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 […]
IDITAROD, ALASKA — While gliding along a trail that had just felt the imprint of 2,000 dog feet, Bob Gillis skied over to a rock that jutted from the snow. A few miles northwest of the ghost town that gives the world’s most famous sleddog race its name, Gillis and I were in the […]
[wds id=”9″]ATIGUN RIVER — Goodbye, red squirrels. On our summer-long hike along the path of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, this morning my dog Cora and I left the last tangle of boreal forest along America’s highway system. We walked away from a campsite of white spruce and balsam poplar that shielded us during a rain and […]
GOLD RUN CREEK — This clear waterway running through boreal swampland marks the farthest Cora and I will be from a highway during our summer hike along the route of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. If we chose to bust overland southwest toward Banner Creek, we would have to cover at least nine boggy miles before we […]