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My Trip to the Arctic Refuge - Part 5 Sunday, June 30 The first thing I do after getting up is to get out the binoculars and see if the thousands of caribou from last night are still visible. They are not. The hills that were covered with animals the night before are now essentially barren and the multitudes are nowhere to be seen. We do see a few stragglers here and there but the large gathering has evidently moved on. We spot a lone baby caribou on a gravel bar directly to our west, across the river channel. This saddens us since it is not likely that the calf will survive on its own. Sometimes, when a large herd is moving swiftly through an area, some calves and their mothers become separated. A predator can also cause this to happen. A spooked herd might change direction quickly, causing those who become distracted to be left behind. Or perhaps there was a difficult river crossing and the calf was swept downstream. The mother will try to find her calf after a disturbance, and this is often successful. However many times it is not, and the calf becomes easy prey for a predator. The calf we are watching seems tired and weak, and we watch it lie down for quite a while, almost like it is dying. However later it stands up again and we see it drinking from the river. Still there is not much to eat on these barren gravel bars, so unless the mother can find it, it will probably perish here. We'd like to take the caribou with us. (I offer to stay in its place and give up my spot in the raft!). But this is just a part of the cycle of life and death in the Arctic and there is nothing we can do to help. Looking in the opposite direction, we notice that the bear is still on its hill. We watch him for quite a while as he travels up the side and across the long, gently rising slope to the south. We decide to pack up and go on, since the weather is good and there isn't any wind. We keep the same crews as the day before, so again I am in Abby's boat with Ken and Lawson.
The
river is difficult to navigate now. The Kongakut is split into many
braided channels. This means that the amount of water in any given channel
is low and wide, often making it difficult to thread the boats through
the winding maze. The guides' ability to select the best channel becomes
a testament to their great skill, acquired from many years of running
rivers. A guide will often stand up in the raft, and survey the current,
watching how it dances and spreads out around the rocks and gravel,
and taking note of where the current recombines and moves more swiftly.
Then the raft is guided into the best position. This is the most rigorous and most continuous paddling we have done yet. The current is not strong enough to carry us along and let us take much in the way of rest breaks. So I don't have time to take photographs while in the boat. Our immediate objective is to slowly hop channels to get to the bank of the river farthest to the east, so we can find a place to escape the river gravel and again walk on the tundra. By mid day, we finally make it to the eastern edge of this wide delta and stop to do a short hike.
The coastal plain tundra is awesome. The land here is flat to the horizon except to the south, where the mountains seem to have exploded out of the ground along a thin line of demarcation. The tundra is covered with wildflowers, making it look like a vast carpet that extends forever into the distance.
Alaska's Senators Frank Murkowski and Ted Stevens, while lobbying for oil development of the coastal plain, have often given speeches on the Senate floor claiming the area is a wasteland. Once, when his aides didn't have the graphics ready for a presentation, Senator Murkowski held up a blank white piece of paper and proclaimed that it was what the coastal plain looked like - there was nothing there and it was usually covered in snow. Now, one could make the same argument about snow in Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, or even many of our own backyards in the winter. Yes, Frank, we have seen snow and it is white, as white as a sheet of paper.
In the summer, after the snow melts, the coastal plain comes alive. Many birds nest amongst the wildflowers and grasses, building nests right into the ground since the tallest plants here are a few inches high. I spot several birds hopping among the grasses but don't see any nests. The land isn't absolutely flat - there are slight rolls and dips to the terrain and we encounter marshy areas that are mosquito factories in full swing. The air is thick with them and they seem particularly attracted to the black fleece pants I am wearing. We stop walking at one point so that everyone can take pictures of the horde that has landed on my legs and butt.
For some reason they aren't biting though. They probably can't get through the fleece, but even the ones that land on my skin don't seem to be hungry.
Just about then, we notice a herd of caribou heading across the plains in our direction. As we crouch down and freeze, they head closer. We are in their line of travel, between the mountains and the cool, mosquito-dispersing breezes of the coast. Mosquitoes are a great torment to caribou in the summer and the caribou will do anything to escape them. In July when they reach their peak of activity, mosquitoes can extract a half pint of blood a day from one caribou. So in late June, the caribou head for the coast, where offshore breezes that blow over the Arctic pack ice disperse the bugs.
