At the end of National Parks Week, when I have spent my busy week occupied with other thoughts, I had to force myself to slow down and think of how our National Park System has influenced my life over the years.  This is something we should all do from time to time, because it is likely we can all find a thread that the parks have woven through our personal fabric over the years.

The first unit of our National Park System I visited was Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming, about a decade before Steven Spielberg made it famous in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”  Of course, I don’t remember the visit; I was still in diapers.  But my parents took photos to commemorate the occasion.  Fortunately, I was an infant long before the digital camera boom so many potentially embarassing occurrences from my childhood were either miniminally documented or not at all.  Except for that incident with the cat food.

The first national parks I remember visiting were those situated within an hour or so of my home town of Rapid City, South Dakota: Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Badlands National Park. In my youth, I was fascinated with rocks and geology, so these parks were such a wonder and treat to visit, from learning about the long process of forming caverns and stalagtites (I still remember the park ranger at Wind Cave NP telling us they were formed by the same acid found in Coca Cola), or the layers and weathering the created the brilliant formations of the Badlands and revealed their paleontological treasures.  And while out exploring the southern Black Hills, scouring old mines for pegmatite phosphates, garnet, and other rock hounding wonders, it was a treat to have the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln watching from a distance (several tunnels through the rocks on the road system were cut to point at Mount Rushmore).

Some of my earliest adventures as a youth or as a young man after my Navy service and college were in our national parks.  While in the Badlands as a youth, I went on one of my first solo hikes into a wilderness area and faced my first rattlesnake in the wild. Contrary to the normal reaction to such a creature, I tried to coax it out of its hiding place in a large crack in the ground. After college, I went on my first backpacking trip in Isle Royale National Park, Michigan, learning the hard way about things like breaking in hiking boots and overloading packs. But I was also introduced to the wonders of mole skin, too, and that’s a good thing.

While merely a place to explore and recreate in my earlier years, I have added an element of enjoyment to our national parks as a full adult: photography.  Somewhere in my late twenties and early thirties, I transitioned from hobbyist to serious photographer.  While my early years in the Navy and in college trained me more to be a photojournalist, my experience as a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota compelled me to embrace nature photography.  And given the wonders of our national park units, they became a perfect venue for me to develop and grow as a nature photographer, while I also grew as a human being.

Two early trips through our national parks during this transitional period stand out, and both of them were with my friend Andrew VonBank of Minnesota.  The first, originating from the Twin Cities where we both lived at the time, included Theodore Roosevelt National Park (ND), Yellowstone National Park (WY), Grand Teton National Park (WY), Devil’s Tower (WY) and Badlands National Park (SD).  At that time, I was shooting a Nikon F100, and mixing negative and slide film.  By our next trip two years later, I had switched to using completely slide film (a major step in becoming a much better photographer), and I had been shooting much more after my move to Alaska. We met in Las Vegas, and, in the span of only two weeks, visited six national park units in Utah (Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Canyonlands, and Arches) and the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park (AZ).  And between these two trips, along with my time in Alaska’s Denali National Park & Preserve, I started to realize that I was truly seeing the world differently. I was looking beyond the things that people tpyically stopped to photograph, and learning to see and experience wild places in a more complete and holistic way. But the trips were so whirlwind, so superficial given the vastness of the landscapes before me.

And then I discovered the Artist-in-Residence program in the National Park Service.  Administered in nearly 50 units in the system, the AIR program allows an artist to be immersed in the park, explore the landscape at their own leisure, and practice his or her art. In exchange, the artist provides two public presentations at the park during the residency and donates a piece of art either created during the residency or inspired by the residency within one year of completion of the residency.  The park provides the artist a place to stay, and in some cases, a nominal stipend for food and expenses.

Starting locally, I applied for and was accepted to serve as the Artist-in-Residence for Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve – the first photographer selected for the position. I spent five days in the Arctic tundra above the treeline, exploring a wide landscape and watching hundreds of caribou migrate through a valley, followed by seven days floating on the Alatna River.  I learned to slow down more, listen, smell and envision a landscape in ways I had never before imagined.  It was my first backcountry trip in the Alaskan wilderness, my first time above the Arctic Circle, my first time in Alaska’s largest mountain range, the Brooks Range. Two years later, I served as the AIR for Rocky Mountain National Park and Badlands National Park – a special treat, allowing me to go back and explore the landscape of my youth as both a photographer and an older adult.

Now, because of my life experiences and my visual approach as a photographer, visiting national parks is a very personal experience. I have developed what I feel are intimate connections with a vast land that, while our world changes and contorts all around us, have remained steadfast in their ability to provide me solace, wonder, inspiration and childlike delight. Visiting the more-often visited parks presents special challenges as an artist because I don’t want to repeat what’s been done before, but that’s a good thing.  My national parks still help me to grow and develop as a person.

So, I challenge you to think back on your life, remember the various national park units you have visited, and think about how those have shaped your life.  And if you have not already, you must watch Ken Burns’ documentary, “National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”  It took me a while to think of all the parks I have been to (see list below).  What parks have you visited?

