Thank you for a successful first season for Adventure Borealis! |
Adventure Borealis extends a huge thank you to everybody who guided with us, who supported our programs through donations and volunteering, and to all those who attended programs that we hosted through our first summer this year. From guiding at a shorebird festival in Utqiagvik, to sharing natural history explorations on multi-day trips in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to local bird, berry and fungus forays right here in our backyard, Adventure Borealis helped connect numerous people more deeply to our public lands and the incredible webs of life that they support. We are so excited to take this momentum into the winter. This season, we plan to continue building partnerships with diverse organizations and developing programming for our community all with the goal of making outdoor exploration more accessible and inclusive. Keep an eye on our website for upcoming snowshoe excursions and skills workshops,
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Adventure Borealis
welcomes winter–
and urges you to do the same |
Photo by Subhankar Banerjee
In March of 2002, photographer, writer, and activist Subhankar Banerjee spent 29 days in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with Robert Thompson of Kaktovik, camping in a blizzard, in order to spend 30 minutes photographing a mother polar bear and her two cubs who had emerged from their birthing den and were still sheltering there during inclement weather. They never saw those bears again during the next month, they left the den one stormy day.
Banerjee says that the greatest surprise he had during that winter trip, though, was seeing a tiny bird, the American Dipper, foraging under open running water on the Hulahula river even at -50F. Deep upwellings of relatively warm (40F) water can keep such fragile beings alive and well even in the harshest of conditions. “Big predator species such as the polar bear and wolf,” Banerjee writes, “signify the biological health of an ecosystem. To me, in such a harsh environment, tiny life such as the dipper signifies a different kind of health of an ecosystem, the ‘spiritual health.’”
Here in Fairbanks, where I am writing this, winter is well on its way. While it is increasingly unlikely that we will experience the -50F temperatures that Banerjee and Thompson endured that winter 21 years ago, many of the same pressures on that ecosystem and its biological and spiritual health remain....
... READ THE FULL ARTICLE in the Winter 2023 issue of The Northern Line. |
Pedro’s Pals is an awesome fund to purchase and redistribute cross-country and skijor gear to Queer Alaskans and provide mentorship and lessons. They are currently fundraising for scholarships to cover gear and race entries, and are accepting gear donations.
All inquiries should be directed to PedrosPalsGearFund@gmail.com and you can find them on Instagram @pedros_pals.
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Advisory Committee Spotlight |
Advisory Committee Member Bird Nelson As part of our efforts to create inclusive and accessible programming, we have enlisted the support of a group of leaders with personal and professional insight into the gaps in typical outdoor spaces. We are spotlighting a different committee member in each of our newsletters.
Adventure Borealis advisory committee member Bird Nelson, owner of Ascension Rock Club in Fairbanks, Alaska, shares what drives him to do the work he does:
I was adopted from Jersey City and raised with access to the outdoors that I never would have had otherwise. The work that I do, both in terms of running a climbing gym and supporting efforts to diversify outdoor spaces, is because I've been fortunate to experience many benefits of outdoor recreation. I don't take that fortune for granted! My interest in the outdoors has provided me with avenues for traveling, building a career, making friends, and so much more. I want to share those avenues with others.
I took over Ascension Rock Club because I wanted to take a more active role in introducing people to rock climbing and was hoping to do it in Alaska, which I'd fallen in love with a few years earlier. Inclusivity in the outdoors means better accessibility and safety for marginalized groups, and it won't happen without intentionally unifying and educating current and potential users of outdoor spaces. Adventure Borealis and its goal of reconnecting people to the natural world via accessible education aligns directly with my own goals.
Please visit our website to read the bios of our incredible advisory committee. Do you identify as part of Alaskan BIPOC and/or Queer communities? Do you love the outdoors? Are you new to adventuring outside or want to share your experience with others? Please reach out. We want you to be part of our growing community making the outdoors more accessible to all.
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This is a corner for cool and relevant news pieces and events about natural history and inclusivity in the outdoors. If you have an event or announcement you would like us to share, contact info@adventureborealis.org.
Fairbanks area Christmas Bird Count is coming up this year on December 16th. Anyone, regardless of where they live, can join a field team to count an area anywhere within the Fairbanks circle. If you’re new to bird watching, you can still participate in the CBC by being paired with a more experienced bird watcher. If you live inside the count circle, you can also count birds coming to your feeders. More information can be found at Arctic Audubon’s website. Join the world’s longest running citizen science project, and provide important data for tracking population trends
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Bird names are changing. The American Ornithological Society (AOS) has released its latest checklist supplement, and a big change for us up north, is that the Northern Goshawk is now called the American Goshawk, as it has been split from its Eurasian sister species, now called…you guessed it, the Eurasian Goshawk. You can find more about the other changes to the list here. But thats not all when it comes to bird names. NPR and others have picked up the story that AOS will be changing dozens of names of birds that are named after people or are deemed offensive. We applaud this move toward inclusivity and support a more diverse birding community. Colleen Handel, AOS President, said, “We've come to understand that there are certain names that have offensive or derogatory connotations that cause pain to people, and that it is important to change those, to remove those as barriers to their participation in the world of birds." You can read more about the campaign that has led to this decision at Bird names for birds.
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Salmon numbers have remained abysmal this year in the Yukon river and its tributaries, where many communities rely on salmon returns. While the exact causes are still being unraveled, climate change is certainly a huge factor as both their freshwater and their saltwater habitats have been subject to rapid warming in recent years. Grist recently published an in-depth write-up of the effects of deteriorating salmon populations on Yupik and Athabaskan communities along the river. And while salmon numbers are faltering in Interior Alaska, chum salmon are being found in increasing numbers in Arctic rivers north of the Brooks Range. Scientists recently found over 100 chum in tributaries to the Kuukpik (or Colville) River, demonstrating that they are shifting their range north, which is a sign of arctic ecological communities undergoing rapid change as a result of warming.
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The Western Arctic Caribou Herd has fallen to its lowest population since the 1980’s, according to the most recent census. “It just represents a continued decline for the last 20 years since 2003,” said Alex Hansen, wildlife biologist with Fish and Game. “That’s a concern.” Unfortunately behind a paywall, National Geographic published a story about the herd and it’s importance to Alaska Native peoples and the threats the herd faces, entitled, “Where are all the Caribou?”. Photographer Kate Orlinsky shares, “ Caribou are the lifeblood of the Arctic, traveling up to 800 miles a year as part of the longest terrestrial migration on the planet. Along the way they feed everything from wolves and bears to foxes, hawks and tundra mice. Their grazing prunes trees, and their hooves till soil. But over the last twenty years, Arctic caribou populations have dropped from 5 million animals to roughly 2 million and falling. It’s a devastating loss that threatens to not only unravel the fragile, interconnected ecosystem of the Arctic, but to undermine the food security and cultural practices of indigenous communities that have depended on caribou for thousands of years. Meanwhile, the extensive experience and knowledge held by community members could be the key to saving these animals.” The piece is well worth a read.
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Adventure Borealis is a program of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center. The Northern Center is a nonprofit and depends on the contributions of its members and supporters. Thank you for continuing to make our work possible! |
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MISSION
Adventure Borealis is a program of the Northern Center. The Northern Alaska Environmental Center promotes conservation of the environment and sustainable resource stewardship in Interior and Arctic Alaska through education and advocacy. |
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