As we watch, the caribou draw closer. They spot us, and stare at us with great curiosity. The only sound heard is the "click", "whirr…", "click", "whirr…" of our cameras and their automatic film advance mechanisms as they capture an incredible sight - a band of caribou moving across the plain with the dusty blue peaks of the Brooks Range providing a Hollywood-like backdrop. They continue past us, making a wide arc to the east as they head north towards the ice in the distance.
As we watch them move away, we get our first good glimpse of an optical phenomenon that is common in the Arctic. It is called the fata morgana, and is an illusion that makes ice on the horizon appear to rise as a great wall, seemingly hundreds of feet high. As we watch the caribou recede towards the horizon, the fata morgana becomes a white backdrop to their silhouettes. We head back to the boats and the river breezes as we paddle farther. We find a mosquito-free gravel bar and stop for a lunch break. The ice on the horizon seems a little closer, but it is difficult to correctly gauge the perspective. Is it a mile, five miles or ten? After what seems like hours, we reach the ice, which extends on either side of the river for a great distance. The mouth of the Kongakut River is the last area to lose its winter ice. Cold winds from the ocean keep it from melting. We are told that some years, the ice buildup is so great that this part of the river remains frozen, even during summer.
The ice forms walls on either side of the river that are six to ten feet high, with beautiful blue and white horizontal striations. I wish I could take more pictures, but there is no time - we are quite busy paddling constantly. The path through the ice is well defined, however the water is very shallow now. Sometimes the only decent current takes us close, possibly a little too close to a wall of ice. We watch as a large berg of ice breaks off of a wall just after Karen's boat passes its point of impact. We see the resultant wave rock their boat - no one is hurt but it gives us (and them of course) a good scare. We see numerous small waterfalls bursting through breaks in the ice and cascading down into the river. The river gradually gets wider and wider and the ice walls recede on either side. The river becomes even more shallow and we often get stuck on gravel or in a thick muck. Paddling is exhausting, the only break coming when we have to get out of the boat to free it. At times, Abby jumps out and grabs the tow line in front, dragging the raft forward while we continue paddling.
The mouth of the Kongakut is now a huge shallow bay. The ice has given way to a great expanse of open water only a couple of feet deep. After what seems like endless grueling hours, we are the second boat to reach Icy Reef - a thin barrier reef that separates the Kongakut from the Beaufort Sea, which is what the Arctic Ocean is called in this area. Karen's boat is the last to arrive - they had gotten stuck in the muck at the bottom of the bay and it took them some time to break free. Karen had originally wanted to paddle about a mile farther east on Icy Reef to a place that provided a good clear gravel strip for landing a plane, a place she had used before. However we are all so exhausted that we decide it's not worth doing.
Icy Reef is perhaps no more than 50 yards wide, but is miles long. It is essentially devoid of vegetation. In contrast to its name, it is not covered in ice - in fact there is no ice on the reef at all at this time of year. It is made up of gravel and sand, with some very large pieces of driftwood lying about. Now, if you are puzzling over what is wrong with this picture, you are not alone. Here we are, hundreds of miles from the nearest forest, and the landscape is littered with logs, some of which are more than 3 feet thick. It is likely that the trees grew in Canada, perhaps along the MacKenzie River. The Mackenzie is a huge river several hundred miles to the east in the Canadian Northwest Territories. It is the main artery of the Canadian north and drains an area more than three times the size of France. The river is large enough for fallen trees to be pushed all the way to the Ocean, where they might have drifted until being washed ashore on Icy Reef. Since the area is frozen so much of the year, it is even more remarkable that the logs made it as far as they did.
We set up camp on the river side of the reef. There are depressions in the sand that make small valleys, some several feet deep, where waves from a storm at one time must have pummeled and flattened the sand where it washed through. These become ideal places to set up a tent - somewhat protected from the wind that is blowing from the north. I set up my tent in one such place - the tent fits perfectly on a flat area of sand surrounded by two large mounds of sand and gravel.
The ocean side of the reef provides a surreal view. I've never seen an ocean like this! There is no surf. Since so much of the ocean is frozen, tidal action can't produce the large waves you would expect to be crashing onto the beach. By the end of June, the ocean has melted near the shore but is still frozen in large sections a short distance out. There is not enough water for tides. So the water at the shoreline is calm, like that of a lake. We are told that, by late summer, enough of the ocean melts to permit tidal action and that huge waves from storms often wash over the reef.