• Lincoln Memorial, D.C.
• National Mall, D.C.
• Washington Monument, D.C.
• National World War II Memorial, D.C.
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial, D.C.
• Korean War Veterans Memorial, D.C.
• Great Smoky Mountain National Park, NC & TN
• Isle Royale National Park, MI
• Pipestone National Monument, MN
• Teddy Roosevelt National Park, ND
• Badlands National Park, SD
• Wind Cave National Park, SD
• Jewel Cave National Monument, SD
• Mount Rushmore National Memorial, SD
• Devil’s Tower National Park, WY
• Yellowstone National Park, WY
• Grand Teton National Park, WY
• Glacier National Park, MT
• Rocky Mountain National Park, CO
• Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, CO
• Arches National Park, UT
• Canyonlands National Park, UT
• Capitol Reef National Park, UT
• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT
• Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
• Zion National Park, UT
• Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, UT
• Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
• Natural Bridges National Monument, AZ
• White Sands National Monument, NM
• Death Valley National Park, CA
• Joshua Tree National Park, CA
• Muir Woods National Monument, CA
• Golden Gate National Recreation Area, CA
• Mount Rainier National Park, WA
• Olympic National Park, WA
• Sitka National Historic Park, AK
• Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, AK
• Kenai Fjords National Park, AK
• Katmai National Park & Preserve, AK
• Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, AK
• Denali National Park & Preserve, AK
• Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, AK
• Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, HI
• Haleakala National Park, HI

It’s impossible to state what are my favorite national parks or images captured in them, so here is a random sample, showing the wonder and diversity that they can bring to us.  For a more complete selection, visit my National Parks gallery.

It is the largest national park in the Lower 48 of the United States, as well as the lowest, hottest and driest point in the United States.  Originally envisioned as a mining mecca, various mining operations quickly learned that it was not very profitable.  Instead, entrepreneurs focused their efforts on the economic opportunity of tourism.  Death Valley National Monument was established in 1933.  It was expanded and established as a national park in 1994.

I have been to the desert Southwest in various locations, but have never been able to make it out to Death Valley National Park.  Given its proximity to Las Vegas (only a two-hour drive), it seemed like a perfect place to start our Southwest road trip – after spending a couple of days exploring photo galleries on the Vegas Strip and enjoying the spa services at our hotel.  I was aware of a couple of choice photo locations – Zabrieske Point, the Mesquite Sand Dunes and the Racetrack Playa.  I certainly wanted to examine those and see how I might interpret them, but also wanted to do some broader exploring in the park.

I found the open flats of the park the most interesting area to explore that has been under-explored.  Take, for example, the Devil’s Golf Course.  Perhaps, the better name for it would have been Golf Course from Hell, as in, this is what a golf course would look like in Hell.  It is a massive field of large clusters of salt crystals, creating a bumpy field of sharp salty boulders.  Given how “good” light doesn’t hit the main part of the valley floor at this time of year, I chose to photograph the field after sunset, with the colors of dusk to add an interesting element to the scene.  I also, after coming back one morning from the sand dunes, saw open water out on the salt flats, providing a perfect reflection of the mountains of the Panamint Range as morning light struck them.  A scattered field of clouds added additional elements of interest.  I also found the Devil’s Corn Field (just a couple of miles away from the parking for the Mesquite Sand Dunes) a really strong, potential subject, but the light and timing just didn’t work out.  Next time.

Michelle and I also visited the Ryollite ghost town, just outside of the park, which provided an interesting change to the usual scenery.  On the way back into the park, we came down through the area where Scotty’s Castle is located.  While the castle itself was not particularly interesting, its location was – a water-rich drainage replete with several groves of California palm trees and a variety of plants and trees.  A true oasis, it will be worthy to explore again at another time of the year – spring.

The drive out to the Racetrack Playa is certainly worth it, even if it is an hour and a half of driving on rocky, narrow road.  The Racetrack is a mysterious location where rocks are moved across a dried lake bed when the conditions are right, leaving behind dragged trail marks.  Fun to explore and photograph, there is one downfall to the location – there are no toilet facilities of any kind.  As you photograph the rocks and their background scenery, you know that you will have to clone out people in the background when you process in Photoshop.  In one case, I had the image blown up to 100% and was cloning out a couple of people when I noticed that one of them was taking a leak.  Chuckling to myself, I removed his activity and presence from the image.

When we left the park, we headed west out on Highway 190.  I found the western, higher part of the park fascinating; almost like a desert Scottish Highlands.  But, since we were on a mission to visit Galen Rowel’s gallery in Bishop on our way up to Mono Lake, there was no time to stop.  I enjoyed what I was able to capture, and took notes for future return trips to the park.

It all started with some caribou.  It was our first morning in Denali National Park & Preserve – I was there with fellow photographers Chris Beck and Matthew Brown.  We had overslept because someone who was in charge of the morning alarm thought he would sleep in for another five minutes, which turned out to be nearly an hour and a half.  We gathered our senses and headed into the park.  Somewhere about halfway between the park entrance from the Parks Highway and Savage River, we saw another vehicle pulled over, and a photographer out of his vehicle.  Sure sign that there was wildlife afoot.

We saw quickly he had focused on three caribou that were grazing in rocky wash, downhill and to the south of the road.  I captured a few images, but was really waiting for the caribou to do something other than grazing.  Heads up, perhaps profile shots, even better looking toward the cameras, but not as much grazing and certainly not the classic “butt shot.”  Then, Chris’s rather intensive whispering and gesturing got my attention, and I looked ahead of me on the road to see an adult lynx, just sitting upright, taking in the morning’s events.  He was maybe about a hundred yards down the road from us.

