Hey Folks,

December 6, 2010, marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, in Alaska. To commemorate this, and as a tribute to an amazing place, I’ve put together this slide show; 50 photos to mark the 50 years. These are all images from the Refuge, over 19 million acres of wild lands. The refuge is a treasure, home to thousands of creatures and features; the caribou herds, the Brooks Mountains, the broad coastal plain, migratory birds and countless other gifts to this world. A beautiful landscape that warrants our respect, not our exploitation.

I selected the images to present a the diversity of features and creatures that call the Refuge home, and composed and recorded the music to accompany it. I hope you enjoy it.

If you have a nice, large computer screen and broadband connection, what I REALLY recommend you do is go to my page on Exposure Room.com and click the ‘HD’ button underneath the thumbnail. You can watch and listen to this video in full HD resolution, at 720 x 1280. It’ll take a moment to load, but is (hopefully) well worth the time.

Happy Birthday ANWR – and cheers to many, many more.

Visit the wild.

Cheers

Carl
Photos and music produced and copyrighted by Carl Donohue. All Rights Reserved.

A small bloom of Arctic Lupine in the Brooks Mountain Range catch last light of the summer day. Land of the midnight sun, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, in arctic Alaska where the coastal plain meet the Brooks Mountain Range. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Another photo from the Brooks Range, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Back in September the US F&WS (Fish and Wildlife Service) announced, as part of their Comprehensive Conservation Plan, that “the Service will conduct wilderness reviews for three Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) for potential inclusion within the National Wilderness Preservation System. These three WSAs encompass almost all refuge lands not currently designated as wilderness”. This is good news. I’ll reiterate my favorite part of the quote: “These three WSAs encompass almost all refuge lands not currently designated as wilderness“.

There are numerous steps involved, and, if recommended by the US F&WS, approval is required by the Dept Director, the Secretary of the Interior, and the President. Then, the final decision lies with the US Congress; the actual authority to designate land as ‘wilderness’.

It’s almost comical, really; such a rigorous and formalized process to meander through in order to deem lands “wild”. Implicit in the word wild is ‘free will’ –  yet not quite so wild as to be free of the rigmarole of official procedure, of course.

Anyone who suggests the 19 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge isn’t a wilderness either hasn’t been there or is simply in denial. Perhaps I could say it more clearly this way; if the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t qualify for ‘wilderness designation’, then we might as well remove that term from our vocabulary. Surely there is no place more deserving of such designation than the Refuge?

The “wilderness reviews” should be completed by Feb 2011, which will be followed by a released draft, more public comment, more revisions, and hopefully, a final plan and recommendation in May 2012. Apparently wilderness takes careful planning and review; it’s not simply created overnight.

A reminder that Dec 06, 2010, marks the coming anniversary of the establishment of the Refuge; I’m working on a little project for it, and should have it online soon. Stand warned.

Cheers

Carl

Dwarf fireweed (Epilobium latifolium) and the Upper Marsh Fork River of the Brooks mountain range, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), Alaska. Mid summer, this photo was taken about 2:00am. First light of the day. Please click on the image above to view a larger version of the photo.

Hey Folks,

Recently I’ve read a few articles and posts about photography and and photographers, and particularly landscape photographers; the question of ‘shooting icons’ almost invariably comes up. For those readers here who aren’t quite sure what that is a reference to, it simply points to the regularity with which so many famous landscapes are photographed. Scenes such as Grand Teton from the Snake River Overlook, Yellowstone National Park’s Lower Falls are almost ubiquitous with landscape photography.

It’s an interesting discussion. Those kinds of locations are frequently photographed because not only are they spectacular scenes, but they’re also great to photograph; overlooks and viewpoints seemingly designed with the landscape photographer in mind. This is not true of all spectacular scenes, for a variety of reasons.

