I’m lounging—literally lounging—on the tundra, reindeer lichens crunching under my Xtratuffs, and I’m not wearing a bug net. I’m not wearing rain gear either. Or a down puffy jacket, or even a hat. And I’m lying belly down on the cushy tundra staring at the mucronate involucral bracts of a Luzula through my hand lens.

Above me, puffy cumulous clouds float through blue sky. Below, a creek rushes through
alders into a series of beaver ponds and the robotic starship song of a gray-cheeked thrush carries up on the wind. We didn’t even have to thrash through those alders to get here. We flew—at 100 knots per hour—on a Robinson 44 helicopter over rolling lichen-covered hills and frost-wedge polygon patterned tundra and streams choked so full of chum salmon you can’t even see the bottom. We sent a grizzly sow and her two cubs romping over the tundra, watched two moose calves follow their mother into an alder thicket, and, tucked in a steep drainage, caught a glimpse of a big lone muskox bull, his long shaggy coat waving in the breeze. Flying along the beach, we saw a bloated dead walrus, its tusks not yet harvested by the local natives who scan the beaches every day for treasures to collect and sell or turn into artwork.

Mind you—this is NOT normal. This is the kind of day we live for in Alaska, the day we can’t stop thinking about for weeks afterward, the day we earn through hundreds of less ideal days in trade. The day we dream of during weeks of office drudgery in December when it’s 40-below and dark at 10:00am.

This is the day I’ve earned by countless others spent soaked to the bone in cold driving rain that deems my Rite-in-the-Rain datasheets un-writable, which doesn’t really matter anyway because my fingers have lost all motor functionality for writing. The days spent tussock-hopping over ankle-twisting towers of cottongrass wearing a suffocating headnet and rain gear not because it’s raining but to guard against the pursuit of a persistent buzzing cloud of mosquitoes that find their way into my shirt sleeves and munch at the gap between my headnet and the collar of my shirt. The days of stifling heat and wildfire smoke that boil the sweat in my muck boots and give me black crusty nostrils and a splitting headache. The miles spent thrashing through alders, balancing on flexible stems and trying in vain to find the “grain” to travel with, toting a 10-foot soil auger in one hand, wondering if I’m due up yet for a surprise bear encounter after five seasons of luck.

None of this is to say that I don’t thoroughly appreciate a good ass-kicking every once in a while. Deep down, even the most timid Alaskan will admit to feeling a sense of pleasure after a day of humbling defeat in a stand of dog-hair spruce and boot-sucking muck.

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The challenge of getting through this country is one of many reasons I am currently lounging on a hillside overlooking miles of untouched valleys and hills in western Alaska, mapping its soils and vegetation communities for the first time in history, with not a cabin or cut tree or trail in sight. Alaskans are a tough and stubborn breed, and talking to us you may be led to believe that this state is one of majestic wild terrain with megafauna and endless treasures awaiting around every corner. That we eat salmon and moose for every meal and blueberries stain every pocket. Well, it’s true. You just might find our comfort standards to be a bit skewed from the social norm.

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As I wrap up the last touches on this post, I am watching rain sheet off the windows of our bunkhouse and roofing on the shack next door rattles with the wind blowing off the Bering Sea. It is back to the daily grind of waiting out weather and preparing for another week of wet field work. But as a co-worker and I learned in the evening calm last night, the blustery wind provides luxurious relief from the mosquitoes that frequent the tundra outside town, and we profited with two gallons of blueberries picked in the lovely afternoon light of 10:00pm. Up here, you learn to appreciate the little things. And, well, the little things are pretty freaking amazing.