On a still morning during the summer of 1999, I awoke in a tent on Alaska's North Slope, about 12 miles west of where the Colville River, Alaska's largest river north of the Arctic Circle, empties in the Arctic Ocean. My three colleagues/friends and I had attempted to travel here by zodiac boat a few days earlier, but were blocked by unexpected lingering sea ice. So after some quick regrouping, a tiny Super Cub airplane made several trips from the river delta (where our base camp was set up) out here to drop us and our gear off, landing on (what seemed to me to be) a rather minuscule gravel bar along a small braided river. We were here to conduct bird surveys, which would entail walking about 15 miles across the tundra each day in our hip waders. The plane would return for us in about a week's time.
On this particular morning, I was the first out of my tent. As is often the case when I'm "out in a wild place and standing still for a minute or so" (TRANSLATE: taking a pee), any wildlife in the vicinity begins to see me more as a harmless tree than a large (and potentially predatory) animal, and gets back to its business.
(CLARIFICATION: In this particular instance, one might argue that "tree" is not in fact the correct term; as the only woody plants around for hundreds of miles were sparsely-scattered 6-inch tall birch and willow shrubs, all pretty much laying prostrate in amongst the rest of the tundra vegetation.)
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement just across the tiny stream. I was face to face with a wolverine, the first (and last!) that I've ever seen. With a penchant for remote places (and a home range as large as 240 square miles!), these largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family are as sure an indicator of wilderness, as spotted owls are an indicator of western old-growth forest.
As the wolverine sniffed the still air, it raised its nose up and moved it slightly in my direction. Within a minute, any interest in the significance of these four colorful tents (and in me!) had passed; and the wolverine sauntered off downstream until it finally disappeared over a sandy rise. THIS wildlife encounter, in addition to a polar bear that strolled past our base camp on the Colville River later in the summer, was one of many magical moments I experienced in this extremely vast and remote place.
With every passing year, the technology to improve our access to (and development of) sources of energy increases greatly. In contrast, the technology to replace/restore wilderness and wild places does not improve every year. In fact, no such technology exists at all. With human population increasing year after year, wild places become more and more valuable; and unfortunately more and more rare. Even though few of us will ever visit and see Alaska's pristine and wild North Slope with our own eyes, it does not lack intrinsic value.
There is substantial pressure to open the coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This tragedy, fortunately (for lack of a better word), is well known and widely reported in the news (for example, here).
However, few of us are aware of the existence of an even larger area of wilderness to the west, regrettably called the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (NPRA). This massive tract of wetlands and tundra was created in 1923, as the United States Navy was converting from coal to oil. And though its original purpose was energy independence, its value as wildlife habitat and wilderness greatly exceeds that, many times over. Read more about the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska here.
Debbie Miller published a beautiful coffee table book on the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska in 2012, entitled On Arctic Ground: Tracking time through Alaska’s Petroleum Reserve. Few such accounts of this larger but lesser-known wilderness exist. Learn more here.
Lastly, my dear friend Larry Hobbs introduced me to this poem by Wendell Berry some years ago, on a trip to Antarctica. From the moment I first heard it, I couldn’t help but think of the wilderness that is Alaska's North Slope. And of the wolverine that needs it.
The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
