Alaska Tag

Alaska, Climate Change, Commentary, Denali, Destinations, Essays, National Geographic, National Parks, Public Land, The Arctic, Uncategorized, We are the Arctic / 24.07.2023

Just over 10 years since my first trip to Alaska’s Denali National Park, I stood near the Mountain Vista Trailhead searching through the clouds. I knew that somewhere in the distance stood a snow-covered peak whose summit stands as the highest point in North America. The horizon line loomed as a field of pale grey light behind a vast expanse of a deep green alpine tundra. The landscape was dotted with a few tall spruce trees scattered sporadically in a low-elevation taiga forest. Beautiful, but not what I...

Diversity, Fly Fishing, National Parks, Public Land, ReThinkOutside, Uncategorized / 09.04.2020

If you follow the Instagram feed of Christine Hill (@misschrisyface )you’ve probably been inspired to at least consider taking up fly fishing. An environmental lobbyist for the Sierra Club based in Washington D.C., she splits her time between the Halls of Congress and the mountain streams of Haines, Alaska. Along with her boyfriend, professional fishing guide Greg Schlachter, Hill hauls in enormous Coho, Chum, Kug and King salmon varieties with infectious joy and enthusiasm. With every shot she inspires her fans and followers to imagine themselves casting a fly...

Alaska, Diversity, Film Review, Native Culture, Natives Outdoors, The Arctic / 27.02.2019

In 2017 the Trump administration opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The development of this fragile ecosystem for energy extraction puts at risk the culture and livelihood of a community that has called the Alaskan wilderness home for millennia. The Gwitch’in People, who rely upon the unimpeded migration of the porcupine caribou herd, will likely witness not only the destruction of the habitat from which they derive a critical source of food, but also the natural environment that defines their ancestral heritage. Much like efforts...

Alaska, Diversity, New Century Vision, Podcast, Public Land, The Centennial Initiative / 22.07.2016

Sometimes, when we’re talking about environmental conservation it’s difficult to know or even imagine exactly what really mean. That’s especially true when we’re asked care, I mean really care about remote areas thousands of miles away from where we live work and play. One such place is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In a region of Alaska so remote that it is only accessible by small charter airplane the Arctic Refuge is perhaps the most geographically isolated wilderness area in the continental United States. Very few people will ever...

Alaska, Commentary, Destinations, New Century Vision, Public Land / 20.07.2016

[caption id="attachment_2063930" align="aligncenter" width="641"] Photo by Carly Harmon[/caption] Ahead in the distance I saw seagulls. The birds swooped and dived over the remains of a butchered whale as we walked along a narrow gravel trail lined with ancient gasoline barrels that rimmed the landing trip. On Barter Island with time to kill before our flight back to Fairbanks, photographer Carly Harmon and I went in search of a rumor near the Inupiat village of Kaktovic at the edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “There was a polar bear sighting...

Alaska, National Parks, New Century Vision, Short Story, Sierra Club, We are the Arctic / 04.07.2016

There on the Arctic tundra I searched my tent frantically for a lighter. Years of wilderness training had taught me the importance of fire, but never before had the need been greater than it was at that moment. Even as the glacial ice melted around me in the heat of an Alaskan summer I shivered in desperate need to turn spark to flame and provide the relief these dire circumstances demanded. Just the day before I had mused without irony how seldom, if ever, I had lit a fire...