Top: Bulls, cows and calves cross a small river in Alaska during their annual migration. Bottom: Twelve-year-old Maya Cairns-Locke feeling a bit unsettled for her flight back to civilization.
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Once in the air and heading into the abyss of mountains, I realized three things. It was freezing in the plane; I was feeling queasy; and those planes reminded me so much of the Snoopy and Red Baron cartoons, I found myself laughing. The mountains looked like the clay-models of topographical maps that you make in art class. Some of the mountains looked like they were moving because they had so many caribou on them! I tried to take it all in; it was quite the view. I had already seen more caribou in 30 minutes than I had in my entire life and we had barely begun our adventure! After 50 minutes of flying, we were finally set to land. I searched for the landing strip… a safe, flat, paved road that would guide me to the welcoming safety of the ground. There was none to be seen. At about 10 feet above the ground and after some long moments of curiously sticking my head out the window in search of safety, I realized our little plane would be landing on… a boulder-strewn gravel bar? After a bumpy, terrifying landing I met up with Peter, who had arrived just before me. He ran up to me exclaiming, “Dude! We had to fake our landing four times to scare all the caribou off the strip!” I believed this story because while we were mere inches above the ground preparing to land, caribou were still scattering on our so-called “runway.” Peter was obviously as excited as a kid who got a puppy for Christmas. After about an hour of unpacking and setting up the tent, we walked along the riverbank to set up Peter’s camera traps. Our camp site was on an open and welcoming part of the riverbank. There were no bushes or shrubs, and we had set up all our stuff next to a small, fallen tree that we used as a bench. I found a small patch of sand to set the tent up on so I wasn’t sleeping on the hot rocks. A B OV E & B E YO N D — C A N A DA’ S A RC T I C J O U R N A L
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