The last great place

The North Pole is more than 1,000 miles distant, where the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge meets the Beaufort Sea. But the vast, untrammeled and endangered Alaska preserve attracts increasing numbers of visitors because it is a pole of remoteness.

Alaska has taller mountains, Rhode Island-size glaciers, smoking volcanoes and streams where as many as 20 salmon-scooping brown bears can be observed at one time.


	Wild oxen graze in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. CLICK FOR MORE PHOTOS DAVE SHREFFLER/SPECIAL TO THE P-I Click for larger photo

Still, no place in Alaska, and I suspect few places on Earth, conveys the enveloping sense of wildness felt as one hikes the tundra and paddles the rivers that flow north to the Arctic Ocean from the Brooks Range.

The grand, transcendental landforms of the northeast corner of Alaska are "a world that compelled all our interest and concentration and put everything else out of mind," pioneer explorer Olaus Murie wrote 40 years ago. After joining Murie and his wife, Mardy, at a camp in the Brooks Range, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas would write:

"The Arctic has a call that is compelling ... It is a call to adventure. This is not a place to possess like the plateaus of Wyoming or the valleys of Arizona; it is one to behold with wonderment. It is a domain for any restless soul who yearns to discover the startling beauties of creation in a place of quiet and solitude where life exists without molestation by man."

During an eight-day rafting trip down 80 miles of the 125-mile-long Canning River in late June, I certainly felt the demands of concentration to which Murie alluded.


	Arctic Treks guide Jim Campbell lends a hand as rafters, from left, Mike Grossman, Gary Braasch (only hat is visible), Dan Taylor and Kevin Ewing attempt to land at the confluence of the Marsh Fork and Canning rivers. Over eight days, the party floated 80 miles down the Canning River, sharing its journey north to the Beaufort Sea. Click for larger photo

Layers of overflow ice, called aufeis, remained as much as 10 feet thick in places along the river, whose lower reaches form the western boundary of the Arctic Refuge. Aufeis are formed as rivers start to freeze in the fall, with water flowing up and over each new layer of ice. In late June, they still blocked some channels of the river, and calved off small icebergs.

Jim Campbell of Arctic Treks gingerly picked routes through the aufeis. He also delivered commands to his paddlers - "Hard forward!" "Back! Back!" -- as we dodged big boulders and hydraulics in what we christened Stinkin' Creek Rapids, after a side stream that smelled of sulfur.

As well, there were the beauties of creation mentioned by Douglas, no place more on display than in the great mountain amphitheater where the Marsh Fork joins the main Canning River.

As the low-angle midnight sun bathed surrounding peaks in glorious light, we held a very late cocktail hour - mixing riverbank ice with Maker's Mark - and watched wonders unfold around us.


	A riot of wildflowers punctuates the rugged countryside near the Canning River. Nootka lupine, dryas and Lapland rosebay were among the 31 species identified during the high-Arctic outing. Click for larger photo

"Look! Right directly over Doug's tent!" shouted Tom Campion, a Snohomish businessman, as we grabbed binoculars.

A sleek, chocolate-brown predator with a white tip to his tail was circling our campsite. "That's a fox, a red fox," Campbell identified the visitor.

The muddy bank of the river bore tracks from barren ground grizzly bears, musk oxen and the tundra swan, which has not only a 7-foot wingspread but very large feet.

Even the weather was awesome, seeming to undergo a minute-by-minute evolution. One by one, high peaks of the Brooks Range to our south were enveloped by squalls. North toward the Beaufort Sea, however, the weather was clear. The storm advanced on us, but was held up by a cold wind from the north. Eventually the squalls moved overhead and briefly spattered us, only to be pushed back again. High overhead, a trio of tundra swans battled the air currents.

We camped for two nights at the rivers' confluence, allowing a day for exploration of the rolling, treeless slopes of a nearby valley. In the land of permafrost, walking on wet tussocks can be a foot-twisting experience.

The Brooks Range gets little rainfall, but water cannot sink into the frozen ground. Clumps of heather and Alaska boykinia (a plant known as the bear flower, prized by grizzlies), cover the north slopes of the Brooks Range; the south side of the range is a boreal forest of spruce trees.

Wildlife in the Brooks Range is not available for viewing in predictable places. In a spare, severe climate, it must move to survive. On hikes and in camp, we kept eyes cocked, and spent hours scanning slopes with scopes.


	Grizzly bear tracks Click for larger photo

During the layover day at the confluence, our reward was the sight of a large, feeding bull moose a half-mile away. On a mountaintop behind an earlier camp, Campion spotted two dozen Dall sheep grazing a tundra ridge on the next peak.

