The Anaktuvuk River Fire

For the past two days my workday consisted of a daily commute by helicopter to the Anaktuvuk river valley where in 2007 a large tundra fire burned from mid July until the end of September. From the ground the burned area spreads in every direction as far as the eye can see, all 250 thousand acres of it.

For two days as we rode to our destination I looked down upon the earth's skin. Every wrinkle and fold, vein and artery, was made visible from that elevation: spines of protruding rock, gushing rivers, lakes and ponds and pools dotting the tundra like a never-ending golf course, ice wedge polygons fracturing the velvety green with thin reddish clay gashes, slopes of wave-like vegetation that from above resemble lumps of melted green wax. Some terrain resembled alligator skin: green, hexagonal, disturbingly alive like the hide of a living being.

The burn site itself is now largely covered in vegetation, but the burned black ground still shows beneath. Walking on burned tundra is even harder than unburned, the tussocks protrude even more to trip you up as you lug your gear and survival bags to your point of origin to being the day of measuring and sampling plot by plot.