our failure to address climate change in any meaningful way is causing unprecedented changes in the Arctic—changes that are forcing bears onto land, away from their preferred food sources, and drastically increasing the likelihood of negative interactions with people. That’s our fault. Plain and simple. Much like my previous posts, I’m not trying to point fingers here; my actions contribute to the problem too. But I also want to talk about solutions. Putting our heads in the sand is not a viable option anymore.

The problem is admittedly daunting. And while I won’t pretend to have all the answers, I know that they lie in working with the rest of the world, not against it. The United States needs to return to climate discussions, and not just as a silent sulking presence in the corner. We need to take a leadership role, one befitting of our out-sized role in causing the problem. To do that we need to push aside any politician (would-be or incumbent) who is too dim to understand or too arrogant to recognize the enormous body of scientific evidence outlining the perils of a changing climate and our role in causing it.

Now as time and distance soften the memory of that morning, I’m trying to hold on to that bear; an enduring image of what is at stake if we fail. I bury my bare hand in his coat, his body still warm against my palm. I commit to memory the weight of his massive paw, turn it up with both my hands to see the black pad ringed in brilliant white fur. Brush the ice back from his muzzle where his last breath froze. This is why. This. Remember this. And do everything you can.

2019 Arctic Heart Expedition: Part Two

Snowmachines

I hate snow machines. Always have. They're loud. They reek of two-cycle. They chase away wildlife. And most of all, they tend to break down at precisely the most inconvenient times. BUT they can give you access to places that would otherwise be out of reach for a two week trip. With no roads in or out and snow cover from September until May, they are the obvious mode of transport  in Kaktovik. Simply put, they are part of life in the far north.

And so, just like any farm to do list in Wisconsin begins with "Fix Tractor," any trip in the arctic begins with "Fix Snow Machine." I'm not a mechanic. Working on recoil starts and clutches and engines was among the most frustrating things I've done in a long time. At one point, I asked Roland—a friend of our host who was helping us get machines in order for our trip—if there was some trick to getting these started, something I was missing. He looked at me, red-faced and sweating through my jacket from hauling on the pull start over an over, looked down at the yellow ski-doo sitting dead in the snow between us, and said, "The trick is...you have to pull it until it starts," nodded and then walked away. Fair enough.

Craig and Charly adjust the tow line for one of the sleds carrying food and gear.

I'm proud to report that in the end, we met with at least marginal success. Enough anyway (along with a newer rented machine that would later break down as well), to get our group, our gear, and plenty of food out of town and into the backcountry, each machine towing a sled loaded with tents, food, fuel, and gear all wrapped up in a canvas tarp. Each sled also carried a rider who helped to keep the load tracked out straight behind the machine as we crossed the most rugged land I've ever seen.

From Kaktovik, we went west. Across land-fast sea ice and frozen lagoons to the mouth of the Hula Hula River and then turned, following the path of the river south across the coastal plain toward the Sadlerochit Mountains and the northern edge of the Brooks Range. We would ultimately spend 8 nights in the field, leaving a day earlier than planned as changing ice conditions on the river made travel increasingly difficult.

Now, at this point it’s important to note that the irony of using snow machines for this trip is not lost on me. To go see a far away place threatened by oil development via gas powered transportation is admittedly complicated. I get it. Each time I saw the cloud of blue exhaust that comes out of a cold engine when you first fire it up, I felt like a complete hypocrite. I felt the same way watching our plane refuel on the runway in Seattle. We are dependent on fossil fuel. That's a fact. And I'm not just pointing fingers at everyone else, we’re all in the same boat.

Aufeis or overflow is early spring melt that moves over the top of the frozen river, wetting the snow and creating a striking blue layer of ice when it freezes overnight.

But here's the thing: I'm not saying we should never use fossil fuels. If we woke up tomorrow and decided not to use another drop of oil, we'd be totally f@#$%. Totally. We need to transition to alternative energy, ween ourselves off—a process that we've barely started and requires the continued use of some oil. It's going to take decades to complete that process and even then there may be smart uses of fossil fuel even into the far distant future. In the mean time, we need to use the resources we have judiciously.

Fortunately for the Arctic Refuge, there are other sources of these fossil fuels that don't require the whole sale destruction of the coastal plain. In fact, even inflated estimates of the oil reserves within the contested 1002 region aren't especially large compared to known reserves elsewhere in the United States, places already disrupted by development. The end product of drilling in the Refuge would represent only a tiny fraction of our national oil needs. Not to mention the US is actually exporting oil as we speak. In short, I don't want to hear a single peep from anyone wrapping themselves in our flag and claiming that this oil contributes to our independence. We don't need to choose between the Arctic Refuge and independence; we can easily have both.