We see large sculpted chunks of ice floating by. We see the white glow of the pack ice out in the distance, and the fata morgana effect on the horizon is striking here. It is an astonishing feeling, to stand at the top of North America, and to stare across the water and ice that continues all the way to the north pole. I find it hard to take my eyes off of it. It is, not unexpectedly, cold here. The winds that blow from the north off of the pack ice keep it cold nearly all of the time. After the body heat I had built up from paddling quickly dissipates, I add all three layers of fleece. My tent goes up quickly, and, as it turns out, with no time to spare. It starts to rain. What incredible luck we had. The rain waits until we are done paddling and we make a great choice to stop short of our original destination. Paddling in a rain this cold would not have been fun.
Even in the rain, the landscape is so captivating that I walk up and down a section of the reef looking at the views. The entire coastal plain and delta spreads out to the south, with a very large expanse of the north flank of the Brooks Range in the background.
At times, the sun breaks through the clouds, spilling shafts of brilliance onto the great expanse of water that makes up the mouth of the Kongakut. The light paints the mountains to the southeast in pastel shades. The fata morgana is also visible to the east.
It rains intermittently as we eat dinner under the kitchen tent. In honor of our last night together, Abby makes a wonderful lemon cheesecake (made entirely in a frying pan) decorated with butter cookie symbols that express the infinite expanse and endless rhythms of life in the arctic.
Tomorrow, half of our expedition will depart. Nick, Marcia, Danny, Ken and myself - the original Group 1 that began the trip on June 21st (minus Karen who will stay). Group 2 is entitled to two more days and their plan is to paddle farther east, into Demarcation Bay where remnants of some historic and ancient coastal settlements are to be found. The time seems to have gone so quickly. I fall asleep to the sound of light rain.
I awake to more intermittent rain. We have no idea when or even if the plane will show up. Weather might be an issue - the pilots will not fly if the weather becomes severe. Danny decides to take a swim in the Arctic Ocean ! As we all watch, he strips down to his shorts and runs in and continues about 10 feet out - and then climbs up on a piece of ice and poses for pictures. Then he gets back in the water and completely dunks himself. Karen says this is the first time she's seen someone do this. (a video clip of Danny's swim will appear here eventually) Nick, Marcia, Danny, Ken and I pack up everything except our tents. Danny was originally going to stay, however after Karen figured the number of people that would need to fly out on July 3rd, it didn't make logistical sense and he was told he had to leave today. I am prepared to leave at this point. It is cold and the plan to paddle out to Demarcation Bay doesn't particularly appeal to me - I find lake paddling somewhat boring. Since the plane will need to land near our camp, and the reef is covered with drift logs, we elect to clear debris to make a runway. Ther are big logs and also stumps. Some we can roll and lift but others are too heavy. I suggest we "invent" the lever and so we grunt and otherwise act like a paleolithic tribe discovering a new technology and find the perfect pieces of wood for both a fulcrum and a great lever - a long thin log that is sturdy enough yet light enough to lift and put into position. It works like a charm and the biggest, baddest stump gives way from the sand and is rolled out of the way. We continue until we clear an area that is at least 1000 feet long. Nick sets up a pole for a windsock and I tie my red tent stuff bag to it and it is just the right size. Around 11 am or so, we hear the plane! Karen pulls a radio that looks like an oversized walkie-talkie out of a gear bag and contacts the pilot. He makes several runs over the area we cleared to make certain it is clear enough for landing and to gauge the wind, and then sets the plane down, christening our new runway.
The pilot, Walt, is the same guy who ferried Debbie Miller on her many jaunts in the Refuge described in her superb book "Midnight Wilderness" and has been flying in the area for years. He can only take 3 people and gear. He tells us that a snow storm is moving in from the west and flying may be a problem before long. He takes Nick & Marcia (they deserve it after having to wait almost a full day to get flown in) and Ken. Danny and I wait behind. It is literally only minutes after they take off that the wind shifts nearly 180 degrees from a gentle northeasterly flow to a very strong northwesterly. We all batten down the hatches by moving the rafts and securing them with logs for a strong wind-break. The guides bring out a tarp we haven't seen before - it is designed to deflect the wind and we pull it down tight against the rafts. I retrieve the light weight gear I had left "out on the tarmac" and put in under the shelter. The wind is now blowing quite hard and I don't want my camera taking off into the stratosphere. Karen and Julie debate whether the plane will return. Julie bets it won't in this weather, and Karen thinks it will. We wonder if we will be stuck here a few days! Everyone decides to go hunker down in his or her tent - however Danny & I have no tent! - we had packed up once the plane had been spotted. Karen feels bad and stays out with us. After several hours and no sign of the plane, we go for a walk in the wind. We walk about a mile or two to the end of the section of reef we are on - where part of the ocean breaks through to the bay. On the way back we spot the plane! It's a long way back to the camp area so we walk quickly and by the time we are back they are mostly loaded up. I grab my camera gear and my raincoat, which were still under the shelter, and head for the plane. We say our goodbyes, I climb in and we go quickly. It turns out that Walt had thought he was only picking up one more person so he ran some other people from Kaktovik out to the Kongakut before stopping back to pick us up. We had seen his plane pass overhead an hour or two earlier and figured it was another pilot.