I quickly ignored the caribou and turned my 500mm toward the lynx.  Slowly, the other photographers started to follow suit, and then it was just a bunch of shutter clicks and mirror slaps as we all captured this beautiful animal, just sitting there without a care in the world.  Then, something got his attention, and he went into stalking mode – something I have seen my own cats do on countless occasions.  I could not see what he was after, but he was focused, on a mission, ignoring the world around him.  Once the lynx got a little more than halfway across the road, he just … stopped.  Then he dropped to a crouch, and just sat; watching, waiting.  I saw what had drawn his attention, the thing that is top of the menu for lynx in Alaska – a snowshoe hare.  Nibbling on some willows on the edge of the road, this hare was completely oblivious to the photographers, the caribou, and the lynx that had its sights on a morning meal.

As the lynx waited, Chris, Matt and I worked to get closer, closer and yet closer to the lynx and hare.  We would move twenty feet, then stop and wait, capturing a few more images.  Then we would get up, move closer and stop.  Neither the hare nor the lynx noticed or cared.  Then, from behind us came what seemed like a cacophonous electronic squeal – the other photographer ( we came to call him “DB” for the rest of the trip) had opened his car door with the key in the ignition, letting out the “your key’s in the ignition and your door is open STUPID” warning sound that we all know so well.  But never had I ever heard it seem so loud before, nor had it ever had such adverse consequences.

Immediately, the hare started, stood up, realized it was in peril and ran into the thick of the willows, spruce and alder that lay just feet beyond the road.  Disappointed, the lynx got up, crept toward the edge of the willows where the hare had disappeared, and then lept into the thick of it, hoping to still have some success with his hunt.  One minute we were all waiting with the lynx for the expectation of the hunt, elated to be in the position to watch such a dramatic natural event, and then, because of the complete cluelessness of another photographer who had captured the images he wanted, it was over.

As much as we lamented the loss of the kill, it was hard to be disappointed for the opportunity to watch and photograph the lynx in action.  And it likely would not have happened had we got out of bed on time.

Aside from the wonderful opportunity to watch and photograph a lynx while it hunted a snowshoe hare, my spring weekend in Denali National Park & Preserve with fellow photographers Chris Beck, Matt Brown and Brian Weeks presented a wonderful variety of photo opportunities.  It is almost impossible to spend just a couple of days in the park and not come away with something. 

During the regular season, park visitors are only allowed to drive their vehicles into the park to the Savage River, at mile 15 of the park road.  But, on the shoulder seasons, the road is open all the way to the Teklanika River rest stop, at mile 29.  This presents a great opportunity to capture nature as it is waking up from winter.  Even during the transition from winter to summer, and with light that was less than ideal, we had plenty of encounters with caribou, hares, porcupine and Willow ptarmigan and several unique glimpses of the land that only occur during a period of a few weeks.  And even though the full “super moon” stayed behind the clouds, it still created a golden rim of light around those clouds to give us pixel food for thought. 

It was also the first time I took my new Nikon D800E out into the field.  I was very pleased with the results, particularly in high dynamic range scenes.  It was also the first time I had the opportunity to use my new Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 AFS lens, which came in handy on several wide open landscape scenes. 

In the winter of 2010, I had the pleasure of spending a few days out at a base camp on a sheet of aufeis on the North Fork of the Koyukuk River in Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve with Park Ranger Zak Richter and his dog team.  To get there, I drove to Fairbanks, caught a small plane (Cessna 185) flight out to the town of Bettles, and then another ride on that same plane (once the winds died down) out to the camp site.

One evening, we took a trail we had broke earlier in the day upriver to further explore the area near the Gates of the Arctic: Mount Boreal and Frigid Crags.  Once we reached a nice view point for the Gates, we stopped and gave the dogs an extended rest.  I spent a few minutes capturing images of the scene, including Zak and his team, and we continued back down the river back to camp.

Riding in the sled of a dog team is quite an experience.  The position is rather compromising; you only have a canvas sled and some wooden runners between you and ice, snow, tree roots, rocks, and whatever else may come along.  I found myself rattled on more than one occasion, and once in a while slightly freaked out by the sound of cracking ice beneath us as we moved along.  The smells are also quite interesting; you are essentially downwind from nine dog butts.  I’ll let your imagination fill in the spaces on that one.  But the view is incredible, leading to a whole new appreciation of how to travel across the backcountry in winter.

Along the way, I was thinking how cool it was to be so close to the ground and to see all that ice and snow go speeding by beside me.  Then Zak said something about how cool of a shot it would be.  My camera was already on my lap, cradled close to me for safety and warmth, so I held it up and framed what I thought would be an interesting view.  But the composition was only part of the equation.  I wanted to capture the wide scene and the sense of speed.  I fortunately had my 12-24mm lens already on my camera (a Nikon D300), so that gave me the wide view I wanted.  But, in order to get the speed, I set the aperture to f/22 and the ISO to 100 to ensure a slow shutter speed.

This image was selected as a finalist in the “People in Nature” category in the 2010 Windland Smith Rice International Awards (but not selected as a winning image).  My greatest praise for this image came from none other than Jeff Schultz, the official photographer of the Iditarod for over twenty years.  At the annual Alaska Stock meeting that year, during the photographers’ New Images slide show, this image came up and Jeff (who owns the company) said almost immediately “Do we have this one yet?”  When someone who has been photographing dog mushing as long as he has been gets excited by a dog mushing photo, you know you have accomplished something.

