Tom in Victoria
New member
The link given is of the Canadian National Park butting onto the ANWR. Describes the area, history, wildlife and climate. The whole North Slope is an incredible area, hard to appreciate the immensity and utter sense of isolation. I spent 2 weeks up on the Firth River gold panning and exploring at Sheep Creek, only a couple of miles at times from the Alaska border.
American whalers, up until about 1906, came into the Beaufort Sea for Gray and Bowhead whales and would over winter on Herschel Island just off the Yukon coast. Sailors would travel up the Firth overland while the ships were frozen in, pan gold at breakup and would then raft back down river to regain their ships before they could resume whaling in July.
I have flown over the Porcupine caribou calving grounds by light helicopter and in my own plane and these animals are so used to aircraft, that at as low as 300 to 400 feet, they won't get up or even raise their heads if drinking. The eco-types in the South can't believe that !They are a herd but not a herd as one might imagine; rather thousands of them over many, many miles in little groups, 3 here, a dozen there. The only equivalent mass of animals might be the African Serengeti plains. This herd swings down into Alaska and then back up into the Yukon through the Old Crow area.
http://www2.parkscanada.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/natcul/natcul1_e.asp
American whalers, up until about 1906, came into the Beaufort Sea for Gray and Bowhead whales and would over winter on Herschel Island just off the Yukon coast. Sailors would travel up the Firth overland while the ships were frozen in, pan gold at breakup and would then raft back down river to regain their ships before they could resume whaling in July.
I have flown over the Porcupine caribou calving grounds by light helicopter and in my own plane and these animals are so used to aircraft, that at as low as 300 to 400 feet, they won't get up or even raise their heads if drinking. The eco-types in the South can't believe that !They are a herd but not a herd as one might imagine; rather thousands of them over many, many miles in little groups, 3 here, a dozen there. The only equivalent mass of animals might be the African Serengeti plains. This herd swings down into Alaska and then back up into the Yukon through the Old Crow area.
http://www2.parkscanada.gc.ca/pn-np/yt/ivvavik/natcul/natcul1_e.asp