The ride to Kaktovik was really interesting. You can see the ocean pack ice best from the air - it stretches north as far as the eye can see. Danny & I both look for signs of polar bears but don't see any. Walt points out where, in the early 80s, 4 exploratory wells were dug on the coastal plain, and then removed when the rules changed. The wells were dug on 90,000 acres deeded to the Inupiat people as part of the Native Claims Settlement Act, but restrictions on oil exploration remain in effect. I have a great view - I'm sitting in the copilot seat and watch the 2nd stearing wheel (I'm sure they don't call it that!) turn inches from my belly, as Walt turns the primary one. How DO they keep track of what all those dials mean? I keep my fingers to myself. We do get a chance to view the 1002 area of the coastal plain. The name is from the notorious Senate Bill 1002 in the early 1980s that had exempted this area from being protected as wilderness. This is the area the oil drilling people want for themselves. It is also the most critical calving habitat for the caribou in the summer and becomes important to polar bears for building dens for the winter.
The 1002 area looks like a classic wetlands that is about 150 miles long and approximately 30 miles wide. Weather is moving in fast so it is clear we won't get a chance to even briefly land as we had originally hoped - it wasn't even discussed. We see dark ominous clouds stretching across one large section of the plains and colliding with the mountains to our south and west. Our challenge is to arrive at Kaktovik before the daily Frontier charter flight to Fairbanks leaves. If we miss it, we will have to camp out on the airstrip for a day and wait for the next one. Walt contacts the Frontier pilot to let him know we are on the way. Kaktovik, a small village and the only settlement within a few hundred miles, comes into view. The town seems precariously perched on a barrier island. There is a wide gravel landing strip to the northeast. As we land, we see the Frontier flight loading and Ken, Marcia and Nick see us and wave. As we jump to the ground we are immediately walked over to the other flight where a woman with a checklist confirms that we are to be on it. This is not what they'd do at a commercial airport! Nick, Marcia and Ken had a chance to explore the town in the four hours or so between our 2 flights. They tell us that someone told them a polar bear wandered into town last night - and that it is a common occurrence. The bear comes in off the pack ice, wanders around and is gone by morning. We are pretty lucky to make this connecting flight - even more so we find out later, as the storm that arrives shortly after we depart is severe. Flying back to Fairbanks is a surreal experience. This "semi-commercial flight" is a klunky 20 seater - with one seat on each side of a very narrow walkway for each of ten rows. The ceiling is very low - I board the plane like a hunchback as I scramble to a seat. I am still wearing 7 layers of clothing - long underwear, expedition shirt, 3 layers of fleece, a wind breaker and a raincoat, plus my rubber boots with 2 layers of wool socks. It is warm in the plane - probably normal room temperature. I start peeling layers immediately and this is not easy sitting in such a small area. We relax and pass around the video camera - this is the first time we get a chance to look at any of what I have shot. The footage of the musk ox is particularly amazing as are the images of caribou running and swimming across the river. The trip is over. It takes a while for it to sink in. It takes even longer for the impact of the experience to really gel. The adventure doesn't quite end with our arrival at Fairbanks though. Karen had asked us to stow some of their gear at Frontier Airlines. However once we get our own gear sorted out, it is about 7 pm, the airport is nearly deserted, and there is only one ticket agent at the Frontier counter. When I ask about storing gear, she tells me that the storage area is closed but we can leave it there at the counter. That seems particularly flaky to both Danny and me. Danny rents a car so we decide to take the gear to Wright Air instead - we need to go there and pick up luggage that we both had left and Group 2 will be flying in on Wright Air anyway. The Wright Air building also has a shower! I am the only one planning to fly home tonight. Nick & Marcia also rent a car, so the plan is that Danny will drop me off at Wright Air, I'll shower there, and Nick & Marcia will pick me up while Danny checks in at a hostel. After a long drive from the main terminal we arrive at the Wright Air building and THEY ARE CLOSED! We walk around the buildings and hangars but there isn't a soul. So here