The Class Menagerie

David B. Williams is a freelance natural-history writer based in Seattle. He is the author of The Street-Smart Naturalist: Field Notes from Seattle and has written for Smithsonian, Popular Mechanics, National Parks, and The Seattle Times.

The Alaskan part of the trip begins at 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 1, when we arrive at the Fairbanks Airport. We are met by Karen Jettmar, who owns and runs Equinox Expeditions, our guide company. Karen gives us dry bags for our gear and tells us to be back at the airport at 7:30. We catch several cabs to the dorms at the University of Alaska and try to fall asleep. I toss and turn for an hour, keyed up about our adventure. The next morning with the group in near revolt, we make a panic stop at a coffee shop before driving to the airport. (This is a group of Seattleites, after all.)

To get to our put-in on the Aichilik River, we fly north out of Fairbanks. I am amazed at how quickly we lose sight of anything human. The last large feature I see is the oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay, and then trees disappear and we begin to climb over the Brooks Range, with stark, sharp peaks occasionally higher than us. After three hours of flying, we land on a barely visible airstrip, cleared out of the tundra, next to the Aichilik. Before Ken the pilot leaves, he shows me how to use the shotgun, but we find no shells. "In that case, I'd just try and hit the bear with this end," Ken says, as he thrusts the handle toward me. And then he is gone and I am alone. (Because of logistics, the rest of the group flew to Arctic Village to talk with members of the Gwich'in community.)

At first, I am nervous. I have never been in grizzly country, moreover by myself, 45 miles from the nearest sign of people. At first, I stay close to the gear and the shotgun, not that it would help, but as I start to walk and notice the landscape, I begin to drop my trepidation. I find wolf and caribou tracks in the soft mud by the river. A dab of yellow flies by, a sulfur butterfly, and lands on a purple Oxytropis. Small purple gentians, yellow cinquefoils, bluish harebells, pinkish valerians, and white louseworts dot the low-growing willow and cotton grass. My first bird is a glaucous gull, one of the refuge's 180 bird species, many of which overwinter in the Lower 48.

The rest of the group arrives over the next six hours. We put up our tents, chat about logistics, eat dinner, and hang out, quickly adapting to life without darkness. Throughout our week on the river, we don't eat breakfast until 10 a.m. or lunch until 4 p.m. Dinner occurs at 10 p.m. or later. People go on walks at 1 a.m. As with so many aspects of the Arctic, we discover something special in this new landscape at the north edge of the continent.

The following day, we cross the Aichilik, hike across tundra, and climb up to 2,500 feet, along a ridge of tear-pants limestone. The Aichilik flows in a wide, braided channel north across the coastal plain to the Beaufort Sea, where sea ice appears to butt up against the barrier islands that lie just off the coastline. Through my binoculars I pick out Kaktovik, where a fire burns, sending a plume of smoke high above the horizon. From 1,400 feet above the coastal plain, the land looks eternal and limitless.

When I was flying into our put-in, one initial thought was that I understood the pro-drilling argument that development would only mar a small part of this huge landscape, but when I stand atop these final foothills of the Brooks Range and look across the horizontal and seemingly featureless coastal plain, I realize that this vastness also means that any development would significantly and negatively affect the experience of being in this place. The vastness is not just a visual vastness but a mental one, where knowing that humans have had and still have a microscopic effect is central to the experience and magic of the landscape.

We start our float trip on our third day in the refuge. We have two four-person paddle rafts and one two-person inflatable canoe. Like everyone else, I wear rubber boots, rain pants, long underwear, rain coat, and a hat. We climb into the boats and paddle away from shore. The water moves us swiftly for perhaps 200 yards, then we run aground. We hop out, pull the boat to deeper water, clamber in, and begin to paddle. Again we only go a short ways before bottoming out.

Paddle, pull, paddle, pull will be a constant throughout our 40 miles on the Aichilik. Like all the rivers on the coastal plain, the Aichilik flows across a flat, wide bottom in many small channels. Known as a braided river system, this type of flow pattern results from rapid and frequent changes in water volume, often in flat areas associated with glacier-derived runoff. The pattern makes navigation challenging but fun, as we try to follow the dark emerald line of deeper water.

Over the next few days, we begin to be swallowed by the vastness of the coastal plain. I find myself powerfully attracted to the land. I do not completely understand what specifically is so seductive, but in part I cannot get over the amazement I find standing on the coastal plain and looking out over cotton grass tussocks in all directions and seeing the horizon at exactly the same level everywhere. And yet, this vastness is complemented by the incredible complexity of what is at my feet. On a low mound, I find numerous snowy-owl pellets, several vole skulls, long-tailed jaeger poop, and caribou hair, in addition to a host of yellow, purple, and white flowers. I am humbled by the life that survives in such a harsh landscape, by the austere beauty of tussock and sky, and by the fact that we have the opportunity to protect this landscape for future generations.

Our most exciting day is No. 6, when we see a grizzly bear. We can only see it through our 45x spotting scope, but I can feel the palpable energy in the group. The most common comment as we look through the scope is a simple "Wow," punctuated by the occasional "I think it's getting closer." I am surprised by how blond the bear is and how it digs up the tundra looking for food. Since we do not want to surprise the bear, we build a small fire, hoping that our scent will drift down toward it. When I go to bed around midnight, the bear is still out there.

On our final day on the river, we paddle out to an unnamed barrier island, about a quarter mile from shore. It is mostly barren but covered in driftwood. We build a huge fire and celebrate our adventure by diving into the Beaufort Sea. We run back to the fire, clean and exhilarated. Again, I sense an energy in the group, but now it is an energy of joy, a joy to be alive in this stunning landscape of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.