In the far northeast corner of Alaska lies the immense Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the iconic wilderness that is in the news these days as conservationists try to protect this amazing place from Trump Administration plans for massive oilfield development. More on this later. At 19 million acres — an area about the size of South Carolina with no roads and almost no trails — the Refuge actually constitutes just a portion of a huge sprawling wild-land that also includes the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge and the White Mountains Recreation Area to the south, and two Canadian National parks to the east. All of these protected lands taken together constitute one gigantic unbroken expanse of wilderness! This diverse wilderness of boreal forest, wetland, tundra, mountain and coast is, indeed, our “Biggest Wild,”perhaps the largest and wildest chunk of protected landscape remaining anywhere on Earth!
Since 2001, Big Wild Adventures has run about fifteen 8-day guided backpack treks in the refuge during most, but not all, years. Our next scheduled trek in “ANWR” will be in 2019, though we are always open to the possibility of Custom Trips before that. I was lucky enough to lead two Alaska adventures in 2017: our Scheduled Trip in early June, and a Custom Trip for two clients, in the latter half of August, which is autumn, not summer, in the mountains of northern Alaska. Because we had two groups for the June scheduled trek, I led one group, and Big Wild guide David Ellis ran the other. In the next blog, I will describe some of the highlights of our 2017 Alaska backpacking adventures.
But first, let’s circle back to the threat of massive oilfield development. I mentioned that this is a “protected” landscape. But Congress can “unprotect” anything, and the current Congress and “President” Trump are planning to open the Arctic coastal plain area of the refuge to massive development. The coastal plain can be viewed as the ecological soul of ANWR, home for polar bears and tens of thousands of nesting waterfowl — and it’s also the calving grounds for the massive Porcupine caribou herd. By the time you read this, political disaster may or may not have struck. But if it hasn’t, please write your Congressional representatives and tell them to oppose drilling and keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge wild!