You can view and purchase this image in my Gates of the Arctic gallery.

In August of 2007, I was camped at the confluence of the Malamute Fork and the Alatna River, waiting for a National Park Service plane to pick me and my NPS Ranger companion, Tracy Pendergrast, up from a 12-day backcountry trip as part of my Artist-in-Residence experience in Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve.  Soon, word came that our pilot would not be picking us up; he had been retasked to take law enforcement rangers out to investigate a report of Dall Sheep poaching.  Often, these backcountry rangers receive spotty information but still have to head out quickly before the evidence trail runs cold.  It was my first exposure to the life of a natural resources law enforcement ranger.

It is so easy for those who visit our national parks or other public lands to chide those who are tasked with enforcing the law.  I  have heard many photographers complain about NPS rangers in Denali National Park & Preserve enforcing the rules of the road or distance limitations to certain wildlife, calling these rangers “Ranger Dick.”  But our rangers face so many hazards and pitfalls when performing their duties, none with more clarity than the story of Park Ranger Margaret Anderson, who was killed in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, on January 1, 2012, as she set up a road block to stop a driver that had run a chain-up checkpoint.  The driver opened fire, killing Ranger Anderson before she had a chance to get out of her vehicle.

We don’t think of the hazards that our natural resources rangers face in the performance of their duties.  Heck, in Alaska, for many of them, just getting out and doing their routine jobs can be dangerous: lots of small plane flights, heading out into hazardous conditions, heading out where there are few resources to help, facing down possible law breakers who are likely armed with some sort of weapon.  This last point is now a reality for all National Park Service rangers, no thanks to President Obama signing a law that makes it legal for people to carry firearms in all of our National Parks.  At least before rangers didn’t have to worry about that factor as much when confronting law breakers.

Natural resource rangers have been dealing with law breakers for decades, but mostly the kind that violate fish and wildlife regulations.  Snaring instead of hooking fish, taking too small of a deer or taking a moose out of season.  Using the wrong kind of traps or other methods of taking wildlife that are not authorized.  There are several great books out there in the genre of natural resources crime fighting that are a an excellent read to understand this world better.  The best one I have read is Wildlife Wars: The Life and Times of a Fish and Game Warden by Terry Grosz.  Mr. Grosz has written several books since and I will have to start getting caught up in his work.

But there is an insidious trend happening in our country where the crimes of “civilized” society are creeping their way into our public lands.  The incident with Ranger Anderson is an extreme example.  Quietly, behind the scenes and pretty much out of the scrutiny of corporate media, the drug wars have spilled into our public lands as well.  I am talking about the massive amounts of marijuana cultivation going on right now in approximately 67 national forests nationwide.  There is story after story of these grow sites being found from the northeast to the southwest, with the enormous costs (up to $300,000 per acre) of restoration not to mention the incredible risk of rangers encountering armed individuals tending to these marijuana fields.

It’s hard to imagine a world where our park rangers have to face deadly armed gunmen on a shooting spree or drug cartels in the performance of their duties.  Our public lands are supposed to be places of solace and refuge from the darker side of our world.  Rangers should be able to spend their time offering interpretive lectures, answering silly questions about natural features, showing visitors all the wonders that await them in our public lands.  I cannot recall the number of times I have been impressed by the kindness, courtesy and knowledge of a park ranger.  Entering into a dialogue with them is always one of my favorite parts of visiting our national forests, parks, monuments and wildlife refuges.  Yet, increasingly, they face these outside threats and do so with an ever-decreasing budget, slashed by politicians in Washington, D.C. who rarely visit our national parks and don’t see the value in continuing to fund them what they need.

So, in honor of Ranger Anderson and all other natural resources rangers who protect us and our public lands, I hope that you will consider what you find valuable in their work and the places they protect, and contact your Congressional delegation and tell them how you feel.  Also, to honor Ranger Anderson, I am posting some images from the place she died serving: Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.  And next time you visit a national forest, park, monument or wildlife refuge, please thank a ranger for what they do.

In 2011, I was fortunate to have many travel opportunities, from familiar places to new places here in Alaska and to new continents.  This made for a rather challenging effort to come up with around a dozen images that reflected my best images from 2011.  With Michelle’s help, I narrowed it down to 13.  With this post, I will tell a little about what is behind each image.

“Canoes at Dusk.”  The feature image was captured during Michelle’s and my visit to Maui in late December to mid-January.  I had been wanting to capture an iconic beach with palm trees sunset photo and found this beach with outrigger canoes in North Kihei.  After capturing sunset, the canoes, and a paddleboarder, I was loading my gear back into our rental car when I saw how the colors of dusk were developing.  I set up literally next to the car and captured the elements of color, shape, and canoe.

“Rainbow Eucalyptus, Maui.”  Michelle and I decided to give ourselves a whole two days to explore the Hana side of the island of Maui.  On our way across the top, northeast portion of the island, we spotted what I would later learn is an oft-photographed Rainbow Eucalyptus grove alongside the Hana Highway.  I photographed the trees both on the way down to Hana and on the way back to Kihei.  I found the lighting better on the return trip due to the overcast skies.

