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![]() (r to l): Peter Matthiessen, Jim Campbell and Tom Campion. Utukok River Upland, Western Arctic, Alaska. (Subhankar Banerjee, June 2006).
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“Tonight camp is made on soft, wet moss at the foot of the last river bluff before the plain. An hour before we came ashore, we had seen two figures waving from the high rim of the escarpment—Subhankar Banerjee and his partner, an Iñupiat named Robert Thompson. Camped a half–mile upriver, they turn up at our camp in time for supper. Subhankar tells us that this very day, he and Robert have found gyrfalcons and peregrines nesting on rock towers close together; in recent days, they have seen muskox here as well as grizzlies.” |
That was in the Kongakut River valley, in 2002. ![]() Hunters in the Snow. Pieter Breugel the Elder, 1565. (source: Wikimedia Commons). Breugel painted each work with a limited color palette. Take for example, the Hunters in the Snow, one of the greatest paintings in the history of painting, was done with—white (snow), greenish grey (ponds/river ice), light grey to almost black (people, birds, trees, some of the dogs, exposed rocks on the mountain peaks), and just a touch of yellow to reddish brown (foreground foliage, some of the dogs, facades of buildings and bridges). |
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister, and the school committee, and every one of you will take care of that.” |
Let us begin with spring then. For some it is the melting of snow, for others it is the arrival of a bird, and for some others it is about movement. ![]() Caribou Migration II. Coleen River Valley and Brooks Range Mountains, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Subhankar Banerjee, early May 2002).
Loon on Nest |
“Loons constitute one of the more ancient bird lineages; fossil evidence of loon–like birds dates back well over 70 million years to the late Cretaceous period, and birds resembling modern loons are known to have occurred some 20 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. This means that loons survived the great upheavals in Earth’s atmosphere that took place between the late Cretaceous and the Tertiary periods.” |
Do you know about Jeff Fair? It’d be fair to say that Jeff Fair, the humble biologist–writer is our loon poet. On 5 March 2013, he wrote to me in an email in response to an earlier conversation we had: |
“The extreme antiquity of loons on earth was apparently exaggerated based on some early assumptions. The most recent information that I’ve (just now) come across in writing a preface for a recent symposium on loons, is that the fossil record for loons reaches back only 40 million years (Eocene) and not to the Cretaceous (70+ million years).” |
“Only” 40 million years, Jeff? It’ disappointing to know that loons are not that ancient after all. ![]() Loon on Nest. Kongakut River Delta, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Subhankar Banerjee, late June 2002).
Snow Geese Aggregation ![]() Snow Geese I. Jago River Valley, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Subhankar Banerjee, September 2002). Fish and the Yukaghir ![]() Fish and the Yukaghir. Nikolai Shalugin and Vyacheslav Shadrin, Yasachnaya River. (Subhankar Banerjee, November 2007). Gwich’in and the Caribou ![]() Gwich’in and the Caribou. Danny Gimmel, near Arctic Village. (Subhankar Banerjee, January 2007).
Bear Playing with Her Cubs ![]() Bear Playing with Her Cubs. Canning River delta, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Subhankar Banerjee, late March 2002).
An Unexpected Discovery ![]() The Keeling Curve: 1958–April 2013. (source: Wikimedia Commons). David Schimel wrote a lovely passage about the unexpected discovery from the Keeling record, in his book, Climate and Ecosystems (Princeton Primers in Climate) (Princeton University Press, 2013): |
“One of the notable features of the [Keeling Curve] is the strong seasonality it shows, as an oscillation around the [almost linear] upward trend. This oscillation, called the breathing of the Earth results from Northern Hemisphere summer…photosynthesis, or the winter decomposition of dead plant material. This was one of the least anticipated discoveries, because when Keeling began his work, climate science was dominated by geophysics, and no one suspected that life could so visibly and systematically alter the atmosphere. The seasonal cycle provides global quantification of the effect of seasonal climate on ecosystems.” |
As you can see, the Earth is not an inanimate blob of geology, but rather a living, breathing entity replete with seasons. |
“Out of the wind, leaned back against soft lichens on the rocks, we breathe in a vast, beautiful, and stirring prospect. High snow–streaked peaks rise to the south and west, and to the north, the gray torrent, curving west under its cliffs, escapes the portals of the foothills and winds across the plain toward the hard white bar on the horizon—the dense wall of fog that hides the Beaufort Sea. This wild, free valley and the barren ground beyond is but a fragment of one of the last pristine regions left on earth, entirely unscarred by roads or signs, indifferent to mankind, utterly silent.” |
His outrage was equally sharp: “I am outraged that the last pristine places on our looted earth are being sullied without mercy, vision, or good sense by greedy people who are robbing their fellow citizens of the last natural bounty and profusion that Americans once took for granted.” |
“A black effluvia of crude petroleum and drilling mud and chemical pollutants would spread inshore, suffocating plankton and invertebrates and bottom–dwelling fish and poisoning great stretches of Arctic coast with a viscous excrescence. The same toxic mixture will blacken the drifting ice, fouling the pristine habitat of Arctic birds, the Pacific walrus, four species of seals, and the beleaguered polar bear, while contaminating the migratory corridors of the white beluga and endangered bowhead whales—all this defilement made much worse by the grim fact that no technology has ever been developed for cleaning up spilled oil in icy waters.” |
Peter Matthiessen drew our attention to the inter–generational ecocultural injustice by ending the Arctic Refuge essay with these words: “If we fail to save the land, God may forgive us,” as a Togiak elder has said, “but our children won’t.” |
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