Each region in Alaska has a prime season, when traveling conditions, wildlife, and weather all align for the optimal experience. I was recently asked how I would plan the ultimate Alaska summer if my goals were to see wildlife at its peak abundance in the most remote and wild places possible.

Here is my rough itinerary for the perfect Alaska summer.

1) Late April and the first of May in Southeast Alaska for humpbacks, herring, and waterfowl.
2) May  5 -10 in Cordova for shorebirds, and May 10 -15 in Homer for more shorebirds.
3) First 2 weeks of June on the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta for some of the best birding in the state including Spectacled Eiders and other rarities. While out in southwest Alaska a trip to Round Island to see the walrus is in order too.
4) Second half of June in Arctic Alaska to experience the great herds of caribou migrating across the tundra. June 13-21 is ideal for the Kokolik River near the calving grounds of the Western Arctic Herd. For late June, the Arctic National Wildlife is the best place for seeing the caribou by the thousands, as they cross the coastal plain.
5) Early July is perfect for the Katmai Coast where enormous bears feed in the sedge meadows and scour the beach for food.
6) Late July is a brief window of relative calm in the Aleutian Islands. In addition to the geothermal wonders, the Aleutians have some of the best whale watching and sea-birds in the world.
7) Muskoxen are relatively sedentary year-round but with generally decent weather on the Seward Peninsula in early August, it is a good time to watch the muskox calves frolic while the shaggy cows graze peacefully.
8] Gates of the Arctic National Park is prime in mid-August. The Noatak River is one of the most reliable places to see grizzly bears in the Brooks Range. And I know of no other place where we see wolves with such regularity. Some years, caribou from the Western Arctic Herd also swim the river adding yet more wildlife to this rich experience.
9) At the beginning of September many birds flee Alaska and the last place they stop before heading south is Izembek Lagoon. Waterfowl are the biggest draw, but shorebirds and other migrants also feed here in the fall.
10) Late September and October are early winter on the Arctic Coast and this is when Polar Bears congregate at Barter Island. There is no place in the world with Polar Bear viewing as good as this.
11) And for a grand finale, The Chilkat River near Haines, hosts the world’s largest congregation of Bald Eagles each November.

Whew… What a summer that would be.

I’m sure I’ve missed some great wildlife trips on my list. What are your favorites?

With more than 40 years of guiding experience in grizzly country, I know a thing or two about bears, so when Marin Kuizenga, with Polar Field Services Inc, said she had room for three Arctic Wild guides in a bear safety workshop, I was a bit skeptical. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend a day and a half sitting indoors listening to lectures during our wonderful spring weather.

Boy, was I mistaken. First of all, Canadian  Andy McMullen, with BearWise Inc. was the perfect person for the job. With over 35 years of living in the Canadian far north, (Yellowknife and farther north) guiding, running tourist camps, as a government employee, researcher, professional hunter and a whole lot more… Andy has done it all and seen it all…..from diamond mining camps to oil exploration rigs, Eskimo subsistence cabins to 1000-man half cities.

Most important, Andy is serious about what he does, training folks about bear safety. It became obvious immediately Andy was a professional and wanted us to learn that if we were having a problem with a bear, we were doing something wrong. Self-demeaning, with that wonderful Canadian wit, Andy kept us focused and kept us learning.

25 folks attended the class. We had Inupiat bear guards from Barrow, Greenland researchers from Denver, Polar Services people from here in Fairbanks, Bureau of Land Management Archeologists, University of Alaska Fairbanks field camp professors, NOLS & Arctic Wild guides.

The class covered bear identification (Black, Grizzly & Polar Bear), behavior, encounter types & responses, problem prevention and lastly deterrents. Andy’s emphasis on avoiding problems rather than using deterrents was refreshing  for those of us who respect the fact that we are invading bear country, not the other way around. His use of traditional native knowledge about bears was a wonderful way of showing us how we could learn to live with bears and minimize our impact upon them.

Some of the things I learned from the class I already knew intuitively, but didn’t know how to express to our guests. For instance, is the approaching bear a defensive bear or a non-defensive bear? Did you enter its space so that it is defending itself, its young or a kill? Or is the bear acting predatory? The bear’s behavior can tell you immediately what kind of bear you are dealing with. All bears are talking to us, or giving us signals. In the vast majority of close encounters they are telling us to get out of their space. It is obvious to those of us who have traveled in bear country for years and encountered hundreds of bears, but not always so obvious to our guests. Learning to explain these signals to our guests can mean the difference between an enjoyable encounter and one with dramatically more negative results for both the bear and us.

