The Big Caribou Herd, Life in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is based on my travels in the Refuge in 1998. With five members of the Sierra Club, I retraced the caribou's journey starting in the southern part of the Refuge where there are stands of black spruce like this.


Of course my trip was not as arduous as the one the deer make each year. After this sketch we flew in a small bush plane. Here is our plane in Arctic Village where we helped the pilot fuel up by hand pumping fuel from a drum.

From Arctic Village we flew over the rugged mountains of the Brooks Range and landed on gravel bar. Landing strips and all other man made things are not permitted the Refuge. This is a picture of the Kongakut River close to where we landed. We traveled by rubber raft down this river for over a week moving north toward the sea.

Along the way we began to see small bands of caribou, up to a dozen animals at a time. This was encouraging, but we hoped to see caribou by the tens of thousands. Climbing some of these mountains and exploring the valleys we continued to see caribou, always heading north.
It is not practical to raft all the way to the ocean, and so we completed the last part of our odyssey on foot. Carrying all our gear, we backpacked up over Caribou Pass and then down onto the coastal plain. On the third day the weather turned damp, cold, and cloudy, which is not unusual near the ocean. We had just shouldered our packs when caribou began pouring over a nearby rise. Soon we were completely surrounded by these big deer.

All day we walked among the caribou. They were wary, but not too afraid of us. Later, I learned there had been about 70,000 deer in this group, about half of the Porcupine Herd. We were incredibly lucky to have blundered into them. By evening when we made camp, the herd had moved on and only stragglers remained. Here is picture I drew of a big bull as it trotted past my tent.

As you can read from my journal entry, the weather was cold. Although the sun never sets there at this time of year, it can snow on any day, and cold weather is common near the icy waters of the ocean.
The next day we reached the Arctic Ocean, here known as the Beaufort Sea. It was sunny and cold, and there was a lot of ice not too far away. The small black mark in the sea is a kayaker, a Japanese fellow paddling down the coast alone. We shared several meals with him. This painting will give you some idea of how big everything is on the coastal plain.

Later on a hike, one of our group came upon a newborn caribou calf and took this picture. Mom was not far away. Most of the herd had their calves within a few days of each other about two weeks earlier. There is great safety in numbers in the herd, and late calves like this one are at risk.

The caribou travel hundreds of miles from the Porcupine River valley to have their calves here. The coastal plain is relatively free of wolves at this time of year. In addition there are plenty of plants to eat, and the hordes of mosquitoes that plague the herd during the short summer have not yet emerged. It is an ideal place for births to take place.

Not all of the drawings in my journal are of sweeping landscapes or of caribou. Here is a picture of a semi-palmated plover sitting on her nest of four eggs, close to our camp site on the stony beach.

I returned home with an entire book full of sketches and notes, as well as the hundreds of photos I took. I constantly referred to these as I wrote and illustrated the book.

As you are probably aware, some oil companies would like to drill for oil in the Refuge, right on the coastal plain where the caribou have their calves. This is also a prime area for mother polar bears to den in winter when they have their cubs. The coastal plain is the summer nesting ground for many thousands of birds as well. I think it would be very short sighted to bring any kind of development to this land, our last and greatest piece of wilderness.
I joined other members of conservation groups as an unpaid lobbyist during Arctic Wilderness Week in February of 2001. It was good to walk the halls of Congress and make our views known.
Now as spring 2003 approaches, the Refuge is currently protected from drilling, but not permanently so. Congress could authorize drilling by passing a bill, which the President is likely sign.
I, and many others, continue to work for the permanent protection of this magnificent land.

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