LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 26 The town is located at approximately 67 degrees north latitude, an ideal location to view the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights. The aurora appears when streams of electrons emitted from solar flares on the sun impact molecules of gas in the earth's atmosphere, causing them to give off energy in the form of light. The aurora is concentrated in a band roughly between 60 - and 70 -degrees north latitude. Although occurring at any time of year, aurora events peak around the equinoxes. The nights in early Sep- tember begin getting dark enough to allow for visibil- ity of the aurora, and Wiseman provided us with ideal viewing. As we stood on the gravel shores of a small wilderness river after sunset, multiple bands of green flickered and painted the northern sky with curtains of light. We departed Wiseman and the Arctic Getaway B&B for the 250 -mile drive to Prudhoe Bay. The road climbs a 4,800 -foot pass, the highest road pass in Alaska, and descends into a world devoid of trees but abundant with wildlife on the north side of the Brooks Range. The Trans-Alaska pipeline snakes over the tundra par- allel to the road, a reminder of the petroleum reserve that lies ahead on the coast of the Beaufort Sea and the reason for the Dalton Highway. Wildlife abounded in the tundra along the high- way. Arctic ground squirrels stood on their hind legs, watchful for their main predator — the red fox — which we observed hunting rodents among the shrubs on the tundra. We photographed several small groups of caribou, offshoots of the Porcupine Herd of caribou. The largest migratory herd in North America shared between the U.S. and Canada, it ranges along the Arctic coast in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Alaska. Much of this herd's calving and post-calv- ing grounds lies in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which was established in 1960 and expanded in 1980, with eight million acres designated as wilderness. The question of whether to drill for oil in the refuge has loomed as a political controversy for decades. Even more impressive than the caribou, several groups of muskoxen milled about. One group foraged near the road on grasses, willows, and other shrubs on the tundra, and another larger group hung out on a snow-covered slope. One of the calves in this second group frolicked in big loops among the other muskox- en, to be rebuffed when almost running into one of the adults. Living in groups of 1-2 dozen individuals Clockwise from left: A Canada jay along the Dalton highway, Muskox graze the tundra, and a female polar bear and her two cubs are con- fronted by a male. Opposite: The aurora borealis as seen from Wiseman, AK .

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