Snowmachines

I hate snow machines. Always have. They're loud. They reek of two-cycle. They chase away wildlife. And most of all, they tend to break down at precisely the most inconvenient times. BUT they can give you access to places that would otherwise be out of reach for a two week trip. With no roads in or out and snow cover from September until May, they are the obvious mode of transport in Kaktovik. Simply put, they are part of life in the far north.

And so, just like any farm to do list in Wisconsin begins with "Fix Tractor," any trip in the arctic begins with "Fix Snow Machine." I'm not a mechanic. Working on recoil starts and clutches and engines was among the most frustrating things I've done in a long time. At one point, I asked Roland—a friend of our host who was helping us get machines in order for our trip—if there was some trick to getting these started, something I was missing. He looked at me, red-faced and sweating through my jacket from hauling on the pull start over an over, looked down at the yellow ski-doo sitting dead in the snow between us, and said, "The trick is...you have to pull it until it starts," nodded and then walked away. Fair enough.

Craig and Charly adjust the tow line for one of the sleds carrying food and gear.

I'm proud to report that in the end, we met with at least marginal success. Enough anyway (along with a newer rented machine that would later break down as well), to get our group, our gear, and plenty of food out of town and into the backcountry, each machine towing a sled loaded with tents, food, fuel, and gear all wrapped up in a canvas tarp. Each sled also carried a rider who helped to keep the load tracked out straight behind the machine as we crossed the most rugged land I've ever seen.

From Kaktovik, we went west. Across land-fast sea ice and frozen lagoons to the mouth of the Hula Hula River and then turned, following the path of the river south across the coastal plain toward the Sadlerochit Mountains and the northern edge of the Brooks Range. We would ultimately spend 8 nights in the field, leaving a day earlier than planned as changing ice conditions on the river made travel increasingly difficult.

Now, at this point it’s important to note that the irony of using snow machines for this trip is not lost on me. To go see a far away place threatened by oil development via gas powered transportation is admittedly complicated. I get it. Each time I saw the cloud of blue exhaust that comes out of a cold engine when you first fire it up, I felt like a complete hypocrite. I felt the same way watching our plane refuel on the runway in Seattle. We are dependent on fossil fuel. That's a fact. And I'm not just pointing fingers at everyone else, we’re all in the same boat.

Aufeis or overflow is early spring melt that moves over the top of the frozen river, wetting the snow and creating a striking blue layer of ice when it freezes overnight.

But here's the thing: I'm not saying we should never use fossil fuels. If we woke up tomorrow and decided not to use another drop of oil, we'd be totally f@#$%. Totally. We need to transition to alternative energy, ween ourselves off—a process that we've barely started and requires the continued use of some oil. It's going to take decades to complete that process and even then there may be smart uses of fossil fuel even into the far distant future. In the mean time, we need to use the resources we have judiciously.

Fortunately for the Arctic Refuge, there are other sources of these fossil fuels that don't require the whole sale destruction of the coastal plain. In fact, even inflated estimates of the oil reserves within the contested 1002 region aren't especially large compared to known reserves elsewhere in the United States, places already disrupted by development. The end product of drilling in the Refuge would represent only a tiny fraction of our national oil needs. Not to mention the US is actually exporting oil as we speak. In short, I don't want to hear a single peep from anyone wrapping themselves in our flag and claiming that this oil contributes to our independence. We don't need to choose between the Arctic Refuge and independence; we can easily have both.

Harvesting arctic oil comes at a high cost, namely the loss of this wilderness—one of the very few fully intact wild ecosystem in the US. From its apex predators down to it's smallest life forms, the arctic is still a complete system. A land intricately balanced. That's something we can't replace, no matter how much money or popular support we have. Once its gone, it's truly gone. But here’s the thing: we can simply choose not to destroy it—we have that power.