The discussions on polar bears was the most interesting to me because each year we find ourselves doing more and more trips in polar bear country and, with global warming, we are finding more and more bears that are stranded on land that we are also using. Most important, we learned that polar bears really aren’t all that different, behavior wise, than other bears. In the vast majority of encounters, once they find out you are human, they are on their way, just like grizzlies and black bears. They are not the man-stalkers they have been made out to be.

In all cases when you run across a bear, any kind of bear, first of all you:

1) Stop
2) Assess the situation. Does the bear see you?
3) If not, back out the way you came. Let the bear go its own way. Avoid an encounter.

If the bear sees you:

1) Stop
2) Assess the situation. Is the bear acting defensive or predatory?
3) If either… start talking to the bear immediately. Let it know you are human.
4) Hold up your hands and talk in a casual manner.
5) Stand your ground if the bear approaches
6) Back up when bear stops.
7) If the bear is acting predatory increase your aggression. Holler louder. Jump up and down. Throw rocks or sticks. Defend yourself.

But the most important thing of all before encountering a bear is to BE OBSERVANT. See the bear before it sees you. Keep a clean camp. Cook away from camp. Safeguard your food. Don’t keep food or smelly items in your sleeping tent. Dispose of waste in a proper manner that will not attract bears or draw them to where you and others may camp. Remember…have RESPECT for the bears and for yourself. Avoid a problem by practicing good bear safety procedures. You don’t have to avoid bear country. Seeing bears, especially grizzlies and polar bears, can be one of the highlight of a trip to the arctic. This is part of what makes Alaska so unique. Enjoy the experience.

By Michael Wald, co-owner and guide.

This winter as Shell Oil readied for the first-ever drilling season in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, we in the north have been holding our breaths. While politicians and pundits have been blaming the price at the pump for all that ails our nation, the arctic winter has raged on heedless of the plans for the future of the Arctic Ocean. Having spent my adult life studying, exploring, and sharing the natural wonders of arctic Alaska, I fear that policy makers neither care about the vitality of the region, nor have they honestly and accurately assessed the risks involved with offshore oil production in these storm battered seas.

As a professional wilderness guide I make my living managing risk; evaluating perceived and real dangers, and the likelihood of things “going south” hundreds of miles from the nearest road or hospital. Risk management is not unique to the wilderness; and in fact, it is the premise of the federal environmental review process, which has somehow yielded permits for drilling in the most remote and challenging environment on earth. As a risk manager I have grave concerns with Shell Oil’s proposed drilling activities in the Arctic Ocean.

Though government regulators have released reams of paperwork masquerading as thoughtful risk management, there is an element in the rubric decidedly absent—a connection to the region. How many of the regulators have been to the Arctic? How many have watched the heavy winter ice pile itself upon the beach in a winter storm? The level of risk we are willing to engage in depends upon our level of investment. This flawed decision process has garnered Shell Oil permission to drill north of Alaska’s coast this summer and allowed violations to the Clean Air Act which would be unthinkable anywhere else in the nation.

When evaluating acceptable risks, context and resilience must be considered. To extend the wilderness guiding analogy; do you run the same rapids with a group in their 70’s as you do with a group of 20 somethings? When determining the wisdom of an industrial project in the Arctic, we must also evaluate the region as a whole and any likely projects in the future. Even assuming the veracity of Shell’s assertion that a large spill is highly unlikely, the reality of the weather and location make containment, never mind clean-up, all but impossible. With more than 1,000 miles between the Chukchi Sea and the nearest Coast Guard station or deep-water port, roughly the distance from New Orleans to Ontario, a scant 2 months of ice-free conditions, not to mention the horrendous weather year-round, the ability to effectively respond to an accident is non-existent. Given this context and the history of spills in Alaska, the risks associated with drilling in the Arctic Ocean are unacceptable.

Even without a spill, the impacts to an ecosystem already reeling from climate change are significant. The Arctic Ocean is experiencing changes to its ecology and very structure that are unprecedented. Subjecting it to decades of industrial exploitation would be devastating. If Shell is allowed to drill this summer, there will be many more wells in the years to come. Statoil and Conoco Phillips are already preparing to follow.