“Grasses and Snow.”  I have increasingly come to enjoy venturing out onto the flats of the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in the wintertime.  On this particular day, I accessed the coast through Kincaid Park, and started to hike out to the water’s edge, where large boulders of ice had been accumulating.  Along the way, I looked to my right and to the north and caught this view of grasses and snow drifts with Mt. Susitna in the background.

“Mesa and Sunset.” I was in the Page, Arizona area attending a landscape photography workshop led by Alain Briot.  After an evening of working some hoodoos on a cliff overlooking the Lake Powell area, we were starting to head back to our vehicles when I noticed this tremendous buildup of clouds.  Knowing that they would capture the sunset’s colors well, I scurried over to where I could set up a composition that included this mesa I had spotted earlier in the evening. 

“Framed Rock.”  Still in the Page area for this Alain Briot workshop, we were exploring some rock formations over in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on the Utah side of the border.  I was maneuvering to capture this balanced rock I had been eyeing for a while when I happened upon this natural frame created by fallen rocks.  It took a while to position the tripod and camera, and to select the right lens to fulfill my vision of this balanced rock.

“Worn and Weathered.” In May, I had the pleasure of joining the Tony Robbins Platinum Partners as they ventured to Africa for a five day, three-country excursion.  My primary purpose was to provide photographic instruction, both through lectures and one-on-one interaction at various locations.  But, I also took many, many pictures, paticularly on the day we went to the Nakatindi School in Zambia for a contribution day that consisted of repairing doors, desks, floors and windows, repainting rooms, and planting trees and other plants. While in the school’s cafeteria, I spotted this older man, who I had seen earlier out in the school yard, and simply loved the texture on his face and how it seemed to reflect the aged texture on the walls.

“Lincoln Memorial, Sunrise.”  When I was in Washington D.C. in May to attend the Nature’s Best awards reception at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, I spent some time getting up early to photograph the memorials on the mall.  Here, the early light of the sun lights up the face of the Lincoln Memorial.  I previsualized this as a black and white because of the great contrast and textures.

“First Toss.”  While out in the Bristol Bay region to begin fieldwork on my Bristol Bay/Pebble Mine book, I spent a couple of days on the driftboat F/V Chulyen, skippered by lifelong Naknek resident Everett Thompson.  Our first opener was right after sunrise, and I wanted to capture the first toss of the buoy that would secure one end of the gill nets in place.  Using a graduated neutral denstify filter to balance out the exposure and give more drama to the clouds, I waited until the desired moment and just started clicking.  The end result was a gorgeous image that has turned out to be a powerful representation of the life of a driftnetter.

“Turnagain Lichens.” While heading out one morning in July to go for a sunrise hike with my friend John Pope, I asked if he wouldn’t mind if we bypass the trailhead for a few minutes to go check out what the morning light was doing on the Turnagain Arm.  I found the perfect spot to capture the morning light on the Kenai Mountains and their reflection on the calm waters of the Turnagain Arm, then found an even better vantage point that offered this patch of organge lichens.

“Anaktuvuk Pass, Sunrise.”  After spending a few days for my weeklong visit in Anaktuvuk Pass in August, I had scouted what I hoped would be the perfect sunrise location.  There was a large patch of crimson red bear berries on the hillside, a row of mountains to the west, and a great overlook view of the village to the east.  While the sun did not rise and shine in the way I had originally anticipated, I ended up very much liking how the sunshine turned out.  This is perhaps one of my most shared images of the year.  The greatest compliment I received came from a village resident who stated that she never knew her village could be so beautiful. 

“Moose over Anchorage.”  This autumn marked the tenth year I have been going up to photograph the moose during the rut as they gather in Chugach State Park near the abundant trail system in the hillside area of Anchorage that spawns from the Glen Alps trailhead.  During those many years, a great several of which I have spent with my good friend Nick Fucci, I have envisioned capturing an image of a large bull moose in the foreground and the downtown skyline of Anchorage in the background.  Not only did I finally find the perfect vantage point this last autumn, but found a cooperating bull moose as well. 

“Fall Colors and Denali, Sunrise.”  I spent Labor Day weekend up at the Denali Backcountry Lodge in Kantishna.  It was my third time there as a presenter, and sixth time to the lodge in a ten-year period.  But it was Michelle’s first time at the lodge.  On our way out of the park, we stopped to watch and capture sunrise on Denali (Mt. McKinley) just past Wonder Lake.  The light was perfect, the fall colors were at peak; it was perhaps the best morning I have ever had for photographing The Mountain at sunrise. 

“Collared Pika Snack.”  While Nick was up visiting for his annual fall moose safaris and Redoubt Mountain Lodge bear workshop, we spent some time up in Hatcher Pass in September climbing amoung the rocks in a boulder field to capture the elusive collard pika.  We had a great day with some bright diffuse light and several active pika, giving Nick and I plenty of opportunities to photograph the enjoyable rodent.  While Nick has countless superb images of pika in his library, this was the best day I had experienced yet in photographing the collared pika.

These images are all available for purchase in the new “Best of 2011” gallery on my website.

In the summer of 2004, Alaska experienced an unusually busy and destructive fire season.  According to the Alaska Division of Air Quality, it was the warmest and third driest summer on record.  By the end of August, nearly 6.6 million acres had burned in a total of 701 fires spread out across the state.  The bulk of those fires, though, occurred in an area known as the Interior, which spans from north of Denali National Park up to the southern foothills of the Brooks Range.  There were so many particulates in the air, recorded levels in Fairbanks were over the EPA Hazardous 24 hour level for 15 days.