The river's bird life was most endearing. There was the Arctic tern that dive-bombed guide Mike Matz's raft when it passed beneath her nest. Plovers flopped around as if injured - their favored tactic for diverting attention from egg-filled nests. A pair of fluffy, big-eyed gyrfalcon chicks perched on the edge of a cliff, awaiting mama's return with dinner.

As we stood on a summit above the river, a Sacramento-based rafter named Dan Taylor joked: "When I was in college, my dorm room was decorated with pictures of the Brooks Range, the Arctic tern and Raquel Welch. On this trip, I have seen two of three."

One creature only rarely seen was man.

Once or twice a day, the tiny bush plane of pilot Kirk Sweetsir would buzz up or down the valley. Sweetsir is a Rhodes Scholar who, when not flying in America's high Arctic, has often done supply runs to scientific expeditions in Greenland.


	A crevasse arcs across a section of melting aufeis on the Upper Marsh Fork of the Canning River. Aufeis, or overflow ice, is formed in the fall as a river starts to freeze, forcing water to flow over the ice and forming successive frozen layers. Click for larger photo

At the rivers' confluence, we encountered one other rafting party, belonging to Campbell's friend, Macgill Adams, of Wilderness Alaska. Adams is a guy with a big handlebar moustache. He and Campbell started rafting in the Arctic Refuge years ago, before the area became a major environmental controversy.

The Canning River sees perhaps a dozen rafting parties during the three-month period that comprises spring, summer and fall in the high Arctic. A couple of other rivers are more popular.

The Hulahula River, named by visiting Hawaiian whalers, plunges straight from the highest peaks of the Brooks Range onto the coastal plain of the refuge. Further east, the Kongakut River passes through the main migratory path of the 129,000 animals of the Porcupine caribou herd.

The rafting trips down all three rivers begin in protected areas where two-legged creatures - rafters in summer and hunters in August and September - are visitors who do not long remain.

The Kongakut lies entirely in wilderness designated by Congress. But the Canning and Hulahula pass into a 1.2 million-acre zone known as the "1002 Area."

When Congress passed the Alaska Lands Act in 1980, Section 1002 left much of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge in a kind of legislative limbo. The act authorized studies of the area's oil and gas potential, and said it could be opened to drilling with the approval of Congress.

The Bush administration wants to drill. One of its first acts was to delete assessments of habitat loss, disturbance and displacement of wildlife from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Web site.

The Alaska congressional delegation has depicted the Coastal Plain as one of America's least inviting places - flat, snowbound for nine months of the year, and boggy and mosquito-infested when it does melt out.

Our party encountered a very different reality during a two-day stay on the plain. The following are from notes I took:

"We paddle against current into our final pullout. A fox scuttles across the tundra. A golden plover squawks at us. We find her nest with eggs on the tundra, and give it a wide birth. Caribou move in and out of the fog bank coming in off the Beaufort Sea. An Arctic tern registers its displeasure by relieving itself on the top of one tent .....

"The next day I stroll to the top of a nearby bluff. Twenty-four caribou are crossing the stream just below me. ..... Later I awaken from a nap, and two caribou are perhaps 20 to 30 feet upwind, sniffing for danger. Back in camp, there are shouts. Two musk oxen are trundling by within spitting distance of the tents."

Here is the land untrammeled, the closest we still have to the America witnessed by Lewis and Clark as they journeyed up the Missouri River in 1803.

It is far away, coveted by a powerful interest that knows how to work its will on national policy.

My advice: Go there while it's still intact, but be prepared to become a defender and advocate upon your return.

Refuge trips

A rafting trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge needs to be arranged and negotiated months in advance.

Given that you will be far from civilization, where help does not come quick and easy, an experienced guide service is recommended.

Depending on group size, the tab will run into four figures. Here are some outfits to contact:

Arctic Treks, P.O. Box 73452, Fairbanks, AK 99707. Phone: 907-455-6502; on the Web: www.arctictreksadventures.com; e-mail: arctreks@polarnet.com.

Wilderness Alaska, P.O. Box 113063, Anchorage, AK 99511. Phone: 907-345-3567; on the Web: www.wildernessalaska.com; e-mail: macgill@alaska.net.

Canadian River Expeditions, P.O. Box 1023, Whistler, B.C., V0N 1B0 Canada; phone 800-898-7238; on the Web: www.canriver.com; e-mail: info@canriver.com. Canadian River Expeditions rafts the Firth River, which crosses from Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into Canada's Ivvavik National Park.

Wilderness Birding Adventures, P.O. Box 103747, Anchorage, AK 99510-3747.

Some other tips:

Cold-weather clothes are essential. Every stitch of Polarguard you bring will be put on once the cold wind off the Beaufort Sea is felt.

A head net and lots of bug juice are recommended, since the wet tundra is a bug breeding ground par excellence.

If you are traveling without a guide, obtain precise instructions on where to find pullout points and primitive landing strips for bush planes.

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

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