If you are still hoping to explore Alaska’s arctic with us this summer, it’s not too late! We still have a few spaces on trips in both the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Gates of the Arctic National Park. All of these trips combine spectacular landscapes, outstanding guides, and quality gear to give you the…
Packrafting was born in Alaska, and the Brooks Range is the perfect place to hike and paddle your way across the wilderness. These light, nimble and mind-bendingly sturdy little boats have expanded the areas we can explore, opening new watersheds to exploration and enjoyment. We’ve been offering our Gates of the Arctic Packrafting trip on the…
Great herds of caribou are a powerful symbol of the Arctic, and camping amongst them is an experience of a lifetime. But their movements are erratic and notoriously hard to predict making it difficult to encounter this wildlife spectacle. After 20 years of guiding in northern Alaska we have developed several trips to help you…
In any civilized place it would have been time to wind-down the day and head for bed. But being 100 miles above the Arctic Circle on the summer solstice with the sun refusing to set and the tundra shimmering with the fresh greens of spring, we had other ideas. It had already been an adventurous…
I spent the last week, the last week of April, working on the frozen Chukchi Sea, helping train a group of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society who are studying eider ducks. Their goal is to count the hundreds of thousands of King and Common Eiders that migrate past Barrow each spring to update the…
As the late-morning sun shone golden light on the tops of snow-covered spruce trees, the silence of the boreal forest was interrupted by my startled yelp and curse as I “burned” my hand, ungloved for a moment, on the axe head. Skin sizzles audibly on contact with metal at -45 F. Arctic Wild has long…
We have launched a new and improved website and we are very proud of it. The new site shows off beautiful photos taken on our trips and hopefully makes it easier for you to find out about our trips. Like a great trip, a great website requires meticulous attention to detail and many hours of work and preparation….
After all of my years guiding in the most remote, beautiful, wild places, I had still never seen a walrus until last summer. It takes a concerted effort and hours flying to see walrus, but it is absolutely worth it. After searching for the ideal location to observe and photograph Pacific walrus we have found a…
Why do we take people to the Arctic? This summer we guided a group from the Sierra Club including the Sierra Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune on the Aichilik River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This video, made from their trip, perfectly captures why we love sharing the Arctic.
You need not be an Olympian to join and enjoy one of Arctic Wild’s backpacking trips, but you will have lots more fun if you do some training and strengthening before your trip. The thing that sets an Alaska backpacking trip apart is the lack of constructed trails. You will be hiking on river bars…
On the very edge of the earth, where the coastal tundra melts into the Chukchi Sea in a watery tangle of streams, bays, lakes and lagoons is a world of austere beauty, vibrant with life. Kasegaluk Lagoon is rich beyond compare in Arctic Alaska. The long list of descriptors for the area only hints at…
Alaska has over 3,000 rivers, most of which are not accessible from the road. If you want to canoe or raft these rivers, chances are you’re going to need a boat that fits into an airplane. So what is the best boat for an Alaska fly-in river? After decades of running northern Alaska’s rivers here…
Arctic Wild is offering two trips geared specifically for photographers this summer. If you’ve been hankering to take your camera to the arctic, and/or hone your technical skills you have your pick from two trips this summer, one in Gates of the Arctic National Park, and one in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge….
My new favorite book is one I’ve wanted for a long time, the Dictionary of Alaska Place Names. Alaska place names range from practical to whimsical, and almost always tell a story. I’ve learned a little bit about some of the places where we spend time in the arctic… Kasegaluk Lagoon– from Inupiat “Kasegelik” meaning…
This is re-posted from our guide David Shaw’s blog Wild Imagination Journal It was August 30. Though that is still summer in much of the country, in northern Alaska, autumn was in full swing. I was guiding my final trip of the season, a week-long canoe trip down the Kelly River. The Kelly is a…
I really had no intention of walking right into the middle of the herd. There was no stalk, no stealth and I didn’t even have my camera. Then, much to my surprise, and to theirs, we were all standing on top of the ridge together, sunshine glittering off the thin snow and frozen tussocks. I…
What does a river guide do when Arctic Wild’s busiest summer ever comes to an end? Dinner and a movie? No. Luxurious hotel and spa? Nope. He goes rafting with his family of course. Just as soon as Arctic Wild’s last trip of the summer wrapped up in mid-September, We (Michael, Sally and our two…
Most of Alaska is roadless wilderness. We love it that way, but it does make it difficult to get around. Fortunately there are some wonderful pilots with capable aircraft which allow us to travel widely throughout Alaska’s great wilderness. If you are joining one of our guided wilderness trips in Alaska, we will take care…
We spend much of our summer loading and unloading “bush planes” for trips into the most remote portions of Alaska. If you are joining one of our guided wilderness trips in Alaska, we will take care of arranging safe and efficient flights for you. If you choose to do a trip on your own, here…
Ok, so I ripped off the title for this trip report from Seth Kantner’s excellent book of essays about growing up in the “bush” in the Northwest Arctic. But I think he’d be ok with it since we guided this trip together, and we were in fact, shopping for porcupine. Let me explain; German cinematographer…
Spring is late this year across Alaska, and our Gates of the Arctic Base Camp Adventure got to experience full winter conditions in the Arctic. Strong winds and sub-zero temperatures didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our party as we explored the area around Itkillik Lake last week. With woodstove-heated tents, a well provisioned kitchen and…
It has been a couple of years since I last saw a snowy owl and I miss being startled by a distant white object, I’ve taken for a snow patch suddenly taking wing and gliding low over the tundra. Snowy Owls are arcticophiles and I enjoy the years when they seem abundant across northern Alaska….