we are, a car packed with gear, some of it not ours, and my luggage locked inside this building in front of us. And I'm supposed to fly back to Portland in about 6 hours. Finally we give up and go back to the main terminal to see if I can rebook for the following day. At the Alaska Air counter I explain the predicament and the agent tells me she thinks she has the home number of someone who works at Wright Air. After digging around for about 10 minutes, she finds it on a sheet of paper and gives the person a call. He tells her he doesn't have a key to the place, but gives her the number of another employee who does. Luckily that employee is home and agrees to meet us down there in 15 minutes. Thank goodness for small town connections! We pick up our stuff, drop off Karen's and we're off to take showers at the hostel where Danny will be staying. I bargain with the owner and pay $5 for the honor. It turns out to be a COLD shower - the darn heat doesn't kick in until I have the water on for about 10 minutes! Then it's off to the downtown Italian restaurant where we have agreed to meet Nick, Marcia, and Ken. They had gone out to Wright Air to look for me, then figured correctly that since it was closed we had gone somewhere else to shower. After dinner, we exchange last minute stories and then Danny drives me to the airport. The ride back home from Fairbanks is uneventful (although when you take a redeye scheduled to leave at 1 am, and it gets delayed till 2 am - at that hour it hardly matters WHEN the plane leaves.) As usual I don't sleep at all on the plane and am a walking zombie by the time we arrive in Seattle at 6:30 am. It's amazing that I find my way to a Portland flight (I had missed the scheduled one but they run about every half hour). I arrive back in Portland by 8 am, exhausted but still riding the high from an incredible experience. Epilogue This account would not be complete without mentioning Group 2's experiences after we left. Lawson, the Gough family and the three guides were to continue paddling east into Demarcation Bay, with a planned departure from the Refuge on July 3rd. That never happened. When I left, late in the afternoon on July 1st, the winds had shifted dramatically and were coming out of the west. A storm was approaching. At that time, the pilot thought a snow storm was on the way, but no one knew for certain just what kind of storm it was going to be. Lawson described the experience: "At about 3:30 am July 2nd we were all awakened by gale-force winds. We were nearly flattened. Karen's tent blew down, and then Julie and Abby deliberately collapsed theirs. Julie and Abby broke a couple of poles. Julie showed up at my door to find me fully dressed and ready for my tent to blow away with me inside it. The Gough's Mountain Hardwear tent was the Rock of Gibraltar, though they said they were all sitting up in it with their backs to the wind. Bless them, they told Julie to tell me to join them if necessary. I confess I hesitated to leave my tent for fear it would blow away. Thank heavens for the driftwood logs! Though my tent was blown at a strongly depressed angle, the poles proved to be very flexible, and it stayed put. The three guides hunkered down under the boats. The gale blew for about 15 hours. When I did venture out at its height, the ice floes were moving eastward like it was rush hour, piling up against each other in all kinds of weird shapes. Many were blown aground. The "fresh" water on the river side was churned up into a salty froth. We took to melting chunks of ice in empty food buckets to get the least salty water for cooking and drinking. Most of us lost things. Karen lost (and later recovered) some exposed film. She did not recover some money and maps. My brand new yellow drybag is probably landing in Greenland right about now. One or more of the guides said that they had never experienced winds quite so fierce. I met some people in Fairbanks last week who were on another river, still in the mountains, for the Blow. They were visibly awestruck when I told them we endured it on Icy Reef. Karen and I both guessed windspeed around 30+ knots. Actually they were much stronger. Kaktovik reported gusts of 73 mph. We waited around all the rest of Tuesday for the planes to show. We even packed up our tents. We re-erected some when it became clear that they weren't coming. Wednesday was a reasonably good weather day, and Dirk showed up at about 11:30pm. Abby, the Gough's and I flew with him up the Aichilik River up and over the Brooks to Arctic Village. Kirk followed a bit later with Karen and Julie. We wanted adventure travel; we got adventure travel. Everyone seemed to endure it in good spirits. "
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