The Aichilik River

Shannon Huffman Polson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:19:11 +0000

Arctic light up the drainage into the Aichilik- this drainage has no name

Rain and sleet pounding on our tent woke us close to noon. It fell for two hours. The lightweight Tarptent held up great; we stayed nestled in our sleeping bag and read and journaled.

After a breakfast of oatmeal, walnuts and raisins, we filtered more water, and headed down the drainage. The steep slopes into the valley forced us into the river bed, and we made our way through high willows. At one point we glimpsed a mother moose and calf slipping behind willows ahead of us. There continued to be a lot of caribou sign, clumps of hair clinging to tussocks, droppings and hoofprints as though an Army had marched through! There was also a lot of moose sign, though other than the elusive mother and calf, none other appeared. Bear sign diminished, or at least was older.

River walking in the drainage to the Aichilik

About a mile down, our drainage met another, larger drainage with braided streams on a wide bed. Neither of these drainages or creeks have names, part of the Arctic landscape untouched and nameless. Instead of scaling the steep slopes on either side and wrestling our way through miles of tundra, we dropped into this wider river bed, donning gaiters for the small fording we would do.

Across the gravel bar was a long white-blue line of aufeis left from the winter. A single caribou walked across the white field, occasionally wandering up onto the tundra, and then returning to the ice. The ice highlighted his antics, and we nicknamed him Lou as we watched him for a mile hiking downstream. Lou seemed a little bit sad though, and very lost. While it is apparently possible for lone caribou to rejoin their herd, his isolation- and that we hadn’t seen caribou in a day and a half, didn’t bode well. Kirk had mentioned that there was a wolf den where our drainage met the Aichilik. Lou, it seemed, might end up nature’s sacrifice to herself.

Caribou tracks

We reached the confluence of the Aichilik close to midnight, and clambered up onto a wide tundra plateau. From this plateau we looked up the drainage from where we had come, up the Aichilik river valley, and over another plateau into what was the Leffenwell Fork. The confluence of water, the intersection of wide valleys and plateaus ringed by high peaks in the midnight light held us breathless. The Arctic is full of wildlife; if you don’t happen to see it on a given trip, the myriad tracks and well worn game trails are adumbrations of a life force beyond understanding. But despite the majesty and scale of the landscape itself, the epic animal and bird migrations, it is the Arctic light that casts the strongest spell. The light paints the gentle landscape in simple swaths of watercolors, opening the land to the spirit and imagination more than it can itself. The plateau just downriver of us swept easily across, with small, similarly sized mountains like soft mounds of whipped cream along its length. As the mountains grew to the south, they were as soft folds in a blanket that had been carefully draped over a masterpiece, framing rivers and sky.

The next morning we headed upriver on the Aichilik. Realizing we would need to make several ten hour days to reach the Sheenjek, we conferenced, and decided to adjust our route. We called Kirk on the sat phone, and requested pickup on the Aichilik at a landing strip at the base of the foothills. Thus freed to continue our travels at our own pace, we continued upriver.

Mark saw the shape on the hillside first. It was brown, and seemed small, and was very hard to discern initially. Below it on the slope was a lone caribou.

“Is that a wolverine?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen one, I have no idea what that is…”

He and Peter pulled out zoom lenses and snapped pictures. A brown and black Arctic fox, tiny pinched face and fluffy tail, had spotted us, too, and sat looking at us from the slope above. Then a curious thing happened. The caribou, which wandered lonely and seemingly without purpose below the fox, saw the fox. It walked straight for it. The fox continued up the side of the hill. The caribou followed it. The fox stopped, and turned. By all appearances, the caribou and fox greeted each other in surprising proximity. It was as if the caribou was looking for someone to follow, something to lead it back to its herd, nd sadly, had not found the right guide. Then the fox turned again, and maintained its upward trek. The caribou turned off to follow the contour line of the hill.

Semipalmated Plover

[caption id="attachment_533" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Common Redpole"][/caption]

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Female Harlequin Ducks

We made our camp on a small tundra section of a wide gravel bar, surrounded by active birds. As the evening set in, the temperature dropped especially precipitously. We scrambled for river baths and jumped into fleece and down. By midnight I had given up watch of the Arctic light for the comfort of the sleeping bag. Peter, bundled head to toe, remained outside in his Crazy Creek reading. And saw the wolf.

Just outside the campsite, he saw a flash of gray, and a large, lean body. It trotted toward our camp and sat to watch Peter a mere 10 meters away. Peter rose slowly to alert me to come out, but as he stood the wolf sprang to its feet and trotted away. We all watched it ascend the mountain to our east and lope easily along, unencumbered by the tussocks we knew were there, a figure of wild and of mystery and of splendor.

Peter rinses in the Aichilik

[caption id="attachment_517" align="alignleft" width="100" caption="Mark writes in his trip journal"][/caption]

Elegant Paintbrush

We retraced our steps the next day to an area we’d marked on the GPS as being especially full of birds, another boggy and willowy spot in a large gravel bar. For each camp Mark and Peter scouted extensively, looking for recent bear sign, ensuring we weren’t camping anywhere in someone- or something else’s territory. Old bear scat was all we found. We camped in peace other than the continued cold north wind. The next day we would ford the Aichilik and make our way over a saddle to the Leffingwell Fork.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Shannon Huffman Polson — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:51:56 +0000

Our first leg of the Ultima Thule is two weeks hiking in the north-east Arctic, beginning in the foothills of the Romanzov Mountains along the Aichilik River and hiking south to the Upper Sheenjek River, designated in 1980 as a Wild River. We hope we might see some of the caribou migration, though it’s always impossible to predict, and it is not encouraged to share exact locations of the migration because of hunting. Our hike will be just to the west of the popular Kongagut River on the far eastern edge of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Route from the Aichilik River to the Upper Sheenjek

We hope to be able to enter voice blogs from occasional calls on our SAT phone, assuming multiple connections work in the equation. My brother has offered to help upload these blogs, so we’ll try for at least a couple of times a week- stay tuned!

This trip will be in the Refuge proper. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (ANILCA) designated all of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge- except for a critical 1.5 million acres of coastal plains to the immediate north of our trip area- wilderness. This area under debate is called 1002, after the section of ANILCA under which it was set apart. Section 1003 of ANILCA indicates that “production of oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is prohibited and no leasing or other development leading to production of oil and gas from the [Refuge] shall be undertaken until authorized by an act of Congress.” Hence the source of the debate, as studies continue.

The concerns are many. The mass migration of animals by land and sea, as well as millions of birds from around the world, to the Arctic coast each summer are indicators of what biologists understand as an area of remarkable biological diversity. Because the Refuge and coastal plains encompass six distinct ecological regions, and in Area 1002 especially the distance from the mountains to the sea is compressed, these ecological regions are compressed into an exceptionally valuable wilderness area. This part of the coast is only 3.2% of the Arctic coastal plains and 4.5% of the Arctic foothills region in the state, a seemingly small amount to permanently protect given it’s tremendous environmental significance.

Check back with us every few days for a short voice blog on how the trip is going! We will give you a written report and photos when we return the second week of July. In the meantime, please check out the pages we’ve put together on climate change, migration, and our public lands. A couple of other interesting sites to check out: Necessary Journeys, Karsten Heuer and his wife’s trip following the Porcupine Caribou herd, and the Fish and Wildlife site on the Refuge. If you really want to get into it, an oldie but goodie…Arctic Dreams is fascinating, and truly brings the mystery and complexity of the Arctic into focus.

The Ultima Thule » Romanzov Mountains

The Aichilik River

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge