In the Northwest: Arctic photographer gets a cold shoulder in D.C.

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Friday, May 16, 2003

In the Northwest: Arctic photographer gets a cold shoulder in D.C.

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Having quit his job at The Boeing Co. to pursue a dream odyssey, photographing Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Indian-born photographer Subhankar Banerjee found himself struggling to set up tents in wild winter storms.

"The first winter blizzard was extremely demoralizing for me," said the 35-year-old Banerjee, whose book "Seasons of Life and Land" is newly published by The Mountaineers.

Banerjee would adjust to the winter cold, witness his stunning pictures of a mother polar bear and newborn cubs, and a line of 18 musk oxen trudging across the frozen coastal plain of the refuge.

The young photographer is , however, struggling to adjust to a non-Arctic form of the deep freeze -- the cold shoulder that timid Washington, D.C., bureaucrats can give someone who turns up with visual evidence contradicting the influential and powerful.

The Bush administration, oil companies and Alaska's congressional delegation are relentlessly pushing to open the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling.

Pledging to drill only in winter, the development advocates have burnished the image of the coastal plain as bleak and lifeless and snowy most of the year -- "a flat, crummy place" in the memorable words of one British Petroleum flack.

After 14 months in the refuge, Banerjee had put himself $100,000 in debt, but produced evidence contradicting the elaborate multimillion-dollar lobbying whitewash.

He returned with pictures of polar bear tracks in the snow, a wobbly baby moose struggling to its feet weeks before the first forage grows through the snow -- and of a tiny songbird, the American dipper, finding open waters on the Hulahula River on a cold November morning.

"There is snow and ice, that is true," said the Calcutta-born Banerjee, "but there is life out there. ... Winter is the hardest time to photograph wildlife, but the easiest time to know it is there. Why? Footprints."

A photo exhibit of this life was set to begin early this month in the main rotunda of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on the U.S. Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C.

Then, as the Senate debated (and narrowly rejected) refuge drilling, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California held up a Banerjee picture of a backlit grizzly bear crossing a frozen harbor.

It helped melt the flat-frozen-place argument, but gave the Smithsonian a massive dose of cold feet.

In an April 3 phone call, Banerjee was told by executive Robert Sullivan that his exhibit had been "politicized."

The exhibit did open on May 2, but was moved to a lower hallway between a loading dock and freight elevator. Descriptive quotes from Banerjee, as well as former President Carter and famed zoologist George Schaller, were deleted. Mention of Banerjee's work was blackballed from the Smithsonian's Web site.

"If you are a casual visitor you will not find this show," Banerjee said.

The Smithsonian's legal department also wrote a letter to The Mountaineers disavowing any connection to Banerjee's work, and asking that the national museum's name be withdrawn from the book.

Of course, the Smithsonian has denied any political pressure. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who raised hell over a 1995 exhibit on the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, was a presumed source of arm-twisting.

Stevens took to the Senate floor last week. He denied pressuring anybody, fulminated against Jimmy Carter and pounded a copy of "Seasons of Life and Land" with his fist.

"This is a propaganda book," declared Alaska's senior senator.

It is nothing of the kind. Rather, it is a testament to someone who did not stumble onto truth, but pursued it with fearless intensity. Banerjee spent up to 36 hours in blinds to get pictures of pregnant female caribou about to give birth on the coastal plain.

"The guy didn't have any money but he did have a dream, and the courage to say, (Bleep) it! I'm going to get this project done," said Tom Campion, a Snohomish businessman who has given some financial support to the project.

Banerjee is modest about the tempest created by his winter photography. "Anybody whose work creates sentiment is hard for them (drilling advocates) to deal with," he remarked.

Quite so. Visual images have proven powerful in the drive to protect America's natural places.

Nearly 50 years ago, The Mountaineers brought out a black-and-white picture book on the North Cascades. It helped make a national park.

The Sierra Club's tribute to the Colorado River, "Time and the River Flowing," helped beat back U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to build two dams in the Grand Canyon. Lady Bird Johnson gave the book to Lyndon as a White House Christmas present.

Then-Gov. Dan Evans brought a Mountaineers' picture book on Washington's Alpine Lakes to an Oval Office meeting with Gerald Ford, and persuaded the prez to sign wilderness legislation opposed by his own administration.

Banerjee is very much aware of this tradition, citing photographer Elliot Porter's work that helped protect the North Cascades. He is, however, deeply worried for the Arctic Refuge.

One place Banerjee fell in love with (which this writer rafted two years ago) was the Canning River, whose lower reaches form the refuge's western boundary.

"It would be the delta of the Canning where they would start drilling, but that is where I photographed the polar bear with cubs and the musk oxen with their babies," he said. "The Canning is also great, great habitat for peregrine and gyrfalcons."

After postponing a session last week, the Senate Rules Committee will allow anti-drilling senators to question Smithsonian brass at a hearing Tuesday.

In the meantime, the artistic bug has bitten Banerjee -- hard. The Seattle resident is thinking of returning for a time to photograph endangered natural systems around his native India.

Banerjee dreams big dreams. In their shabby treatment of him, the Smithsonian brass have revealed themselves as folk who could hide in a field of stubble.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com

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