Category Archives: ANWR

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Oil Barrels, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Empty oil barrels, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Hey Folks,

Here’s the last of my series on the Arctic national Wildlife Refuge, for now. I’d like to write some more about the place, but will do that later. I wanted to post this because I read somewhere the other day that because the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is not a pristine wilderness, we may as well go ahead and drill there. What so often is forgotten or neglected is that much of the disturbances to the pristine nature of the land here are a function os previous oil exploration. Out on the coastline, the tundra is littered with signs and debris of oil exploration. Whilst I was hiking one afternoon, I counted over 300 empty oil barrels lying on the tundra in one very small section of coastal plain. Continue reading

Rough-legged Hawk, Canning River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Rough-legged Hawk, Canning River, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

The Rough-legged hawk is a close relative of the red-tailed hawk that many people are familiar. The Rough-legged hawk (Buteo lagopus) travels to the northern reaches of the globe, and spends the summer on the arctic tundra and in the taiga forest of the far north. It’s a large hawk, with both light and dark forms common. Continue reading

Short-tailed Weasel photo, Coastal Plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska

Short-tailed Weasel, Coastal Plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska

Hey Folks,

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours one long afternoon with this little short-tailed weasel. I’ve hardly ever had to work as hard as trying to photograph this little fellow. Weasels are like ferrets on crack. Unbelievable energy. They stop for a second, glance around, and take off again, top speed, racing around, darting this way and that, Continue reading

Another Tundra Swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Another Tundra Swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

I wanted to follow my previous post with this photo, showing the environment and landbase the tundra swan lives within.This is the same bird, in the same pond, from almost the exact same spot – but this photo was taken with a wider lens (Nikon 70-200mm). I love tight, close-up portraits of wildlife (and people) but I always enjoy a photo showing the subject in place. I think of ‘in place’ as reference to the greater scope of what we mean by ‘nature’. When we closely consider the world around us, we begin to see that these creatures and features we share this existence with do not live in isolation, and aren’t, in fact, separate from one another. Continue reading

Tundra Swan Photos, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Tundra swan, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Hey Folks,

On my last evening in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, camped out on the edge of the coastal plain by the Beaufort Sea, I hiked countless hours trying to find subjects to photograph. The light was magical, from about 10:00pm until I went to bed at 4:30am. Unfortunately, I had a tough time finding subjects to shoot. I saw a few foxes, but didn’t get close enough to any for photos. I saw my first ever snowy owl, an unbelievably beautiful, yet extremely skittish bird that I never got close to. Continue reading

Red fox photos, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska.

Red fox kit silhouette, Arctic National wildlife refuge, alaska

Hey Folks

Wildlife in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge. This is a red fox kit, taken just a hundred yards or so from where we camped along the Canning river on the coastal plain. This photo was taken around 3am. It was pretty cloudy and overcast, but the clouds didn’t go all the way to northern horizon, so eventually there was a little break, where the sun dipped just below the cloudline towards the horizon, Continue reading

Rafting on the Canning River, ANWR, Alaska

Rafting the Canning River, ANWR

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of us rafting down the Upper Marsh Fork of the Canning River – essentially the headwaters of the Canning in the Brooks Range, close to the continental divide. The river here has eroded its way through the layers of bedrock to form this really neat little mini-canyon. I hopped out of the boat to take some photos of the run. Actually, we ran it several times, and I shot each time, some horizontals, a few verticals, some wider, some tighter, trying to get different compositions of essentially the same scene. Continue reading

Coastal Plain, Section 1002, ANWR, Alaska.

Arctic wildflowers, coastal plain, ANWR, Alaska

Hey Folks,

Here’s a photo of the arctic coastal plain, near the Canning River, ANWR, Alaska. This is the now infamous ‘coastal plain’, known as Section 1002, the area that is so frequently proposed be open for oil drilling. One of the big arguments made in favor of opening the area to drilling is that the coastal plain is ‘boring’, or ’empty’, or ‘nothing’. I disagree that it’s boring. I found it stimulating – the place simply feels alive, vibrant. There’s an energy here Continue reading

Double Rainbow, Brooks Range, ANWR, Alaska

Rainbow over Brooks range, ANWR, Alaska

hey Folks,

This is another photo from my series of photos from ANWR. This particuar evening I was returning back to camp about midnight when this rainbow appeared. It had been a pretty long day, and I was actually ready to hit the sack. At first the rainbow wasn’t that special, and I kept trying to convince myself it was ‘just a rainbow’, and not worth heading over to photograph it. As I got nearer my camp, the rainbow started to glow stronger, and then a second rainbow appeared behind it. I grabbed my polariser (filter)and started looking around for Continue reading

Brooks Mountains, ANWR, Alaska

Valleys and ridges, Brooks Mountain Range, ANWR, Alaska

Hey Folks,

Here’s another image from my trip to ANWR in 2006. This particular afternoon was early in the trip, and we hiked up around some ridgelines, not far from the Upper Marsh Fork river. It was an awesome afternoon, and we spent several hours clambering around the hillsides. The wind picked up pretty strongly, after a while. I had carried a tiny little gitzo tripod with me, and it really wasn’t up to the task of holding up my camera gear in wind this strong. So I kept hiking around, Continue reading