At the end of August, I went to Denali National Park & Preserve for a long weekend.  I was going to stay at the Denali Backcountry Lodge in Kantishna and give two evening slide show presentations, and a daytime photo session on macro photography out at Wonder Lake.

But, as a result of the summer’s fires, there were no grand scenic vistas to behold that autumn in Denali National Park.  The grand views from Polychrome Pass were absent; any view of Denali (Mt. McKinley) itself was completely absent.  I had to take a flight seeing tour with Kantishna Air and get above the smoke ceiling of 9,000 feet in order to see The Mountain.

When heading out of the park, a lone willow standing off the side of the road in Thorofare Pass caught my attention.  I hiked a short way off the road to approach the tree, and noticed how the smoke haze was affecting the overlapping mountain ridge lines in the background.  While the smoke may have obscured the normal expansive views, it helped to create delineation between the mountain ridges that would otherwise not be visible.  But the smoke also created a very bright overcast, creating some exposure challenges.

I selected a classic “Rule of Thirds” composition, placing the tree in the lower right part of the composition.  Rules of composition are meant to be guidelines, not necessarily to be followed as law.  This time, however, it worked out well for what the scene had to offer.  To balance out the exposure challenges, I used a three-stop graduated neutral density filer, placing the dark parts of the filter on the flat, smoky sky.  I maximize the depth of field, I selected an aperture of f/22 and let aperture priority set the shutter speed.

This image was selected as the Best in Category for Scenics in the 2005 Alaska magazine photo competition.  You can view and purchase it in my Denali National Park gallery.

In 1943, Sigurd Wien, who went on to become CEO of one of Alaska’s most famous regional air carriers, Wien Air, landed at a frozen Chanlder Lake in the Brooks Range to refuel his plane.  He noticed what he thought was a caribou in the fog on the ice, but later realized it was a person, covered in furs, coming toward him.  That person turned out to be Simon Paneak, one of the Nunamiut people, the last nomadic band of indigenous people in North America.  Inupiat Eskimos, the Nunamiut favored hunting caribou over the preferred diet of whale pursued by their coastal brothers.  The Nunamiut were low on ammunition and supplies and offered to trade Wien some furs to obtain the needed supplies.

Eighteen years later, Simon Paneak’s family would be the last of the Nunamiut to settle in the new established, permanent community of Anaktuvuk Pass, the “place of caribou droppings” in Inupiaq.  In 1980, Anaktuvuk Pass became the first village or community completely enclosed within a national park with the creation of Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).

I first viewed Anaktuvuk Pass exclusively from the air in 2008.  I was on assignment doing some aerial photography for the National Park Service, and my pilot, Peter Christian, decided to head up to Anaktuvuk to check and see if we could land there.  As we approached Anaktuvuk, which lies at the headwaters of the John River, the cloud cover increasingly thickened.  Then, it became apparent that there was a fog bank rolling in from the Arctic Ocean, obscuring our view of the landing strip at Anaktuvuk.  I was able to catch some glimpses of the air strip through the fog, and snapped off some pictures.

Three years later, I visited the village for the first time, spending time with Simon Paneak’s son, Raymond, and his grandson, Mickey.  I was first connected to the Paneak’s through Maggie Ahmaogak, an Inupiat from Barrow who works with my wife.  This led to an encounter with Mickey on Facebook, where we kept in touch for about a year before my first visit.  Little did I know how much Facebook was a part of the daily routine for Anaktuvuk Pass residents.

I have visited very few villages in Alaska: Naknek, Bettles, and Anaktuvuk Pass.  Naknek is likely not a typical village because it has a paved highway and an extensive industrial infrastructure due to the dominance of commercial fishing.  Bettles is more a logistical stop, featuring a sizable airport and float plane base, lodge, National Park Service facilities, as it is a major gateway to Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve.

I get a sense that Anaktuvuk Pass is much more of a traditional Alaska village.  The majority of the residents are Alaska Native, with the few non-Natives in the town living there as a result of some sort of government employment: teachers, administrators, park rangers.  There are no paved roads, even the famous Hickel Highway, which runs along the edge of the airstrip.  Due to the prevalence of permafrost in the area, most structures sit on short stilts rather than directly on the ground.  There are far more ATVs and Argos on the road than there are typical motor vehicles.  And pretty much wherever you go, there is a smiling face and a wave coming from everyone you encounter.  The children were always friendly, outgoing, greeting strangers with “What’s your name?”  When one small girl greeted me with, “Da?”  I responded with, “No,” to which she reacted rather confusedly.  But as I observed over the week, men of my generation were often greeted with “Da” and the next generation older with “Dada,” or grandpa.

Life in “bush” Alaska is expensive.  Gasoline was $9.00 per gallon when I was there, and that was with the 20% seasonal discount offered by the fuel supplier, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, to help during the subsistence hunting season.  A case of soda (which everyone calls “pop”) goes for $34.00.  A look down the aisles at the village corporation grocery store reveals a lot of processed foods and no fresh produce.  Consistent with Alaska values, the supply of Sailor Boy Pilot Bread outnumbered the supply of Nabisco Saltine Crackers by about three-to-one.  When I asked Raymond Paneak about one of the things that concerned him about changes to his community, he expressed dismay over the abundance of junk food and soda with few nutritional alternatives.  Most public health officials and even teachers seem to agree.

