The polar bears are abundant along Alaska’s arctic coast as they wait for the ice to form on the Beaufort Sea. Warm weather has kept the snow at bay, at least at this point. This curious polar bear stood up for a better view and I’ve learned by their posture when this is about to…
Whenever I pass Kluane Lake in Kluane National Park, Yukon Territory (just 100 mile or so from the Alaska border) I can’t resist a crack at photography. It is a beautiful location. On this evening, the first snow of the year had just decorated the surrounding hillsides but the lake water had yet to freeze.…
The layered and forested hills, accentuated by the misty and foggy weather of southeast Alaska truly define the Tongass National Forest. This was taken near Hyder, Alaska, a tiny town on the Alaska panhandle. Believe it or not, there was a slight splash of blue sky above these clouds but I purposefully cropped it out both to…
This classic view of the AlCan Highway weaves its way through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory about 400 hundred miles from the Alaska border. I’ve traveled the highway many times over the past three decades, and while it has changed significantly, it still holds that charm of remote and unpopulated feel. Early to mid…
Fish creek is located in near Hyder, Alaska, the only mainland accessible town along Alaska’s southern portion of the panhandle. It is a tiny place and accessed from the Cassiar Highway in British Columbia, Canada. Fish creek is a popular destination for bears who come in search of the salmon that lay in its clear…
Within 24 hours this weekend, 80% of the leaves were stripped from the trees in the vicinity of my house in Fairbanks. Powerful winds swept across Alaska’s interior advancing the look of winter on the landscape considerably. These winds also offered oxygen to a wildfire burning south of Fairbanks in the Tanana Valley. It was…
It is upon us. The edge of winter that is. It’s a beautiful time of year with autumn colors broacasted across the hillsides and mountain slopes. It is especially beautiful when a snowfall comes a little early, before the leaves have fallen, and the white decorates the leafed out trees. This happened when I was…
The crimson red color that inflames the Alaska alpine tundra in autumn is so intense it sometimes hurts to look at it. I grabbed this photo while out on a day hike with some friends in the Alaska range. Labor day weekend is a pretty good target date to capture autumn color in its splendor in the…
McCarthy is a very small town located in the bowels of the Wrangell St. Elias National Park, near the old historic Kennicott copper mine. It’s a quirky town and it has the license to be so due to its remoteness and the handful of folks that chose to reside there. There is a foot bridge…
While driving from Fairbanks to McCarthy, Alaska with friends, for a combined 1/2 marathon race and music festival, we happened upon two bull caribou foraging along the autumn covered tundra just north of the Alaska Range mountains. The colors of the tundra were nearly peaked, in that they included all phases of the green, yellows…