No doubt the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are distant from the rest of our nation, but drilling here will not have any measurable effect on your fuel bill, not next week, not next year. When evaluating the pros and cons of the project, I think most Americans would agree, the risk column is long and chilling, and the benefit column is uninspiring for everyone except Shell Oil. Here in Alaska, drilling in the Arctic Ocean is an unacceptable risk. Now is the time for President Obama to take a closer look at the risk assessment that governs his decisions about oil development in the Arctic. Now is the time to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean.

The first day of spring can be measured in many different ways. We are a full 2 weeks into spring today, if we use the astronomical measure of the equinox.  After 30 feet of snowfall this winter here in Haines, Alaska, we may be half-way into summer before the snow is gone, so that measure doesn’t seem quite right. And with temperatures this week still close to -20 across much of Arctic Alaska, even temperature may not be the best measure of an Alaskan spring day. But I have no doubt that spring arrived last night, on feathered wings.

The woods have been quiet since September but today as I rode my bike to work, it became abundantly clear that spring has arrived. From deep in the spruce forests I heard varied thrushes trilling. In the brush near the beach I heard my first yellow-rumped warbler of the year. I saw two robins feeding in the ditch by the road, juncos signing from under the shore-pines, a kingfisher somewhere in the distance, and sitting high in an alder full of swollen buds I saw and heard a fox sparrow belting out his message for all the world to hear.

Spring in Alaska is a magical time, full of life and sunlight. One of the many things I enjoy about my job and lifestyle is that I get to enjoy spring 3 times. First here in coastal Alaska where we spend the winter, then in Fairbanks for the month of May getting Arctic Wild ready for the season, and maybe best of all in the Brooks Range where the avian chorus announcing spring lasts all through the sunlit arctic “night”. I can’t wait to go birding in the Arctic.

The Kongakut River in northeastern Alaska is one of my favorite rafting trips of all time. Most trips on the Kongakut River, and there are quite a few, are on the upper canyon section in June. The Kongakut that I love is the part that sees very few people and lots of caribou. By starting in the mountains and paddling to the Arctic coast a visitor to the Kongakut River gets to experience the great variety of wildlife and landscapes that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has to offer. Nowhere else in Arctic Alaska do the mountains come so close to the sea, allowing us to hike rocky alpine ridges for the first three days of the trip and walk on the sea-ice a week later. While up in the mountains we regularly see Dall Sheep and out on the barrier islands where the trip ends we sometimes see polar bear tracks. The diversity of wildlife is amazing and some years the sheer numbers of wildlife are remarkable too.

I remember a trip in 2001, when we climbed a ridge right at the edge of the mountains and looked north out across the vast coastal plain towards the sea. Far below us we saw what looked like a line of ants marching east along the mountain front towards the Canadian border. We did our best to count the brown dots far below, knowing that we were seeing the majority of the Porcupine Caribou Herd migrating across the coastal plain. The next morning we packed up the rafts and headed down the Kongakut hoping to catch the herd as they swam the river. I fully expected them to be long gone and to find the sand bars covered in tracks and droppings but without a caribou in sight. But much to my delight, when paddled out of the mountains we saw thousands of caribou resting and feeding along the Kongakut’s gravel bars. There were big bulls with heavy antlers, tired looking cows shedding last winters’ coat and hundreds of the tawny, spindly, week old calves trying to keep up with their mothers. We camped just down river from the main river crossing and got to watch caribou swim the river as the last groups migrated through while we relaxed in camp.

There are many other stories about paddling the Kongakut; stories of eagles hunting caribou, herds of musk oxen thundering across the tundra,  great skeins of ducks flying low over the sea-ice while watching the midnight sun. We have stories of wolverines in camp, watching foxes hunting ducks, finding old Eskimo artifacts on the beach. Too many stories to fit on a page.

If you really want to hear the stories and have some good Kongakut stories of your own, join us for our Kongakut to the Coast trip June 19-28.

Another study was released last week showing that common sense and knowledge of animal behavior are more important in avoiding injury from bears than are firearms. As an Alaska guide service that has taught hundreds of people appropriate behavior in Bear Country we are glad to see data supporting our belief that keeping your eyes open and mind alert for bears is the most significant action that we can take in avoiding aggressive encounters with bears of all species.

When the researchers looked at aggressive bear encounters they found no statistical difference in outcome for people with guns and without guns. They did find that bears who encountered people with guns didn’t fare so well. In other words; if a bears acts aggressively towards a person with a gun, the bear gets hurt, but the person is no more likely to escape injury.