The primary reason a scene like this one, of Mount Edith Cavell and Cavell Lake in Canada’s Jasper National Park has been photographed so many more times than, say, the scene at left, is that Edith Cavell is road accessible. All the other discourse about happiness and contentment and art versus stock and following one’s creative muse and shooting your passion is simply talk; it all comes down to the pavement. If it’s off the road, it’s probably not an icon.

The question then concerns itself with the value of our pursuit; and that, like so many such questions, is entirely contextual. For some people, shooting photos that sell well is all that matters. For others, shooting photos that express some personal vision is more important.

Those 2 quests are not always in alignment. All the contentment in the world is somewhat moot if there’s no food on the table come suppertime. And what of a nice fat check on the doorstep if it serves (and is served as) a function of misery?

Perhaps what’s disappointing is not photographers shooting pictures of the Teton Range, but the absolute overwhelming pursuit of those photographs; literally hundreds of serious and very talented photographers shoot the same scene every month (as an aside, I know of just one photographer other than myself who has a shot of this same mountain, and he was standing bleary-eyed about 50′ away from me when I took this photo). It’s Wyoming’s version of combat fishing.

Snake River Overlook is certainly an arresting view, those magnificent mountains literally roaring skyward from the Yellowstone Plateau. One of the most memorable mornings of my photography career, if not of my life, was spent sitting on the tail of my pickup truck, sipping coffee and listening to a Tony Rice-David Grisman CD (Tone Poems, do yourself a favor, and go buy it), just watching, enjoying those glorious mountains. 2 hours later and I was still spellbound; the mountains as superb as ever and Tony Rice playing (on repeat, of course) as sublimely all the while. I packed up and drove off only when it occurred to me that I had a mere 42 hours time before I had to be in Atlanta, GA. Quite a drive, I assure you.

There is simply no dispute over the grandeur of such a place, and the value of experiencing them; Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, Lake Louise (Banff National Park) and so forth are amazing places, with amazing scenery, and (almost) all of the elements in place for great nature photography. What I am dubious about, however, is the artistry involved in this ‘icon photography’. What room is there for creative expression at places so repetitively (and wonderfully) photographed?

Recreating is a paltry proxy for creating; reassembly scant subsidy for making. Art is about making. Art is not about re-making.

World-reknown thinker and self-avowed iconoclast Joseph Chilton Pearce wrote that “to live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong” – this is, essentially, the art of creating. To create is, essentially, to speculate, to step into the unknown, to explore. Art is little more than the practice throwing mud at a wall and seeing what might stick. Exploring the unfamiliar requires facing that fear of being wrong, of  tossing out marbles and finding out that nothing might stick.

Similarly, Erich Fromme said that “creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties”. This advice is in conflict with the idea of a trip to Snake River Overlook or Antelope Canyon; on the contrary, most paparrazo head to these places precisely BECAUSE of the certainty, of knowing what comes next.

I think this hounding of famous locales is also at odds, to some degree, with the intent of copyright law and the concept of intellectual property. Musicians, for example, must pay hefty royalty fees to cover another’s composition, regardless of how (often drastically) differently they may arrange the notes. Rolf Harris’ cacophonic version of Stairway to Heaven is a classic (though extraordinarily bad) example of how widely disparate a cover version may be from the original tune, yet the track still is not considered an original composition.

John Fogarty, of Creedence Clearwater Revival, for example, was once sued by his (old) publishing company because they deemed a newer work of his to be too directly influenced by a tune he had written previously (they lost, but only because  Mr. Fogarty convinced a judge the 2 pieces were not overly musically similar). Imagine if photographers were held to this standard for their creations.

As artists, we must seek out the new; art is divergent from artifice. We learn from the past, from other artists, from an infinitely diverse assemblage of sources, but we mustn’t replicate them. We’re photographers, not xerox operatives. “A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave” – Henri Matisse.

No musician I know wants to make their living playing cover tunes.

