Among the spruce in the Caribou-Poker Creek watershed, the first thing that’s pointed out to me in the watershed is the pattern of trees on an adjacent hillside, with a few pockets of tall, old spruce sticking high above shorter, younger vegetation. “You can see how inconsistent that fire was,” Jason Downing tells me, pointing out that the landscape only looks the way that it does because it burned a decade ago.
A fuel break doing as intended—stopping fire. This fire burned through flammable black spruce forest, but once it hit the fire resistant deciduous trees in the photo, it stopped.
BNZ graduate student Nick Link walks through burned spruce forest in the aftermath of the McDonald Fire.
Students gather with BLE researchers on the shores of Kaktovik to sort the invertebrates, fish, and macroalgae they collected via trawl aboard the Research Vessel Proteus during the Kaktovik Oceanography Program.
The three nodes of BLE on the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska.
The Research Vessel Aliuq, one of the boat platforms that facilitates lagoon sampling at BLE and is owned and operated by the University of Texas El Paso. The name is Iñupiaq, loosely translating to “to be inspired” or “to wonder”, and was chosen after discussion with Elders, whaling captains, respected researchers, and through outreach activities with kids in Utqiaġvik.
Polar bear family we saw at the northernmost point in the US
Water collection and monitoring device in the Arctic tundra north of Utqiaġvik. (Left to Right) Roxy Pikok, Nathan McTigue, and Krysta Lehman.
Arctic Ocean north of Utqiaġvik, Alaska