During the week I was there, the town was also a buzz with several public and leadership meetings regarding the proposed Road to Umiat, part of Governor Sean Parnell’s “Road to Resources” initiative.  The Road to Resources follows the “Field of Dreams” approach to infrastructure planning: if you build it, they will come.  The hope is that if the State of Alaska spends billions of its own money to build roads out into the Arctic tundra, then resource extraction companies, namely oil & gas and mining, will make the effort to go out, explore, develop and produce.

The residents of Anaktuvuk Pass seem to be overwhelmingly against the road.  I attended a leadership meeting that included leadership from the city, village corporation, and Tribe sitting across the table from State personnel there to discuss the project and hear concerns.  There were two leadership meetings and two public meetings during the week on the issue.  Helicopters coming and going reflected visitors for these meetings and other meetings with development interests.  During the meeting I attended, Mayor Esther Hugo spoke at length about the importance of the caribou and their connection to the land.  A man I spoke to in the entryway to the city offices stressed his concerns, stating that the road was just the first step, that his worry was that the oil companies wanted to take away all of the resources from the Nunamiut and force their ultimate resettlement.  I also heard a local who works as a subsistence advisor to oil and gas companies note that he observed hunting guides taking only the antlers of caribou, leaving behind the entire animal in favor of the trophy; an illegal act in Alaska.

The more I learned about the people and history of Anaktuvuk Pass, the more I came to understand these fears, especially the opposition to the Road to Umiat.  Back in the 1960s, then Governor Wally Hickel had the great idea of building a road to the North Slope of Alaska.  Except, Governor Hickel did not plan or engineer or construct a road; he simply had crews drive a bulldozer up to the Arctic.  This turned out to be a disaster of a road for summer use, as the gouge in the land allowed for thawing of the permafrost beneath it, creating a sucking mud pit that was impassable.  It remained a viable ice road in the winter, and allowed companies to haul large equipment up to the Prudhoe Bay region.  Unfortunately, it also opened up vast tracts of land, including the Anaktuvuk Pass and John River valley regions, to large scale hunting.

It was opposition to this hunting that led the people of Anaktuvuk Pass to file a lawsuit to terminate the road, and ultimately to seek inclusion in the rumored national park that was going to be created in the Brooks Range.  When I asked Raymond Paneak how he felt about the creation of Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, he responded, “It got rid of the trophy hunters.”  It seems to be that this concern over increased trophy hunter access, along with disruption of the caribou migration routes, lies at the heart of the opposition to the Road to Umiat.

But with the creation of the new park and the elimination of the trophy hunter access, a new problem arose: the use of ATVs to engage in traditional caribou hunting activities.  Under ANILCA, according to the National Park Service, modes of transportation can only be used in the park for subsistence activities if they are “customary and traditional.”  The first ATV came to the community of Anaktuvuk Pass in 1971, not long enough for the Park Service to consider “customary and traditional.”  This contradicted the expectations of the Nunamiut that they would be able to use ATVs to hunt caribou in their traditional areas around Anaktuvuk Pass.  The other problem was that, under the Wilderness Act, any motorized vehicle is expressly prohibited in designated wilderness areas.  Eight million acres of the park, including the area immediately to the south of Anaktuvuk Pass, were designated as wilderness when the park was created.  It took sixteen years and two acts of Congress, one to de-designate wilderness in the park (the first time this ever happened in the United States) and another to conduct a land-swap between the federal government and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, in order to establish the system that allows the residents of Anaktuvuk Pass to hunt using ATVs today.

From the Nunamiut people to how Anaktuvuk Pass came to exist, there is an amazing history behind the community.  But as a result of these two things, the community has also been studied ad nauseam by anthropologists.  Add to that the fact that the town also gets daily visits of small tour groups, wandering around town with a guide, taking pictures, and it can get a little challenging to explain what you are up to wandering around town by yourself for a whole week taking pictures.  The primary purpose of my visit was simply to learn and to get to know some people in the community.  And there is so much to learn.

How many times in our nation’s history do we have to have an event so profound that it is burned into our psyche, into our collective memory?  How many times do we have to have events that are recalled by, “Where were you when …?”  Pearl Harbor.  The assassination of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy.  The Challenger Explosion.  And, of course, 9/11.  That’s two just for my generation, well, at least, that I can remember.  King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated while I was alive, but before I could remember.

And while all but one of those events, the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, was a deliberate act committed by men who could not exist within the demands of a civil society, they all stood to give us pause, to wonder amongst ourselves where we were as a people, where we were going.  They all in one way or another changed the shape of how we believed and perceived our way of life, altered the course and tone of our country.  For Pearl Harbor, it was an awakening from economic nightmare and deliverance from an isolationist world view, launching us to ultimate prominence as a world power, not only because of our might but because of our leadership.  With the assassinations of the 1960s, it pierced the growing hope of social change and darkened the hearts of those who had come to believe that a new day was upon us.  With the Challenger explosion, it dampened our spirit of exploration and stalled – eventually killed – the space shuttle program.

