Things an Alaskan notices while standing on a road in Costa Rica: Trees are shaped like mint-green umbrellas rather than charcoal-green rocket ships. Flesh-colored flowers smell like warm honey as they fall with a plop from a tree to sticky pavement. A bird perched on a power line has turquoise eyebrows and a double tail […]
[smartslider3 slider=3] We just skied 100 miles of the frozen Yukon River, two friends and I, until it got too cold for our skis to glide, and we flew back to Fairbanks on a plane that landed on both skis and wheels. Though my friends — Bob Gillis and Adam Bucki — are both […]
A father wakes, rolls out of bed and drops his toes to cold carpet. He grabs a flashlight and shines it outside the window. The thermometer reads 40 below zero, the only point at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales agree. The red liquid within his thermometer is alcohol; mercury freezes at 38 below. […]
Photo: A brood of ruddy ducks in Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in summer 2018. Photo by Michelle Lake, USFWS. Every spring, millions of ducks touch down on Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, a spread of muskeg and dark water the size of Maryland. These days, more ruddy ducks seem to be among them. Recent […]