Arctic Project Week 1

Arctic Project Week 2

Arctic Project Week 3

Arctic Project Week 4

Arctic Project Week 5

Background on Shorebirds

Metta tries on a grizzly for size while buying gear.

Collecting and sorting gear at the USFWS warehouse.

Sending all our gear ahead by truck.

6/2/03 - 6/6/03 - Our Arctic Refuge project starts with the process of preparing for winter camping, which requires lots of gear and careful preparations. We know that if we forget to pack something now, we'll have to do without it for weeks! We've been planning from Massachusetts since April, but it still takes almost a full week in Anchorage to sort the gear, buy and pack the food, and do the many other errands necessary before we depart Anchorage for the north slope. Much of our big gear comes from the US Fish and Wildlife Service warehouse in Anchorage. Rick Lanctot, the Alaska Shorebird Coordinator for the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), helps in many ways as we prepare for the trip. Because we will be in bear country (mainly grizzlies, but polar bears are also possible at our camp overlooking the Arctic Ocean), we also need to complete a FWS gun qualification course, which requires a day at the gun range. The bear at the right, although stuffed and on display at an Anchorage store, is typical of the size of grizzlies we encountered last year. Fortunately most are quite shy of people and pose a threat mainly to our food.

Qualifying at the FWS gun course, required for all workers on the project.

Our first view of the frozen north. Brrrrrr!

We made it to Prudhoe, first leg complete.

When we finally land at the Prudhoe Bay airport in Deadhorse on May 30th, the return to winter is stunning! The ground is about 75% snow covered as we arrive. Stopping outside the airport to put on our winter clothes, a local Air Alaska employee stands in his t-shirt. The temperature is 33 degrees. We surmise that since it's above freezing, it's considered spring locally! Not for us...

Loading the small plane to take our gear to the airstrip at Kavik.

The lodge at Kavik was snowed in!

This is our satellite phone and solar charger.

Cape Smythe Air flies us from Prudhoe Bay in a Cessna 207 on the next leg of our journey, to a small airstrip called Kavik. Our plan is to meet Roger Kaye, the Refuge pilot, at Kavik later today. When we arrive at Kavik, however, Roger is still shuttling in gear and researchers from the Refuge crew due to delays with weather conditions, so we have to wait our turn. Everything in the Arctic is subject to weather, so you learn to be patient and flexible!

Primitive gas station of the north, self service.

Jon goes in to camp on the first flight in the Refuge plane.

Fog descends and Metta and Stephen are stuck at Kavik with Roger the Refuge pilot.

After a night in Kavik, Jon Bart goes ahead on our first flight into the Arctic Refuge on May 31st, with his wife Susan following on the next flight. The plane is a four-seat Cessna 185, which can only fit one passenger together with a small amount of essential gear, so many flights will be necessary. Because weather is always uncertain and fog is threatening, we carefully pack each person's survival gear with them on their flight. This turns out to be a good thing, because the fog comes in quickly from the Arctic Ocean, and when Roger returns he informs us we're done for the day and he will be spending the night with us at the airstrip. At Kavik it's still bright sun and about 45 degrees, but we can see the fog banks in the north stretching both east and west.

Our first camp in the Arctic, at Kavik.

The fog comes all the way to Kavik, so we're not going anywhere today!

After sandwiches for supper we pull up a gear bag for a back rest and are treated by Roger to many stories about the history of the Refuge and the intent of its founders to preserve its wilderness character. Over the three hours it takes Roger to smoke an enormous cigar (a camp ritual, he tells us), we watch the light lengthen into lovely golden peach and rose glows on the mountains, and understand why people in the refuge tend to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. before feeling ready to sleep here in the land of the midnight sun. Though the solstice is still three weeks away, we are already in 24 hours of daylight since we are a couple hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. The light and setting are magical, Roger is charming and entrancing, and the wilderness beckons. The photo of our tent shows the majestic view of the Brooks Range to the south, but the grandeur defies capture. The next day, June 1st, Roger tries again, but can't make it to the Refuge due to fog, so he returns to Fairbanks. We spend the next two days checking out the birds around Kavik, and re-learning all the shorebird songs that you can only hear on the breeding grounds.