Cheers

Carl

The Beaufort Sea along the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Arctic Ocean sea ocean, after spring breakup, rests on the beach. Melting permafrost in the bluffs signals warming temperatures. Arctic Ocean, Coastal Plain, ANWR, Alaska. Click for a larger photo.

Hey Folks,

Another photo from our recent trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Beaufort Sea. I hiked from our final camp across the coastal plain (well, across part of the plain, not the whole thing) with Steve Weaver hoping to photograph some of the icebergs we’d seen the previous day along the shoreline. Unfortunately, strong southerly winds had blown almost all the ice out to sea, and we were largely thwarted. This patch of ice, however, had been resting on shore, stranded when the tide rolled out, and we made a few images.

Coastlines are such dynamic landscapes, and in the Arctic particularly so. They can change drastically in a day or less, and do so frequently.

This photo was taken around 1:15am .. maybe later. I think Steve and I arrived back at camp around 4:00am, and I went to bed at nearly 5:00am. up at 10:00am-ish to break camp, roll the raft, and wait for a bush plane. We arrived, finally, in Coldfoot, around 5:30pm,(the temp was 90deg F, a start contrast from the Arctic Ocean we’d just left) unpacked the gear from the plane, sorted it and loaded the van, ate dinner, and hit the road, rolling into the Yukon River area stop late at night. Then up early the next morning to drive from there to Anchorage. 36 hours later it was out the door to pick up folks for the next trip to Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Summertime can be like that in Alaska.

I’ve been out to the Beaufort Sea here a number of times, now every time I’ve been so fortunate as to have an absolutely glorious final evening. The wind wasn’t bad at all, the bugs had quieted down, and the expansive vastness of the place really moves me. It’s a fantastic experience, to see such a harsh and rugged environment also be so sensitively fragile; the quiet tundra, the shorebirds, a whisper of air and the glowing rays of the sun, low on the horizon. After the trek back to camp I simply couldn’t go to bed, but sat for nearly 45 minutes by my tent, just watching, listening and enjoying the grace of the Arctic coastal plain. It’s a phenomenal place.

The bluffs on the left of the frame, like Castles Made of Sand, slowly slip into the sea – eventually.

Cheers

Carl

Coastal plain, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska (aerial photo).

Hey Folks,

Last night I attended  public comment hearing for the preliminary stages of a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In short, this comment period allows the public to offer information and thoughts on some of the issues they feel might need to be addressed, and oftentimes their thoughts as to how those issues should be addressed. The CCP will be a document that “outlines and guides long-term management” of the Refuge. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are the land management agency responsible for managing the Refuge. If you would like to add your input at this stage, here is Comment Form for the Refuge. Before you do, it’s worth browsing the FWS ANWR webpage for some useful ideas on how this works (they’re not looking for reasons why the coastal plain might or might not be opened to drilling – that decision is to be the work of Congress, not the simple folks of the FWS).

One of the critical topics up for discussion is the designation of  ”wilderness” in the Refuge. Currently, nearly half (41%) of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 19.3 million acres is designated wilderness. The remaining 10 million acres are not currently designated “wilderness”. The FWS are presently proposing to study these areas and determine whether or not they qualify as wilderness; the ‘Wilderness Review‘ section of the CCP. A recommendation could then be made to Congress to designate these areas wilderness. Such a designation would render the Refuge off-limits to oil and gas extraction.

The arguments were the same tired commentaries we’ve heard countless times now; “we need the oil, we don’t need to send our money overseas, national security, billions of dollars worth of economic value, etc, etc”. Yadda Yadda Yadda. What everybody failed to mention is reality; the area IS wild. I challenge anyone to visit the Refuge, traverse those majestic mountains, feel the vastness of the coastal plain, and argue that this is not wild land, is not wildness and wilderness. We can draw up our arbitrary lines of demarcation, our imaginary boundaries, but all this illustrates is how far removed we are from a real understanding of wildness, of wilderness.

