Nature Observation in Alaska - Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)

Outside Magazine February 2003

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Footprints in the Last Wild Place (Cont.)

OUR TRIP WAS SPONSORED BY Tom Campion, a 54-year-old clothing and sporting equipment dealer from Everett, Washington, who has dedicated a substantial percentage of his income to helping save the Arctic wilderness from despoliation. "I put my money where my mouth is, and I have a big mouth," said Tom. From Arctic Village, two chartered planes shuttled the expedition across the Brooks Range to its north-slope foothills on the Kongakut River, taking three collapsible river rafts, two whitewater kayaks, food, and gear. Besides Tom and me, our group included Jim Campbell and Carol Kasza, proprietors of Arctic Treks, a Fairbanks-based wilderness outfitting company; Mike Matz, a founder of the Alaska Wilderness League; Mark Skatrud, an Okanogan, WashingtonÐbased environmentalist; Tom's wife, Sonya; my 38-year-old son, Alex, who works as the Hudson Riverkeeper and is executive director of the environmental group of the same name; and a few Campion friends. Farther on, we would meet Subhankar and his friend and guide, a 56-year-old Inupiat named Robert Thompson. The Brooks Range is the northwest extension of the Rocky Mountains, rising to 9,000 feet and extending east to west for 600 miles, from the Yukon border to the Bering Sea. The mountains are about 80 miles across, and the traverse was a long one in a light aircraft, heavily loaded, that seemed to skim the tumult of black snow-patched peaks, deep, dark ravines, and steep inclines of gravel shale, interspersed with barren tundra valleys lost amid stark ridges and rock towers. "Might take two weeks just to walk into one of these wild drainages," Tom said. "The first time I saw how many there were, it brought tears to my eyes. I swore to myself I would not permit those greedy bastards in Big Oil and their errand boys in Washington to trash this wilderness for all other Americans, not on my dime."

On a broad bend where a gravel bench was wide enough to handle its small tires, the aircraft dropped us near the river. Though the clouds thicken, night never falls under the midnight sun, and the bush pilots, Dirk Nickisch and Kirk Sweetsir (the "Irk brothers," as somebody called them), had the expedition on the ground in time for a late supper. Mosquitoes rose in swirls around our heads as we pitched tents in a grassy meadow among willows, where hoary redpolls as white as willow catkins flew through the thicket.

In the early evening, the rain came from the mountains, falling steadily and more or less heavily until after midnight. The next morning there was snow on the dark peaks to the south. The clear current had turned to a thick-silted gray, ending my plan to go fly-fishing. I climbed the green moss and tussock to a rock outcrop on the ridge, where, leaning back in the sun against soft lichens, I breathed in a vast Arctic prospect of mountain, river, and distant sea—utterly silent, ancient, and indifferent, entirely unscarred by the smallest mark of man.

About 6 p.m., a cream-colored grizzly appeared in the sunlit grassy saddle between ridges and worked its way downhill toward the tents, quartering the slope as it cropped greens, shaggy belly dark with tundra mud. At about 150 yards away, it stopped and lifted its head, catching our scent. Then it moved forward, tending past camp as it followed the descending ridge down a steep cutbank by the water.

The Arctic light in the long evenings was so limpid that we stayed up well past the midnight sun. In the pallid dawn, Tom, Mark Skatrud, and I were the early risers. We sat with our coffee, scanning the landscape for wild creatures. By midmorning our companions had emerged, and by noon we were on the river. Our cheerful outfitters, Jim and Carol, with river veteran Mike Matz, were at the helm in the three rafts, 12-foot inflatable craft of tough rubberized canvas with space for paddlers in the bow and stern. Mark and Alex took the lead in the kayaks, harried by pale glaucous gulls and the quick, forked-tailed arctic terns. Downriver, a cow moose and her big calf had come down to drink; wary of us, the enormous deer plunged like horses up the bank and disappeared over the rise.

That night camp was made on soft wet moss at the foot of the last escarpment before the Kongakut forges out onto the plain. Subhankar and Robert, who had camped a half-mile upriver, turned up in time for supper, bringing news of local musk ox and grizzlies, and of gyrfalcons and peregrines nesting on two rock towers on the escarpment. Tom had already located a large, dark grizzly in his spotting scope; it shambled across the plain east of the tents, as massive as an ambulating boulder. He soon located another to the north, then two more off to the west under the low hills across the river; they rolled along less than a hundred yards apart.

Setting off the next morning with Robert, Alex, and Subhankar, I climbed the steep tundra slope behind the camp, my eyes at the level of a sunshined bed of fresh blue lupines and translucent yellow poppies. From the plateau, Robert pointed at the low hills across the river where this coastal plain, including the 1002, has the highest density of land-denning female bears on the Arctic coast.

We went south along the escarpment, scanning the willow bottoms of the riverbed for grizzlies and musk ox. A golden eagle flapped downriver, far below, and a gyrfalcon passed rapidly overhead. Against the background of rock towers and the Brooks Range, the highland plateau was mysterious and beautiful, its wildflower meadows broken here and there by lonely monoliths like leaning headstones.

Where the caribou herds descend into the willow bottoms to ford the river, we followed their tracks to the foot of the escarpment, then continued southward. (At this time, the herds with their new young had already returned into the mountains; some will arrive in the Gwich'in country by late summer.) Up the valley, the rock towers seemed to brace the steep, grassy inclines. At the gyrfalcon aerie, under a rock ledge high above, two big gray chicks were still hunched on the nest, and a half-fledged sibling flapped and flopped on the rocks below. From a craggy outcrop overlooking the Kongakut Valley, the adult bird, a gray gyrfalcon, screeched a brief warning but otherwise sat motionless as stone, its yellow talons gleaming in the sun. On the next turret was the crude nest of the big rough-legged hawk that commanded the rock above, and from one of the towers came the scream of peregrines. One darted out high over the valley and cut back at once toward its hidden nest. To have observed the rough-leg, golden eagle, peregrine, and gyrfalcon within one hour on the same escarpment—astonishing!

Returning to camp, Alex and Subhankar walked the upland tussock to avoid mosquitoes, while Robert and I chose the easier going of the willow bottoms. In the maze of big-deer prints—moose and caribou—we looked for sign of musk ox and found wolf instead. Noting fresh bear scat along our way, I was content that my companion wore a holstered .45 Long Colt six-shooter on his belt that dragged his pants down as he rolled through the thickets.

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