Caribou and Arctic Time
My husband Peter, our friend Mark and I sat on the tundra, an odd assortment of three colorfully clad humans, dwarfed by the immensity of the world we had just entered. Not only dwarfed- the scale of the Arctic defies attempts to describe it. It utterly subsumes you. We sat on one side of the braided glacial Jago River in a valley framed by gentle limestone mountains across from a several dozen caribou grazing, moving rapidly to the south upriver. Specks of brown downriver promised another part of the herd moving in our direction. Strands of river wove in and out of the main channel over wide gravel bars and by tundra banks lined by small willows. I was four months pregnant with our first child, just beginning to have to adjust my backpack strap under a swelling belly. It was Peter’s and my last summer of just the two of us.
We were starting out on an eleven-day journey backpacking in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, leaving the village of Fort Yukon that morning in a Cessna 185 with large round wheels for tundra landings. In discussion with our pilot the night before, we altered our route, beginning a drainage further west of the original plan and thus significantly lengthening our planned hiking route. We hoped for the chance to see part of the epic Porcupine Caribou migration, but there are no guarantees with wildlife or in the wild, especially as the migration route slightly changes every year. To see caribou at our drop off location made our decision for getting started on travel difficult.
Our first visitor to our campsite
“We wont make it to the pick-up point if we don’t get some miles under us. It’s an aggressive schedule.”
“But this could be the end of the migration- seems like it makes sense to stay put.”
“We could stay a few days…this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, even if there is only a chance!”
We reached a consensus by virtue of sitting paralyzed by awe, watching the increasing herd of animals across river; even the remote chance to watch part of a migration trumped our original plans. This was not an easy decision for three type-A, goal oriented people, nor did it need to be long discussed. We snuggled into down jackets, leaning against our backpacks and alternately reading, dozing and watching the caribou across from us.
Numbers continued to grow. Caribou spread from the riverbed up the side of the mountain. Bulls with prodigious racks sauntered with the dignity of old age, smaller females which had lost their racks while calving, younger males with smaller antlers moved with movements still curious and ungainly. Three caribou on our side of the river walked up to our strange huddle and stood and stared curiously from a respectful distance of twenty feet, quivering with alertness, before continuing their journey. Individually, their delicate legs and wide deep brown eyes suggested fragility, but strength emanated from the growing group moving through a landscape of prehistoric proportion and temperament.
Hoping to get ahead of the growing mass of animals, we staked the wires of our electric bear fence around our backpacks, and headed upriver wearing our warmest clothes for the deepening chill in the air. Night was falling. The light softened, but would not darken at this time of year. Walking in the direction of the caribou- perhaps we could get a bit more perspective on their movement. Even if we had only caught the last few hundred migrating, this was the experience we had only dreamed of.
To keep things in perspective on watching these caribou in the Arctic- the 120,000 strong Porcupine caribou herd migrate further than any other land animal in the world- annually as far as 3,000 miles. As a result, the caribou of the Porcupine herd are slightly smaller than the nearby Central Arctic herd and others migrating shorter distances. The migration is the focus of a huge controversy on the possibility of drilling what is known as area 1002- the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is the last 3% of Alaska’s coastline possible to protect. Because the mountains come so close to the sea along the eastern coastal plains, several ecological zones are unusually compressed in a small space, producing biological diversity at which scientists marvel. The Porcupine caribou frequently calve on these plains where they are more free from predators, a time of special sensitivity for them.
Caribou are the only member of the deer family with equal opportunity antlers; both male and female grow them. And both male and female shed them too, every year. Given the prodigious racks on caribou standing out even from far across the river, that those racks grow in a year is awe-inspiring. Beyond the significance for the caribou though, these racks also nourish the land. When they are shed along the coastal plains and foothills, large numbers of rodents gnaw them and then defecate creating some of the most calcium rich soil in the world. Just another small example- of endless examples- of the interdependence of life in the Arctic, a grand example we can see in the world around us any day and any place, if only we will look.
Caribou cross the river away from us
We moved easily upriver on firm tundra, the lichen and moss crunching softly underfoot. With the undulating tundra judging distance seemed impossible. We came to the first bend, seemingly steps from our camp but in reality a mile or more of walking, another group of caribou hundreds strong appeared in front of us! They covered the area from the steeps of the mountains to the riverbed. Some reclined easily, chewing on lichen they pulled from the tundra. Most grazed heartily. A large group, alarmed by our sudden appearance, headed for the river and crossed in a straight line, dark felted racks silhouetted against milky glacial flow. One by one they crossed; once across, each shook, almost a shimmy, diamonds of water offered to cool Arctic air. And then, with a wary glance toward us, they moved with stately steps across the rocky river bed to the opposite bank. Still they moved upriver.