Big oil would have you believe that they can add major infrastructure to this land and not tip that balance. They are either hopelessly arrogant or tragically dim. Maybe both. Anyone who has seen Prudhoe Bay can tell you that oil extraction is not light on the land, or the native people who have lived there for countless generations. Seismic testing, drill platforms, militarized security protocols, and pipelines disrupt the natural rhythms of life and land in staggering ways, many of which we're still discovering.

So, long story short, why risk it? We have this wild and beautiful thing, this Refuge that belongs to all of us. And yes, it does contain a small amount of oil, but we don't actually need it. So let's just leave it alone. Keep this piece of wild intact. Seems like simple math to me. And here’s where you come in: tell your elected officials the same. Even if they don’t agree; maybe especially if they don’t agree. Tell everyone. We only get one shot at this. Make it count.

Getting to the Arctic

"Barter Island, as promised," says the pilot, climbing out from behind the controls and dropping the side door down to the gravel runway. In lieu of an airport, a small blue bus is pulling onto the runway to meet us.

"A promise easily broken," says Jennifer Reed in a quiet, dry tone. Reed is the Public Use Manager for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and by chance one of the passengers on our eight-seat flight to Kaktovik (sometimes written Qaaktugvik), the small coastal village on Barter Island. A frequent traveler here, she's joined on this trip by Refuge Manager Steve Berendzen, Park Ranger Will Wiese, and another independent contractor. As we cleared the mountain rampart of the Brooks Range and soared over the coastal plain she was marking edits in the US Fish and Wildlife Polar Bear Source Book—a document I read in full no less than three times in preparation for this trip. I am curious to know her changes, but too shy to ask.

Many flights to these remote northern airstrips are delayed or diverted due to inclement weather. High winds, fog, snow. All three. Here, the driver of that rough weather is the Beaufort Sea. Weather rolls in from this marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean and, with virtually no change in elevation from sea ice to tundra, batters the settlements on this northern coast.

On our departing flight two weeks later we would stop to pickup another passenger at Fort Yukon, where a cross-wind would force a skewed approach to the runway and some quick last minute maneuvers. This was all deftly executed by two pilots who appeared to be younger than several of the clothing items I packed for this trip. I doubt our landing would even stand out as unique to them—I'm certain they have flown in far worse—but after bumping down the runway and stopping in front of the pole building that serves as a terminal, Charly would look across the narrow aisle with eyebrows slightly raised and say, "well, that was sporty."

A small bus meets planes at the airstrip in Kaktovik

A long spring sunset in Kaktovik, 11 pm.

Sign at the edge of town which includes an alternate spelling: Qaaktugvik

A snow bunting perches on a shipping container in Kaktovik

All this to point out, that just getting to and from the Arctic is not super easy. To be clear, it's markedly better than the days of Franklin's Lost Expedition, but it's still safe to say its the edge of the map. I'm not being hyperbolic; Kaktovik is literally the far northern edge of the continent. On most maps (when marked) it's followed by a little blue area labeled "Beaufort Sea," and then the margin.

Therein lies one of the biggest challenges to protecting this place from the greedy, wandering eyes of big oil: almost no one goes there. And, realistically, that's not going to change. In some ways, that may actually be its best defense. But how do you give people a connection to a place they've never been, and probably never will? How do you convince a weary public that such a place, held in trust for the people of this great nation, has value beyond the tiny supply of fossil fuel hidden beneath the fragile skin of the tundra?

Overflow ice on the Hula Hula River looking from the Coastal Plain toward the mountains of the Brooks Range.

My hope is that my photos can help, that they can give you a vision of a land you may never see and convince you of its value as an untouched wilderness rather than oil field. These images are not the first of their kind or the best, but they do represent one more piece in the body of evidence that supports the Arctic Refuge's claim as one of America's few remaining patches of true wilderness—a distinction that once destroyed can never be rebuilt. Now is our chance to preserve this wild and rugged land, to pass it on unharmed for future generations.

The immense open land of the coastal plain in the contested 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.