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.

We camped the night before heading into the bush on the side of the dirt airstrip at Fort Yukon, the Gwichin vilage where Kirk Sweetsir operates his two Cessna 185s for Yukon Air. An old painted sign on a rusted metal shipping container says “Welcome to Ft. Yukon North of the Arctic Circle. Population 687.” There are no roads to Fort Yukon, but it is a port on the mighty Yukon River. Otherwise only bush planes service this tiny population. Despite this, Fort Yukon was the furthest west outpost of the British Empire in North America-first established as a Hudson’s Bay Trading Company outpost in 1847…back when it was still Russian…continuing until expelled by American traders in 1869 following the purchase of Alaska. It is also the final resting place of London born and Kings College educated Archbishop Hudson Stuck, co-leader of the first successful expedition to climb Mt. McKinley (Denali)- sadly the only thing worth mentioning by Wikipidia- but who also served the native community of Alaska for over thirty years, famously traveling thousands of miles by dog sled in his missionary work. When he died of pneumonia in Fort Yukon, he requested to be buried in the native cemetery.

Zipping up my fleece against the relentless mosquitoes in the nine PM sunshine, I leaned over our map Kirk had spread on the container floor. Peter and Mark, my husband and a friend of ours, huddled in. “I was going to drop you off here. Caribou are west now though.” “What about the Jago?” Peter asked, looking at the next major drainage over. “Sure, we could do that,” Kirk said. “You guys can cross over one of these passes to get the Aichilik…” He pointed to an area where the contour lines were amply spaced in the mountains between the two rivers. “Come down this drainage- this is where the wolves den- and you can head south from there. Wolves have been working this whole bank here-” he gestured to parts of the Aichilik. “Had a black one come right into Robert’s tent last week and steal a cabbage! Never seen anything like it in my life!” Kirk was referring to Robert Thompson, an Inuit guide out of Kaktovik. “I don’t know if you’ll see caribou, but this valley is beautiful. I think you’ll really like the terrain.”

As Peter and I lay down for the night in our new tarptent, a lightweight mesh tent with a single layer of nylon, I pulled a t-shirt over my face to keep out the midnight sun.

Kirk loaded us on the plane the next morning. “Just be sure the bear spray is packed in your packs,” he directed. “You guys are lucky,” he continued. “June’s had the worst weather we’ve seen in years. It’s just now clearing up. Gotta drop you guys off, and go pick up some guys on the Jago coastal plains. Sounds like their plane crashed on the way to pick them up!”

These three guys were friends of ours- Mark and Andy Moderow and Paul Denklewater had pack rafted the Jago River the previous week in 35 degree weather and howling, 60 mph winds, sleet and rain. They had been sitting at the coast accompanied by grizzly bear for the past two days.

Kirk is not your typical Alaska bush pilot, though he’s been flying the Alaska bush most of his life. Born in Ruby, Alaska, an Athapaskan village of 100 on the Yukon, Kirk started to fly, and then went back for a Masters in Geology at Cambridge-the one in England. He met his wife there who was getting her doctorate in criminology. They live in Fairbanks in the winter and Ft. Yukon in the summer, from where Kirk flies people to the bush, and his wife advises the British government on policy decisions.

We take off and head north, the endless Yukon flats eventually swelling into gentle hills and then proper mountains of the stormy Brooks Rage. Low clouds block several valleys and passes, and Kirk navigates his way through them seemingly without effort, and with one deep turn where the g-forces press us into our seats. We fly over a high plateau area in the approximate area of the continental divide; that term is used loosely and has little meaning here, he explains. Essentially it determines which rivers flow south and which flow north. We fly over the Sheenjek, where we are meant to arrive in 11 days and where the Muries famously camped in the mid-1950s, revisited only a couple of years ago by George Schaller.

As Kirk picks his way in and out of valleys further north in the range, he finally opts to fly over the foothills and avoid the passes all together; as the Cessna floats over the open and rolling tundra landscape, tiny brown shapes become visible. “There’s a group of caribou,” Kirk notes, as several hundred of these shapes make their way east spread loosely across the foothills. Another group, then another become visible, all moving slowly in the direction we are flying.

We swing into the Jago River valley. We are minutes from landing, but the fingernails I have dug into my palm for the last half hour have lost their effectiveness. I lost my breakfast in a plastic bag, quite humbly as the one other pilot on the plane. Bush flying is a long way from straight and level. Kirk nicely ignores my breach of protocol, and comes in for final on a long tundra strip. Across the river from us are maybe two hundred caribou. “Looks like you guys got lucky,” Kirk said. “They’re all moving toward this valley!”

Dropping our backpacks and shotgun, Kirk waved, turned the plane around and disappeared against the open mountainous landscape with astonishing abruptness. The only sound now was the wind, the mosquitoes and our own small voices.