The study also concluded that there wasn’t much difference in the outcome of an encounter based on the type or caliber of the gun. The authors also noted that only individuals who had significant experience with firearms at close quarters were able to use them as an effective defense.

So will Arctic Wild guides continue to carry firearms on most of our trips? Yes. But we will also continue to educate ourselves and our clients about avoiding conflicts with bears and we will continue to issue every person on our trips with a pepper-spray canister which have proven more effective in deterring bears than firearms.

http://wildlifenews.co.uk/2012/guns-offer-no-increased-protection-against-bears/

Or the full text of the Wildlife Society Article HERE.

Woolly Bear Caterpillar on Gloved Hand

I have spent a good part of the last 2 decades talking to people about what makes the Arctic great. I have given hundreds of lectures, and toured any number of decision makers and media types around the Arctic and I always endeavor to mention the woolly-bear caterpillar and how beautifully adapted to its environment it is. When I am guiding trips for Arctic Wild one of the highlights is finding a woolly-bear on a hike. I get everyone to kneel down in the tundra and look at this tiny creature crawling amongst the cotton grass, forget-me-knots, and moss campion. Now don’t get me wrong I would never neglect the hundreds of thousands of caribou, or the other symbols of wilderness like the wolves and wolverines, but the magic of the Arctic comes in all sizes.

The arctic woolly-bear caterpillars are unique in their combination of fascinating adaptations to the polar extremes. They spend nearly 90% of their life frozen and only about 5% feeding on the tundra during the month of June; the remainder is spent in summer “hibernation” inside protective cocoons. Seriously, they spend 90% of their life frozen. This alone makes these little guys fascinating, but they are also the longest lived caterpillar species on the planet. Wooly-bears in the Alaskan Arctic can “live” for 7 years and the ones they have studied in the Canadian high Arctic can live to be 13 years old. Think about it! When one comes across a woolly-bear on a hike across the tundra this tiny “cute” little caterpillar has spent  7 years of freezing and thawing, and freezing and thawing, alive. This seems to be the stuff of a science fiction movie, but it is simply one of the truly wonderful adaptations that allow life to exist in the far north.

In the early 2000s when the Bush Administration had their sights set on drilling in the Arctic Refuge, I had what I still consider my greatest media summer. I was able to get the woolly-bear mentioned in stories that ran in Newsweek magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Canada’s Globe and Mail.

Soon this amazing story will get even more attention. The Discovery Channel will be airing Frozen Planet, a seven part documentary produced in conjunction with the BBC. My organization, the Sierra Club, is partnering with Discovery to use Frozen Planet to spread the word about the need to conserve the special places and creatures of the Arctic and I have been lucky enough to get a sneak peak at some of the episodes. The episode titled “Spring” features truly amazing footage of the woolly-bear shot over the course of a number of seasons as it feeds, hibernates, freezes and thaws. I urge you to seek out Frozen Planet and see for yourself how amazing life in the earth’s freezer can be. Better yet, if you join Arctic Wild on a trip like the Kongakut to the Coast or Caribou Base Camp, you will have the chance to hold one of the world’s most perfectly adapted creatures in the palm of your hand.

To find out more about Frozen Planet and the Sierra Club’s efforts to protect America’s Arctic check out this link: www.action.sierraclub.org/frozenplanet

Just one day after a drilling well explosion on Alaska’s North Slope, the House of Representatives voted to open 1.5 million acres of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Unable to find enough votes to pass drilling measures as part of a comprehensive transportation bill, House leadership has resorted to political gimmicks to further the agenda of Big Oil.

The Refuge is home to the greatest diversity of animals of any protected area in the entire circumpolar region, including polar bears, caribou and birds from every state. For the past 50 years our country has remained committed to protecting this unparalleled area. Its wonders have been recognized for centuries by Alaska Natives like the Gwich’in and Inupiat people who still rely on its wildlife for survival.

Opening this special area to drilling is a huge risk for highly speculative and insufficient revenues. To understand what’s at stake you need only look as far as Prudhoe Bay, where less than 100 miles west of the Arctic Refuge drilling has created one of the world’s largest industrial complexes. Hundreds of spills occur in the area each year polluting waterways, damaging the land and harming wildlife. A similar fate awaits the Refuge if this bill is made into law—all to generate revenue that will come too late to fund this bill and won’t be enough to fill the funding gap.