And then, there was 9/11.  So many people have used the phrase “post-9/11 world” as if there was something that happened on that day that was so different than any other singular event in our nation’s history.  Had there never been a significant terrorist attack on U.S. soil before?  Of course there was, in 1995 white anti-government Christian extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols detonated an explosive that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.  Well, had U.S. soil never been attacked by foreigners before?  Of course it had.  The British sacked Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812, burning the White House.  The Japanese attacked Hawaii at Pearl Harbor and invaded Alaska at multiple points on the Aleutian Islands during World War II.  Well, how about Islamic terrorists, certainly they had never attacked U.S. interests before, had they?  Of course they had, with the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the small boat attack on the U.S.S. Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa, and on and on.

The point of this blog post is not to explore why this particular attack had the profound impact on U.S. society, U.S. foreign policy, and U.S. domestic law enforcement and intelligence that it has.  My interest is not in exploring how a group of people involved in a project called the Project for the New American Century, a group of people who wielded inordinate influence over foreign policy decisions in the White House, asserted in 1998 that there needed to be a “New Pearl Harbor” in order for them to pursue their agenda, and how ignoring a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001, which specifically warned President George W. Bush that Osama Bin Laden was planning an attack on the U.S. using aircraft as missiles, led to that “New Pearl Harbor” those people so desperately wanted.  So much has happened to this country in the wake of that terrible day, so much unrestrained power and abuse of power, that is seems almost pointless to explore such nuances.  I simply want to leave it all behind, leave the expounding to the pundits and historians, and reflect on what I was doing on that day.

I think I was probably in the best place in the world to be on September 11, 2001.

I had risen early that morning in the cabin where I was staying at the Denali Backcountry Lodge in Kantishna, deep within the heart of Denali National Park & Preserve in Alaska.  I and several other photographers piled into two vans to head to Wonder Lake to capture the sunrise, completely unaware that the attacks had already begun.  The lodge where we were staying at that time did not have Internet, television, or a land line.  It was out of the range of cellular phone towers.  Our only link to the outside world was a fax machine and an intermittently-working satellite phone.

I had been living in Alaska for just over two years, yet this was my first time in Denali.  I was standing on the park road at the northern edge of Wonder Lake, spending my first sunrise in the park waiting to photograph a classic moment in Alaska landscape photography – first light on Denali (Mt. McKinley), the highest peak in North America.

Seeing Denali in the morning at Wonder Lake for the first time is amazing.  Long before the sun even rises, you get to gaze upon the massive north face of the mountain, standing high above the moraine of the Muldrow Glacier, presenting the tallest rise from foothills to summit of any mountain in the world.  The mountain absorbs all the soft pastel colors of pre-sunrise light, reflecting its immense façade on the smooth surface of Wonder Lake.  I had seen Denali at sunrise the morning before as we were heading into the park, but from a position 90 miles farther away, and from a very different vantage point, showing both the south and north summits.

When light finally started to fall on Denali on this particular morning, it was muted by clouds to the east.  The amazing alpenglow light show that I have later come to enjoy for sunrise on Denali never came to fruition that morning.  There was merely a hint of alpenglow on the sides of some adjacent peaks, but never any good light on the mountain itself.  Once it was clear that the light had faded for good, we returned to the lodge for breakfast … and for the news of what had happened.

When we approached the side entrance to the lodge to enter the dining room, we were met by a sign posted on the door with bullet points of information: airplanes crashed into World Trade Center in New York, suspected terrorists were responsible.  We also learned that other planes had gone down, one at the Pentagon and another one that was suspected to be on its way to the White House.  All air travel was suspended.  We spent the rest of the day milling about at the lodge, trying to learn more, talking with each other about what had happened.  In addition to the group of photographers, there were also some VIPs staying at the lodge: Stephen Root and Wayne Knight.  They were stranded because they had planned to fly out of the park via Kantishna Air Service, but would have to wait.  Of all the places to be grounded in Alaska, the Denali Backcountry Lodge was pretty darn good.  It was certainly better than the many moose or caribou hunters who sat waiting for days and days for an air taxi that never showed, wondering why there was no pickup and whether there was enough food left to wait it out.

That evening we returned to Wonder Lake to some incredible evening light, lenticular clouds, wonderful fall colors, and luscious alpenglow.  That night, we had a vibrant swirling display of aurora borealis.

It was only two days later when we drove out of the park that we learned that the World Trade Center towers had completely collapsed.  We learned about the Korean Air Lines scare that forced evacuations of several tall office buildings in downtown Anchorage.  We considered ourselves lucky to be free of the fear and the constant media assault, continually showing the chaos and destruction that fell upon Manhattan, deepening the trauma in our collective experience.

Ten years later, I returned to the Denali Backcountry Lodge, this time as a guest presenter.  It was my fifth visit to the lodge since 9/11, my third as a guest presenter.  I thought about my first time at the lodge and the monumental events that occurred during my first visit to Denali National Park & Preserve.  As I left the lodge and headed back out of the park along the long road, I paused at Wonder Lake to capture the calm, still waters of the lake and the soft pastel blue light bathing Denali.  I pondered how wonderful it was that, despite the turmoil that had embroiled our country since 9/11, our mountains majesty still reigned supreme.

Photographs can capture important events like those surrounding the attacks of 9/11 and remind us of the bad and evil in the world.  But, fortunately, they can also remind us of the beauty and resilience of nature, and how we can always go back to it to feel at peace and secure.