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Travels in the Arctic Refuge June 2002 Text & Photos by Bob Schlesinger FORWARD What follows is a travelogue account with photographs of a 10 day journey into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Since getting to the Arctic Refuge is not simple, the account begins on June 19th with travel from Portland, Oregon to Alaska, even though the actual trip into the Refuge doesn't occur until June 22nd. I left the Refuge on July 1, 2002, however a short account of what happened to those in our group who stayed a few more days, is at the end. This lengthy account is divided into five parts. There is no particular reason why one given part ends when it does - it's just when I happened to think I had enough material to stop and start a new page. The first photographs were not taken until the evening of June 21st so you will have to scroll down to that date in Part 1 if you want to experience the visuals - it is all text before that except for the map at the top. Click on any picture to enlarge it. (Be sure to see the last 2 pictures from Part 1 - that's where the good stuff starts). Special thanks to Equinox Wilderness Expeditions of Anchorage, AK, for making this trip possible. Their guide services and extensive knowledge of the Refuge's and Alaska's wilderness, particularly from an environmentalist and naturalist perspective are, in my opinion, without equal. BACKGROUND I've always been interested in extreme and unusual environments and my interest in the Arctic probably originated with my high school internship one summer at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in Boulder, CO (33 years ago!). I had plenty of experience in alpine environments when I was young, but had of course never experienced the Arctic. When the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge became politically hot after the last election, and after seeing a slide presentation by Yukon photographer Ken Madsen in Portland in February, 2001, I created this web site and then got involved working with other activists. With a political lull after the April 18th Senate vote that has, at least temporarily, stalled the Alaskan oil drilling lobby, it was an ideal time to visit the region and see first hand what we were fighting about. (Better than last summer when the Refuge was evidently crawling with reporters from all over the world in anticipation of the vote in the House of Representatives) The region I describe is more spectacular than I could have imagined. The pictures I have taken don't begin to do it justice, nor do they come close to conveying the raw feeling one has of being in a place, hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement, road, or impact of any kind on the landscape; where to be human is to be an observer in continuous awe of the natural world operating on what is simultaneously an enormously grand and yet fragile scale. If this is what Lewis & Clark experienced closer to home - I realize now just how much has been lost in just 200 years, how much wilderness disappears each day, and why this is important to all of us. CONTENTS Part 3 - more people join us and we're on the river Part 4 - life in the foothills Part 5 - on to the coastal plain and arctic ocean
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