Sunset falls over the Kobuk River at Onion Portage, where caribou migrate through in vast herds every spring and fall, key subsistence hunting grounds for more than 10,000 years.
Paving Tundra
In the face of a controversial road proposal, a documentary expedition attempts to redefine progress in Alaska's Brooks Range
I was looking at the tundra when Kristin came out of the emergency cabin and told me Q needed stitches. Sitting on a spongy patch of ground cover, I’d been examining the intricacies of it: the mosses dotted with tiny mushrooms, the purple anemones, the lichens in oranges, reds, and greens. Each piece was minuscule but combined and seen from afar they painted a mosaic of unrivaled color and complexity.
“It runs deep,” Kristin said. “We’ll give him some painkillers, but it’s going to take a minute before you can start.”
People die in the Brooks Range the same way people usually fall in love with it: slowly. Often it’s the tundra that makes us slow. During the summer in the subarctic, you sink into your steps, and it takes every muscle in your leg to extract your foot from the moss and move forward. Wandering around whimsically out here, oblivious to what’s happening around you, is not an option. Every mile
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