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“Why does this strange man go into the wet woods and up the mountain on stormy nights? Why does he walk along on barren peaks or on dangerous mountains?” --Toyatte (Chilkat) “It has always seemed to me that while trying to speak to traders and those seeking gold mines that it was like speaking to a person across a broad stream that was running over fast stones and making so loud a noise that scarce a single word could be heard. But now, for the first time, the Indian and the white man are on the same side of the river.” --Chilkat chief Dan-na-wuk
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The State of Alaska is once again pursuing the Susitna Dam mega-project in interior Alaska. If built, this would be one of the largest dams in the U.S., in one of the most remote regions in the U.S..
https://www.alaskajournal.com/…/state-dusts-look-susitna-wa… I floated the Susitna's full length in 2012 and 2013 in order to get a firsthand look at what was at stake in the proposal: http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/…/Glaciers-To-The-Sea-Su… https://chrisdunnonplanetearth.weebly.com/from-glaciers-to-… I've continued to keep up with the issue, even as I've moved on to other things. #susitnadam #alaska It is clear that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain ought to be protected as designated Wilderness. I have done my own journey through the Refuge, including through the contested Coastal Plain. Here is a film worth checking out focused on the importance of the area and here is the website of a fellow adventurer and storyteller.
"At this moment I can picture Ekok, somewhere out in the wilderness of the North...The wind blows fiercely into her face, and sharp pains tingle in her nose as the frost nips it. It is bitter traveling, and maybe as she stops a moment to get her breath she wonders what all her hardships are for, what good comes from all the suffering and futility and misery of life. But if so it can only be for an instant. Reasons are only for children who have time to dodge actuality with philosophical diversion. Here is snow and wind and freezing in the storm-filled sky. Here is life and the Arctic and the great, instinctive surge to live. She bends her head a little lower and pushes forward once more into the blizzard." -Bob Marshall, Arctic Village  |
Chris Dunn, PhD
Researcher, writer, explorer*, photographer, thinker. Wrestling with nature, culture, technology. Archives
October 2024
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*When I use the term "exploration", I mean it in a personal sense (discovery for myself, or at a unique moment in time [everywhere after all--even crowded cities--endlessly await rediscovery--by new eyes and in new moments]), not in an absolute sense. With few exceptions (notably Antarctica), almost everywhere on earth has had other people around for a long time (though to varying degrees - high mountain tops or places like the interior of the Greenland Ice Sheet for instance were far less visited and populated, and undoubtedly at least some pockets of the earth were never visited or populated). It is an enlightening experience though when on an isolated ridge in what feels like the middle of nowhere to wonder if anyone has set foot there but never knowing for sure. What is significant is that the landscape itself is left in such a condition that it isn't evident. Some places ought to be kept that way.
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