Alaska

Bearded Seal

Midnight Sun on the Chukchi Sea

Bowhead Whale 2010

Place Based Summary

Julie and Bart Koehler

A band of caribou from Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake herd migrates across the vast coastal plain, traveling from calving grounds to windier areas where mosquitoes and bot flies are less likely to swarm. Protecting calving grounds, migration routes, and insect-relief areas is critical to the herd's health and survival.

Snow geese with chicks. (Oil and the Geese series)

Snow geese with their blue-gray young cross a tundra polygon, a common feature in the western Arctic's permafrost landscape.

"Known and Unknown Tracks" (Oil and the Geese series)

The Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd rests in the Pik Dunes, a unique expanse of desertlike sand south of their calving grounds. The dunes offer the caribou relief from insects, their most numerous and relentless "predators." After calving takes place, insect-relief areas become essential for caribou survival.

Caribou tracks on tundra. (Coal and the Caribou series)

Caribou tracks on wetland. (Oil and the Geese series)

Caribou crossing Utukok River. (Coal and the Caribou series)

These are tracks on coal seams made by the Western Arctic caribou herd over a very long period, perhaps many centuries or even millenia. The tracks are deeply etched in the coal surface. Caribou use this area both for calving and post calving aggregation. (Coal and the Caribou series)

Brant and snow geese on Teshekpuk Lake.

Caribou tracks. (Oil and the Caribou series)

A polygon mosaic takes shape when the ground freezes and cracks, allowing water to collect and form ice wedges that expande each winter.

A brown bear stalks spawning salmon in an Alaskan river.