Over the past month we have lost two of the great champions for Alaska’s wild places – Stewart Udall and Dr Ed Wayburn

Stewart Udall (January 31, 1920 – March 20, 2010)

Stewart Udall grew up in the southwest but he has left his mark on the wild lands across this country. As Secretary of the Interior for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Udall played a key role in fostering environmental awareness and expanding the national park system. His efforts led to the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, which created the National Wilderness Preservation System, under which many key lands in Alaska are managed including much of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Maybe most importantly for Alaska and Alaska’s Native People, when he was Secretary of the Interior in the early 1960’s, government and private interests were acting as though the Native people of the State of Alaska had no rights in their ancestral lands. Stewart Udall imposed a land freeze on all of Alaska lands transfers in 1964, which meant that no title could be exchanged on any Alaska lands until a settlement had been reached with the aboriginal people of the state. That drove the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, and section d-2 of that Bill set the stage for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

Dr. Edgar Wayburn (September 17, 1906 – March 5, 2010)

Dr Wayburn was a five time President of the Sierra Club and has been called a “20th Century John Muir.” To me Dr Wayburn was a personal hero, one of America’s legendary wilderness champions, and certainly the least-known yet most successful defender of America’s natural heritage. In 1995, he was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and in 1999 President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Under Dr Wayburns leadership the Sierra club lead the charge to pass the Alaska national Interest Lands conservation Act which ultimately protected over 100 million acres of Alaskan wildlands.

I came to know Dr Wayburn early in my conservation career when I traveled to San Francisco from Fairbanks to organize around a series of hearings in the lower 48 focused on Arctic wildlands. Dr Wayburn took me under his wing, offered my office space and advice and I learned so much from him about conservation, and the importance of approaching our work with a positive attitude and a love for the land. During my tenure in Washington DC I was honored to work out of the Wayburn Wilderness House which honored Dr Ed and his wife Peggy for all the work they had done on behalf of America’s wild places.

It has been a sad month for those of us who love wild lands, but the legacy of these two great individuals live on in the lands they have protected and in the conservation ethics of their families and friends. I don’t know if I believe in a heaven, but if its there we can rest assured that when we get their, these two will have organized to protect the best parts of it.

Caribou Tracks by Cedric Ley

It was the 14^th of July and I thought my chance to encounter the mighty herd was over.  It had been 10 days since I had seen any wild life. It felt like the Utukok upland was getting ready for the winter, when all of its summer inhabitants left to go to some cosier place south of the Brook range. That evening the wind picked up and with it the temperature dropped which to my delight kept the mosquitoes at large.

After a long day hiking on the edge of the Noatak national preserve and the Utukok upland, I was getting ready for a nice sleep when suddenly from the inside of my tent I could see a wolf.

I was very excited, but also wondered why a lonely wolf would be there when there did not seem to be anything to eat. Maybe something was about to happen…

The wolf passed and passed again…we looked at each other but because I was down wind he could not fathom what this odd tent and its habitants might be.  Finally, curiously got the best of him.  He crossed the stream and came toward the tent. I let him get closer.  I did not move.  We looked into each others eyes.

50 yards, 35, 20….I felt thrilled and privileged for I knew that wolves are naturally cautious of humans.  As he approached, it occurred to me that he would come all the way to the tent. Instead, he passed on my left to walk downwind. Once downwind, it took him two seconds to recognize my smell, and he ran in the opposite direction like his life was at risk. It really makes me think how we humans have a profound impact on animal instinct.

My heart was warm. This encounter made up for the last 10 days when I had seen nothing. It was one of those unique moments that one can only witness when alone in the wild. It was truly amazing.

After that, it took me a very long time to fall asleep, though it felt like minutes later when suddenly a noise sounding like a grunt brought me out of my slumber. At first I thought of a bear-  I quickly picked up my pepper spray and then, in the distance, I heard more grunts.  I realised that it was not the sound of a bear; I also recognised the very particular popping sound that the caribou’s articulation produce when they are on the move.

My heart was pounding.

Could this be the moment that I have been waiting for for the last six weeks?

I grabbed my camcorder as carefully as I could with minimum noise, and the battery that I keep warm inside my sleeping bag. By now, it felt that the entire valley was grunting. Up and down the valley, caribou were passing all around my tent.

Once all set, I carefully opened the tent and as gently as I could wiggled outside.

I could not believe what I was witnessing. The entire Western Arctic Caribou herd was passing in the valley, crossing the river. They were everywhere, on the slopes, high above the valley as far as my eyes could see, by groups of hundreds upon hundreds, following each other.  Untroubled by my presence, they were peaceful; I could not sense stress from them. It was truly a magnificent sight to behold.

Caribou by Cedric Ley

The weather was perfect.  The chilled wind kept the mosquitoes on the ground and the blue sky was perfect for filming and taking countless pictures.

It was 5:30 in the morning when I realised their presence.

After seeing how many were in the valley, I felt that the show must have started two to three hours before. The last of the caribou passed through the valley at 12:30 that morning.

At 12:31 the valley was again empty and all that remained was the newly formed tracks that the caribou had left behind them.

At the time of that fantastic experience, the herd was estimated at around 450,000 animals making the Western Arctic Caribou Herd the biggest in Alaska and the third largest in North America. It is a great number, but we should not forget that their future is an unsettled one. One of the main reasons will be the exploitation of coal in the north of the Utukok Uplands combined with mining in the south into the Brooks Range. This development can only have a negative impact, including putting sensitive calving grounds at risk. Add to this the impact of climate change, and even this great herd will be jeopardized.

Sitting back in my tent and looking out at the silent tracks the herd had left on the tundra, I could not stop thanking Mother Nature for a once in a lifetime experience that few will ever see.

I filmed easy images of stupidity,  a group of caribou appeared, caribou and drums…what a cliché…but there it was…a reality right in front of me…and so I filmed the caribou as they walked among the barrels and then wandered off across the tundra…This was a larger group of caribou than we have been seeing, they moved across the tundra with determination, down the hill towards the river…heading some place they know and we do not…some place they know or sense or feel, some place we can only imagine…which lives in our imagination and gives meaning to this place…We continued across mud sucking tussocks to the second group of drums…I filmed and took photographs and then we headed back to camp walking across a field of wild flowers…white, yellow, pink, blue until we reached the dark flowing river. Just above the river we found the partially eaten remains of a caribou calf…a reminder of the darker rules which govern this place…Then we were into the boat…dark mud and melting ice lines the bank leading down to the dark water…We crossed back to camp, prepared dinner as the sky filled with fast changing clouds…silver light…yellow shafts of sunlight raked the hills…and then the sky opened up with high scattered clouds lit by the low angled light of the sun…Three caribou descend the hill above us and cross the river…they disappear into the glare of light to bright to see…They leave a lone caribou on the hill, who suddenly jumps and runs…We watch as two grey wolves lope across the tundra in the direction of the lone caribou…a story to imagine, with no details to tell…There is a cold wind, there are clearing skies…