Harvesting arctic oil comes at a high cost, namely the loss of this wilderness—one of the very few fully intact wild ecosystem in the US. From its apex predators down to it's smallest life forms, the arctic is still a complete system. A land intricately balanced. That's something we can't replace, no matter how much money or popular support we have. Once its gone, it's truly gone. But here’s the thing: we can simply choose not to destroy it—we have that power.

Big oil would have you believe that they can add major infrastructure to this land and not tip that balance. They are either hopelessly arrogant or tragically dim. Maybe both. Anyone who has seen Prudhoe Bay can tell you that oil extraction is not light on the land, or the native people who have lived there for countless generations. Seismic testing, drill platforms, militarized security protocols, and pipelines disrupt the natural rhythms of life and land in staggering ways, many of which we're still discovering.

So, long story short, why risk it? We have this wild and beautiful thing, this Refuge that belongs to all of us. And yes, it does contain a small amount of oil, but we don't actually need it. So let's just leave it alone. Keep this piece of wild intact. Seems like simple math to me. And here’s where you come in: tell your elected officials the same. Even if they don’t agree; maybe especially if they don’t agree. Tell everyone. We only get one shot at this. Make it count.

Frost on the Hula Hula River.

2019 Arctic Heart Expedition: Part One

Getting to the Arctic

"Barter Island, as promised," says the pilot, climbing out from behind the controls and dropping the side door down to the gravel runway. In lieu of an airport, a small blue bus is pulling onto the runway to meet us.

"A promise easily broken," says Jennifer Reed in a quiet, dry tone. Reed is the Public Use Manager for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and by chance one of the passengers on our eight-seat flight to Kaktovik (sometimes written Qaaktugvik), the small coastal village on Barter Island. A frequent traveler here, she's joined on this trip by Refuge Manager Steve Berendzen, Park Ranger Will Wiese, and another independent contractor. As we cleared the mountain rampart of the Brooks Range and soared over the coastal plain she was marking edits in the US Fish and Wildlife Polar Bear Source Book—a document I read in full no less than three times in preparation for this trip. I am curious to know her changes, but too shy to ask.

Many flights to these remote northern airstrips are delayed or diverted due to inclement weather. High winds, fog, snow. All three. Here, the driver of that rough weather is the Beaufort Sea. Weather rolls in from this marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean and, with virtually no change in elevation from sea ice to tundra, batters the settlements on this northern coast.

On our departing flight two weeks later we would stop to pickup another passenger at Fort Yukon, where a cross-wind would force a skewed approach to the runway and some quick last minute maneuvers. This was all deftly executed by two pilots who appeared to be younger than several of the clothing items I packed for this trip. I doubt our landing would even stand out as unique to them—I'm certain they have flown in far worse—but after bumping down the runway and stopping in front of the pole building that serves as a terminal, Charly would look across the narrow aisle with eyebrows slightly raised and say, "well, that was sporty."

A small bus meets planes at the airstrip in Kaktovik

A long spring sunset in Kaktovik, 11 pm.

Sign at the edge of town which includes an alternate spelling: Qaaktugvik

A snow bunting perches on a shipping container in Kaktovik

All this to point out, that just getting to and from the Arctic is not super easy. To be clear, it's markedly better than the days of Franklin's Lost Expedition, but it's still safe to say its the edge of the map. I'm not being hyperbolic; Kaktovik is literally the far northern edge of the continent. On most maps (when marked) it's followed by a little blue area labeled "Beaufort Sea," and then the margin.

Therein lies one of the biggest challenges to protecting this place from the greedy, wandering eyes of big oil: almost no one goes there. And, realistically, that's not going to change. In some ways, that may actually be its best defense. But how do you give people a connection to a place they've never been, and probably never will? How do you convince a weary public that such a place, held in trust for the people of this great nation, has value beyond the tiny supply of fossil fuel hidden beneath the fragile skin of the tundra?

Overflow ice on the Hula Hula River looking from the Coastal Plain toward the mountains of the Brooks Range.

My hope is that my photos can help, that they can give you a vision of a land you may never see and convince you of its value as an untouched wilderness rather than oil field. These images are not the first of their kind or the best, but they do represent one more piece in the body of evidence that supports the Arctic Refuge's claim as one of America's few remaining patches of true wilderness—a distinction that once destroyed can never be rebuilt. Now is our chance to preserve this wild and rugged land, to pass it on unharmed for future generations.

The immense open land of the coastal plain in the contested 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.