The caribou herds know. The great grizzly bears know. The Arctic Tern, returning home from their world travels, know. The countless mosquitoes swarming up from the tundra know. The lichens know, the sedges and shrubs know. The mountains know, the rivers and glaciers know. How is it that we don’t know? What have we lost that we are now unable to feel this place and know it’s wildness? Or, if we DO know this wildness, what kind of fantasyland are we living in that we might deny it? I’m reminded of a great book by writer Derrick Jensen, The Culture of Make Believe. Derrick writes, “For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.”

Last night I sat through 4 hours of public ‘comment’ that was largely a bunch of lies. Lies in the sense that the intent is to deny reality. The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is indeed wilderness. A great wilderness, a beautiful wild place. A wilderness, like all wild places, that is like no other.

Below is the (rather clumsy, if not nerdish) definition of wilderness, as per the Wilderness Act:

(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

While I find the very idea of defining ‘wilderness‘ to be oxymoronic (the minute we define it, we lose it), I’ll leave that discussion for another article. The landscape of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is indeed a wilderness. The US Government might not yet understand that, but, it seems, that’s their own shortcoming; I realized it the first time I visited the place. Every single person I’ve travelled in the Refuge with, and every person I’ve met who’s ever been there realize it as well. To argue that this is not a wilderness is akin to arguing against gravity; it’s simply absurdly dishonest.

The FWS would do well to deal with reality here; and recommend that Congress do the same, acknowledging fully the great wildness of the Refuge. Denial is, they say, one of the great signs of addiction; to live more honestly is to see things the way they actually are. And the wilderness of the Refuge, including the awesome coastal plan, is every bit as wild as we are.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Here’s another image from the summer just gone by. This one was from near our campsite on the Canning River, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). We’d had a nice day paddling, enjoying some sunny weather, found a sweet spot to camp, and then I wandered around into the evening looking for a composition that caught my eye. The unnamed mountain across the river is a ridge leading up to Mt. Salisbury. This is one of my favorite areas in the region, right at the edge of the coastal plain and the Brooks Mountains. Typically these kinds of terrains are interesting; where two different ecosystems come together – well, what we think of as two different ecosystems anyway. But the transition from one landform to another is often home to a wealth of diverse and interesting features and creatures. The next day, for example, we saw a herd of muskox along the river. The birds in this area were cool too, we saw merlin, gyrfalcon, golden eagles, arctic tern, gulls, as well as shorebirds like Tattlers, Sandpipers, and plovers, and waterfowl like Mergansers, loons, Harlequin ducks and more. It was very cool.

Traveling and photographing in the arctic is hard work; trying to travel during the day when it was a little warmer meant being tired at night when the light was nicer.  So we had to compromise a bit for that. What’s REALLY hard is trying to sleep in the morning when the sun comes up and is bright and hot by 7am – that’s a tough gig when you’ve been out photographing the night before until after 4 in the morning. When the weather was cloudy and cool it meant I could finally catch up on some rest. The sun doesn’t even go close to setting this far north in the summer, this is about as dark as it gets. It means long nights of soft warm sun, which is great to hike and photograph in. For backpacking trip or hiking, it’s awesome, but for rafting, it’s a little cool. So we’d generally paddle during the day, until late, setup camp, eat and then photograph a while. It worked for me, but Bob, one of the folks on the trip, was more of a ‘wake up and get out of bed at 5am’ type fella – regardless of what time we crashed out the night before. I don’t know how he does it.

I really like sidelighting for landscape photos, so enjoy shooting in this area when the sun is low to the  horizon. Shortly after this shot, the sun climbed higher as I sunk lower (into my sleeping bag). Good times.