The north wind is blowing here today. It feels like the last of winter moving out, making room for spring and all of its mossy green moisture and bird chatter. We are heading up to the Brooks Range earlier than usual this year. We are supporting a film project in Cape Krusenstern in mid-April and…
Ron Yarnell started guiding in the Brooks Range before Gates of the Arctic National Park was created, before the Dalton Highway (Haul Road) was built, and long before anyone outside of Alaska’s arctic-slope had even heard of places like the Kongakut. We are privileged to have Ron as one of our lead guides and his…
It seems like more and more often people have been emailing or calling and prefacing their inquiry about a trip with “you know I’m in my late 60s…” or “I’d love to join your trip but I’m 78 years old..” Obviously wilderness travel is not for everyone and I want to be clear with people about…
On my recent trip to the Antarctic Peninsula I was fortunate to see an old friend. It is always a pleasure to see other Alaskans traveling the world, and seeing these Arctic Terns in the southern hemisphere was a highlight of the trip. Like most naturalists in Alaska, I admire Arctic Terns for their tenacious…
Bill and I spent most of January guiding in Antarctica. It is great to be back home but we had a fantastic trip to the Antarctic Peninsula working for Cheeseman Ecology Safari. One of the highlights for me was seeing an Arctic Tern. I’m humbled to think of those little birds flying from Alaska’s tundra…
Michael and Bill, both serving as guides this January on a Cheeseman’s Ecology Safari cruise in Antarctica, have crossed the Drake Passage and arrived on the Antarctic Peninsula. Communication is spotty, so I can only guess that their days are filled with gauging the weather and watching penguins and leopard seals. I am managing the…
There is nothing like a late December cold snap when the thermometer bottoms-out and even the sun is too cold to rise. Today is the solstice, when we turn towards the warming sun, but in places like Fort Yukon where the temperature is currently -53 F, the longer days won’t bring respite for…
Alaskans are a devious bunch. We do everything we can to tell the world about how terribly cold and miserable winter in Alaska is. We brag about the -50 temperatures in the Interior, the howling winds on the North Slope and the 30+ feet of snow that fell last winter on the coast. But what…
Preparing for a trip to Alaska can be a very enjoyable part of the journey. I especially like reading about the natural and human history of the area before I go. Your guide is sure to be a wealth of information, but try as we may, we don’t know all there is to know about…
I was recently asked where I would suggest donating money to further conservation in Alaska. I had some ideas, but I decided to ask several professional conservationist about where they thought conservation dollars might be best spent. Acknowledging that conservation is a multi-faceted issue, there was agreement that funding a variety of approaches was important. There was…
We are very excited by our newest wildlife focused trip. Next July we plan on visiting the Alaska Peninsula to view and photograph Pacific Walrus in one of the most reliable haul-outs in Alaska. Just getting to this far flung beach on the Bering Sea coast will be an adventure, and once we set-up our…
People in Alaska talk about mosquitoes the way they talk about the weather. They ask, “how were the bugs?” when you get back from a camping trip, because the truth is, whether or not they were present, and at what level can really make or break a trip. I’ve been in some bad bugs. The…
Northern Alaska is one of the few places where the term “Summer Parka” is not an oxymoron. Both Inupiaq and Yupik Eskimo languages have a word for Summer Parka. While most of our nation swelters in July and August, we on the arctic coast sit snug in our puffy jackets. But which puffy parka is best…
It wasn’t long ago that I had 3 milk crates under my desk and every time I wanted to research a new route or look up the distance of a river trip I would have to dig through the box, then ending up with maps spread all over on the floor. I do love my…
I just purchased 14 books. Not 14 different books but 14 copies of the same book and it wasn’t even a mistake. University of Chicago Press just released “Land of Extremes” by Alex Huryn and John Hobbie, and I wanted copies for all our guides and for our trip libraries too. It won’t be…
The Alaska sun beat down on us as we sat in the waist deep grass watching a 1000 pound coastal brown bear graze in Katmai National Park. Behind this heavily furred bear we could see glacier covered volcanoes stretching to the horizon. Behind us, the usually rough Gulf of Alaska lapped gently on the cobble…
By Dan Ritzman Many years ago I was sitting at Caribou Pass on the Kongukut River, in the Northeast corner of Alaska, hoping that I might see some caribou. I was not alone. along with the guests that I had on my trip there was a professional photographer Gary Braasch, who was also there waiting….
There is a two hundred and twenty mile road proposed to cross the tundra of the western Brooks Range, and it will take a half a billion dollars to build it. The currently roadless Gates of the Arctic National Park will no longer be roadless. One hundred and sixty-one currently free-flowing rivers will be compromised….