The gravel bar is a jumble of jagged clay rock; there are fossils everywhere, worms and seashells, fragments of petrified wood, fern leaves, an ancient world frozen in stone. I imagine myself walking in an ancient arctic rain forest. We climb up the cliff above our tents following game trails and eating blueberries. There are caribou antlers laying in the tundra and caribou grazing on the distant hill.

Reaching the top of the cliff I can look across the river and see a distant oil rig. It is hard to know just how big it is, but it must be big, it fills a distant ridge. The rig unsettles me; I am looking at the last thing I want to see, like looking at a cancer cell under a microscope…there it is, real, solid, not a vision, or an idea…a reality, as real as the caribou or the fossils at my feet.

Later, with the sun low on the horizon, the hills are streaked with yellow and in the distance I can see the vertical tower of the oil rig…It is vertical in a horizontal landscape…it sits there alone…a sentinel that defines the looming threat of more towers, pipelines, roads, gravel pits…all of it representing millions of dollars of investment…money spent to pour oil into the sky.

There are caribou on the gravel bar, there are caribou on the surrounding hills…the river shines blue, the air has gotten colder, there is a light wind…I can barely hear the hum of the land

by Richard Kahn

The owl flies silently over my head, white and brown wings making no sound…over the river into the tundra, the owl drops out of sight and then emerges from a fold in the land a small creature tucked in its talons…Screeching peregrine chicks hidden somewhere on the cliff face, strident calls, chaotic screaming…pleading, hidden from view. The adult falcon, invisible, screeches a warning…

A group of silent black and white geese run across the gravel bar…Gulls watch, their incessant call not so much the call of the wilderness, but more like a reminder that the familiar lives in the most exotic places…or, perhaps, a reminder that the exotic is merely a perspective shift of the familiar.

Loons call, they are distant silhouettes on the water, sometimes sounding like ducks or geese…sometimes laughing…they run across the surface of the river beating their wings as their feet stir up white wakes…They leave the surface, turn and head upstream, heads down, necks extended, wings beating the air, they fight to fly unlike the hawks, eagles, falcons and owls who float effortlessly on the air…hovering, soaring, hurtling towards the ground, blasting straight into the sky.

And then there is the raven, dark shape, calls like a gull, flies like a hawk, soars with the eagles…In the middle of the night the raven’s call wakes me up…it is close, and unlike anything else I have heard here…sound like wind passing through a long pipe…a bird flute…it is unique and unlike the mimicking cries I hear from the raven during the day…If the caribou are the magician animals, dancing across the tundra, appearing and disappearing mysteriously in their own way, then the raven is the magician bird…dark like a shadow…silent or noisy at will, a mimic or a unique individual…secure, curious, nomadic…

We’ll be traveling  as a party of two in a Klepper kayak along the Nigu River to the Etivluk River, and ultimately to the Colville River in the Western Arctic. The trip starts in the edge of Gates of the Arctic National Park- the second largest national park in the country and inaccessible by any road- then heads out into the Western Arctic, officially called the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska. The NPR-A is the largest block of public land in the nation, and also the most remote- an hour and a half bush plane flight from the nearest road. These millions of acres are home to two different caribou herds, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, as well as sensitive areas for thousands of migratory birds from around the world. North of our trip is the sensitive Teshekpuk Lake area (see our page on Journeys of the Alaskan Wild). Last year the BLM deferred any oil and gas leasing in this environmentally sensitive area, one of the most important wetland complexes in the world which has been protected by every U.S. administration in the past 30 years.

We were lucky to talk to several people who have spent time in the Western Arctic, with reports of caribou from the largest herd in Alaska- the Western Arctic herd- wolves, grizzly and the well-known raptor populations. We’ve also heard that it is the worst mosquito year anyone remembers. But the Nigu is particularly known for its extensive archeological sites from early man migrations onto the continent. The best known is the Mesa Site but many others sit on ridges and lakes throughout the area. We will and do lots of exploring by foot in addition to about 110 river miles.

Please join us! And in the meantime, add your voice to the petition to President Obama to protect all of America’s Arctic. If you haven’t already, it’s a great time to join the Alaska Wilderness League, or make a contribution, as well! We look forward to bringing you a story from one of the most beautiful and remote areas on our continent and in the world!