But the House didn’t stop there. They also voted to offer up millions of acres of protected offshore federal waters in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans and Alaska’s Bristol Bay to the oil industry. The fishery in Bristol Bay alone generates billions of dollars annually and communities all along the Arctic coast depend on whales, fish and other ocean bounty for subsistence. A major spill could leave oil in these waters for years. The shifting ice floes, sub-zero temperatures, and months of darkness make an oil spill in Arctic waters impossible to clean up.

I have been fortunate in my life to spend time in America’s Arctic in northern Alaska. This remote region is one of the wildest spots left on the globe. I have experienced first-hand the harshness and fragility of this special place which is unlike any other. I’ve watched walrus gather on ice floes, puffins “fly” through the water, and polar bears prowl the ice edge. While watching more than 100,000 caribou move across the tundra followed by wolves and grizzly bears I experienced an inkling of what Lewis and Clark must have felt as they encountered the large bison herds in the Great Plains. I have traveled with Alaska Native people, who have lived on these lands and waters for hundreds of generations, and listened as they describe their connections to this land and the importance of these animals to their culture and subsistence. Some places are too special to drill and the Arctic Refuge is one of them.

Though the oil industry continues to downplay its abysmal spill record, the most recent well explosion reminds us that drilling is a dangerous and dirty business. New drilling comes with a lot of risk, but little benefit for the transportation bill. We must invest in transportation, but we don’t have to threaten our nation’s wildest areas or rely on unsound financing to do so. Congress should be looking for ways to make our cars cleaner and more efficient and expand our transportation choices, not making us more dependent on Big Oil.

The preceding commentary was first published in The Hill and in Alaska Dispatch.

The views expressed by the author are enthusiastically endorsed by Arctic Wild.

I love arctic Alaska, but there is a bird in the news that displays unmatched devotion to the tundra.

The northern wheatear looks like a cross between a robin and a shrike, and we see them on high rocky ridges throughout the Brooks Range. Their distinctive call and undulating flight are nearly ubiquitous in the gravely high country above the Kongakut River and their flashy tail pattern elicits interest from even the most casual birder. For years I have told everyone who would listen that these diminutive birds spent the summer in Alaska and winter as far away as Afghanistan. I’m more often accused of hyperbole than  understatement, but recent research has shown that wheatears travel as far as sub-Saharan Africa on a 9,000 mile journey and travel on average 180 miles each day.

This summer when I watch them courting and singing on the rocky tundra ridges, my appreciation and admiration will be deepened by the knowledge of their astonishing annual migration.

Typical wheatear habitat

The best group shelters for Alaska.

1) A local Fairbanks company has been making custom tents for us for years. Apocalypse Design has worked with us to refine a pyramid shaped tent and after several versions we are thrilled with the tent. With a 10′ x 10′ footprint this floor-less pyramid tent (base on a mega-mid tent) is plenty big for a party of 6 to comfortably sit. And with the addition of 2 foot tall walls the tent occupants are warm even when the wind howls. At 9 pounds including a pole this is the most versatile and dependable tent we have.

2) As much as we like the Apocalypse 10 X 10 pyramid, when the wind really howls like it can in the Aleutian Islands we need something built for a hurricane. There are several tents built for mountaineering expeditions that also work very well for high latitude trips. Our favorite is the aptly named Mtn Hardware Space Station.  It isn’t indestructible but we have put it to the test and it provides a cocoon of  protection even in the fiercest of Alaska’s storms.

3) Though not as wind-worthy as the Space Station nor as light and versatile as the pyramid tents, the MSR Board Room is a great tent for autumn trips like the Kongakut River when nights are long and cool and we are expecting to spend some time “indoors”. It is the roomiest of the tents we use. With nearly vertical walls, multiple doors, and panels which can be moved or removed, this tent can be configured for almost any purpose. Dubbed the “Chuck-wagon” this warm and spacious tent is unfortunately not currently available. Hopefully MSR will bring this winning tent back on the market before ours wear out. For now they make a smaller version called the Backcountry Barn.

4) And lastly is the classic “cook tent” from Black Diamond. Small light and elegantly simple the Mega-mid is the perfect shelter for when you want to go light and keep it simple. Now that they make mega-mids with carbon poles and gossamer thin fabric, we even sometimes take them on day hikes for use as emergency shelters. It is hard to beat a classic, but in shedding pounds the tents have definitely lost some durability.

There are lots of other tents on the market and we certainly haven’t tried them all. Leave a comment below and tell us which tents you like.