Cheers
Carl

Hey Folks,

Here’s a Pacific Loon image I got late one evening near the Canning River, on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, Alaska. This photo took me quite a while, and a lot of walking, to swing. I think it was nearly 2am when I clicked the shutter here. I’d been over near this pond earlier, but not able to get close. I ended up walking around for a long time, finding a few other birds to photograph, and then cam back by the loon pond. This loon and its mate were getting more and more comfortable with this strange tripod-toting creature wandering around, and finally came close enough for me to manage a few photos. I wish the light was a little brighter, and the wind not present, as the rippled effect on the water isn’t as nice as a calmer surface, but one takes what one can in the arctic. At least the wind kept the bugs at bay.

Section 1002, the coastal plain, of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the area hotly debated over with the proposals to drill for oil. I think the wildlife that live there, will be much better off if drilling and gas extraction aren’t allowed; I think we’ll be better off for it, too.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

Sometimes we’d run a full river trip down the Futaleufu instead of the more common “Bridge to Bridge” section, which is the standard day-trip, about 12km of solid whitewater. On the full river section, we’d usually make it an overnighter, and enjoy the flatwater runs between the various sections of whitewater. Halfway along the trip is this killer place to go rock jumping. A nice sunny day, a deep, flat pool of water and a high ledge made for great fun for everyone. You’ll notice Gabby in the orange Jackson kayak just downstream, in position in case anyone got hurt jumping and needed some assistance. As always, safety first.

Cheers

Carl

Hey Folks,

So, I’ll wrap up my Mundaca Series here. This is a safety boat, a cataraft, that runs the river ahead of the whitewater rafts, and gets set to pick up folks who might fall out of the rafts. Of course, that’s the plan, but if the cataraft flips, then the safety is shot. Generally, using a series of hand signals and keeping a watchful eye out, something like this will be communicated back upstream to let the guides of the rafts know they have no safety. In which case, they generally wait until the cataraft is either flipped back over, or they’ll continue on down the river, but run a more cautious line. I shouldn’t say there’s no safety – on a river like the Futaleufu, each whitewater rafting trip that runs down the river will take at least one kayaker per raft as safety. the kayakers stay close to the raft, generally, and are there to help drag swimmers out of a big holes and waves if they get stuck. So each raft has a a kayaker, plus at least one cataraft, and sometimes 2, per trip. A trip will usually have less than 3 rafts of clients – it gets too hard to maintain a safety balance with larger groups.

I shot this photo towards the end of the season – as the water gets lower, sometimes rapids and waves get bigger. Mundaca really gets crunchy at mid-low water levels. The entrance to the rapid gets a little smaller, but the final wave, Mundaca, can get huge. Here Brent was running the cataraft down, with another beginning guide on-board, and got way outta control on hitting the first fusion wave. The wave rocked him around, pushed him into the center of the river where he lost balance, lost his grip on the oars, and was toast. The boat went completely vertical, you can see the 2nd guide in the bottom right corner of the boat, and slammed back down into the water. I’m kinda glad I wasn’t riding that one.

This time of year last season we weren’t even running the river because the water level was too high, we had to wait until early January until the water levels were low enough to run commercial trips. The Futaleufu is an awesome river, and I hope it stays that way for a long time to come. There’s probably no better whitewater rafting river in the world: it’s definitely up there beside the Zambezi and the White Nile in Southern Africa.

Cheers

Carl

Merry Xmas Folks!

Here’s a similar shot to the one I posted of KC going vertical in Mundaca. The guide is Manu, from Switzerland. Manu was the king of going big on the Futaleufu in 2007. Nobody had the number of big hits that Manu did. And he cooks up a helluva storm too! It’s awesome being around people who get so excited about what they do – Manu’s eyes lit up everytime we got to Cara del Indio, a little beach right before we’d hit Mundaca. The excitement builds, and everyone just knows he’s going big. – right down the center. Awesome stuff. And, because it’s Xmas, I’ll post a couple of shots to show you what happens after your raft hits this rapid, IF it doesn’t flip over:

and lastly,

Great memories, Mundaca and the Futaleufu River. Great guides, great people, great times. Merry Xmas to all you people.

Cheers

Carl