May 31- Anchorage- No birds- just errands and planning the logistics of how to survive on the North Slope. Training for being on Oil company leased land for 3 days. We spent 12 incredibly boring hours listening to a guy from Oklahoma or Arkansas tell the class- really stupid things that were somehow supposed to be related to actual education.....
Thank God that in a few days we'll be in Barrow the largest city on the North Slope, but away from the civilized world. Each road out of town simply ends.
Ok, go get the Alaska map. I'm going to give you a quick course in Alaska geography. Because you may be confused by the terms I have been using.
Find Anchorage on the southern coast- but inland along Cook Inlet. This is the biggest city in Alaska and the base from which we are operating. It is the southern terminus for the Alaska Highway. Since I have been to Alaska 5 times, the Long House Hotel has always been a good spot, located near the airport, nice large rooms and the prices are fine too. This is where I can receive e-mail but not send except from one account. Back to the Geography.
Straight north on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, you should see a little peninsula at the very northern most part of Alaska. That is Point Barrow and a few miles west and a tiny bit south is the community of Barrow. Because it is where it is, some rare birds from Asia show up there, but birders started going there, following early ornithologists, to find the nesting birds that show up at Barrow which are are difficult to find in other places. Some of those are Snowy Owl, Pomarine Jaeger, Spectacled Eider, Steller's Eider and Red Phalarope.
To the east, Deadhorse is on the Arctic Ocean, but a few miles inland from Prudhoe Bay. That is the famous and infamous Oil drilling area on the Arctic Ocean. This section of the tundra is located more easterly from Barrow. To the east of Prudhoe/Deadhorse is the enormous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is mostly hills ridges and mountains with a narrow strip of the very ecologically rich tundra along the coast.
If your map shows mountains you'll see a range of mountains running roughly east -west inland from the coast This is referred to as the Brooks Range. Everything 'sloping' north to the Arctic Ocean is called the North Slope. Much of this entire area has large deposits of oil underneath. Extracting it is very difficult... and the tundra is VERY sensitive as 9 months of the year it is frozen.
On one island, St. Lawrence, many years ago, Katie and I found tank tread marks in the tundra that had been made in World War II, but they seemed to have just been made -- like a week before. This was in 1974. So things only can grow very slowly and this limits the ability to recuperate from things like OIL SPILLS. Last Year BP spilled about 205, 000 gallons of Raw Crude oil on the tundra near Prudhoe. That area is now dead for many many years... perhaps a 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 -- who really knows.
From there, (Prudhoe/Deadhorse) in an almost a straight line back to Barrow, you can see the Colville Delta and then a big round lake very near the coast. That is Teshekpuk lake. if you can't see it on the maps then google it on line. That is where Nick and I will be doing the long camping thing. We will be in the SE quadrant.
Ok that is enough Geography, but I wanted you to understand the vastness of Alaska and how I am so very fortunate to see so much of it.
3rd June- Barrow- My second trip up here. Barrow lies at the edge of the coastal plain. The northernmost part of Mainland North America is the point- about 4 miles north-east of us. Point Barrow is the dividing "line" between the Chuchki and the Beaufort Sea.
Night is something that is really not occurring at this time of year. Daylight on the island is really limited much more by the heavy clouds. When we leave here we will be back in Anchorage and there we may have a bit of night. Usually I'm too tired to be up that late here. On the North Slope, we are supposed to fly to Deadhorse, then a tiny cabin in the Delta of the Colville River and finally Teshekpuk Lake closer to Barrow. Up there it is 24 hour daylight until August 6 or 7th. The Sun never sets. So your body changes to this crazy energy machine that finally says --- "Hey I'm tired... what time is it and you look at the watch and it is 12:40 AM - 2:00 Am or something Crazy like that... suddenly you are Exhausted. When you get back to camp you collapse until the blazingly bright sun wakes you up at like 9 or 10 Am and the sun is directly overhead.
June 7th- In an hour, we are about to leave Barrow for Deadhorse. We are expecting to have less open vistas and much more of the development landscape.... We then fly into a remote area of the Tundra. Oil has been found at several areas near the lake-Teshekpuk. Theories are being talked about very openly about the strategy devised by Big Oil and how the proposed move into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was just a ploy to let them get into this area near Teshekpuk. The BAD NEWS is that the coastal plain is MUCH wider here and consequently much more productive for birds and wildlife. So the potential destructive effect of Oil development and the drilling, pipelines etc, etc, etc.. would be Much more of a problem.
In our training in Anchorage there was a MAP of the development of pads and pipelines on both sides of Prudhoe Bay. They have pretty much created a spider web of industry in an area which would take 10,000 years to heal from any spills. And of course, we watched the Chairman of BP talk about his company saving a tiny pitance of money by leaving out corrosion inhibitors in the pipeline. Result : 200, 000 gallon spill on the tundra... 10,000 years....
So we have a BIG job in front of us to capture enough beauty in 30 days to make a compelling documentary on this area so Americans will be informed about the coming rape Big Oil is conducting up here.
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