In the midst of glory, we had affected behavior; distressed by our incompetence, we slipped into the riverbed to mask our movements below the bank and the sparse grey-green willows atop it. Passing the resting group, the three of us clambered clumsily onto the bank upriver. We walked slowly up the tundra hillside and found a place among small white flowers called mountain aven to sit where we could simply observe.
Watching the increasing mass of animals was like watching an advancing army. Though impossible to estimate the numbers, they covered the landscape, a wavering border clearly defining the forward edge of their movement. Constantly moving forward- an encampment on the move. The land itself come to life. The Jago River flowed to the north; this wave of animals flowed south. On occasion a large section would suddenly shift directions and run, as though of a common mind. Currents of life moved in all directions; the constant was the flow.
In the Arctic, the idea of self evaporates immediately in the rarefied air. It is the wide sweep of the land; it is the light. The light particularly is exquisite; after eight PM the shapes of mountains are highlighted by simple water-color swaths of light of varying colors, blues, yellows, ochres, browns. There are no trees, nothing to grant perspective, or interfere with the idea of space. There is nothing to interfere with imagination, or spirit. And now, in such light, the movement of epochs playing before us, playing around us. It was as though we had stumbled into an ancient world, our souls and our psyches plunged into the illimitable play of the wild.
So we sat a part of the tundra. We sat for hours, past midnight, shivering even in the midnight sun as the temperatures slid south. But shivering just as much from the movement of a life force we could not have imagined around us. Caribou continued to fill the valley. Initially avoiding us, the caribou grazed in an arc thirty feet away. Sometimes they stopped. They peered at us, black masks on their eyes and down their noses, large dark eyes, coats varied from the lightest brown to deep chocolate, spotted and plain. As they swung away from us, just as quickly they circled back around until caribou grazed, dozed, and on gallivanted all around us, uphill as well as down, upriver and down river. Younger animals seemed especially curious and ran toward us, stopping short to stare. I’m not sure we breathed, as though to exhale would blow them away as easily as extinguishing a match, might cause this magical apparition to disappear as astonishingly as it appeared. But this was no apparition; even the breaths of the caribou were audible. Breathing, tearing at the tundra, snorting, burping, galloping, the clicking of their tendons and ligaments, hoofs tapping on rock in the riverbed or mountains. Sitting among them, I felt a part of me was of them, too. That in coming into this world, I had discovered a reality of my own I had never before understood.
My hands rested on the roundness of my belly underneath my fleece. Thousands of animals became an ocean washing over us, following an understanding eluding our species. Their eyes held a sympathy and understanding of life – and death- more pure and free than ours. Inside of me new life swam in its own sea of origin, swam with the same purity as this world in which we intruded. I envied the connection of this wild place and my unborn child, I no longer as free having lived in a world of my own making. I wished to make this wildness my world, knowing that my connection was real but tenuous, a lingering remembrance of ancient ties. An ache of perception of this vaporous connection, of my inability to maintain it within the realities of life, struck me hard. I watched and felt the life in and around me, willing it with all I had to sink into and hold me.
At 1 AM, we reluctantly headed back to our backpacks, thoroughly chilled and hungry. We hiked silently, wanting to step respectfully, not further disturb this world, feel the connection just a moment longer. At camp, Peter fired up the Whisperlite camp stove, and the comforting hiss and blue flame boiled water for our first dinner. The cold that had crept under my down jacket, fleece, polypropolene and wool hat slowly dissipated, replaced by warmth seeping back with tea and food. Our brief comments of wonder to each other hung in the lightness of the Arctic air.
Surrendering our plans to wilderness, we had been invited to witness one of her greatest spectacles, to feel her energy and life move around and through us. The risk of accepting, of turning away from what we lived in our other world, was to accept our own fragility and insufficiency, and yet was also to stand in reverence and astonishment.
We crawled into our sleeping bags at 3 AM- now officially on Arctic time. In the land of the midnight sun, time ceases to have significance. Truly we walk in eternity, an eternity of light and of life. Perhaps in a way we always do, if we have the eyes to see it. So we slipped into our sleeping bags. Guiltily. Still across the river the mass of animals moved. No matter the wondrous scenes given us, the needs of our fragile bodies ultimately override the controls. The miracle of migration. The warmth of a down sleeping bag. A memory which will last forever. Not only a memory- an understanding. A participation. Resonance of immersion in the energy of life at its essential essence.
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