By, Phyllis Mains

This past spring, I fulfilled a lifelong dream to explore some of the most remote areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Amid the balance of career and family, I’ve taken every opportunity to hike in our shared wild places, but this backpacking journey into the Refuge was my first true wilderness experience – and I was profoundly touched. I trekked near polar bear dens and climbed on high ridges to view the remaining sea ice of the Arctic Ocean. There are no roads or human trails in this place. One can wander endlessly without evidence that anyone had been there before.

One leg of my Refuge journey followed the Sagavanirktok River, 30 miles south of the Arctic Ocean, where I watched twelve adult Muskoxen and one calf grazing the river banks. Two Pacific Loons swam on a small lake nearby. And I experienced the thrill of observing a mother grizzly bear as she watched her twin cubs play near the edge of a pond! To call them, the mother grizzly stood on her hind feet and pounded her chest with huge paws and cried over and over – woof, woof, woof – until the cubs ran to her and together, they disappeared from sight.

Backpacking in the Atigun River Gorge, I watched a herd of Dall Sheep high on a mountain of the Brooks Range. They looked like tiny cotton balls, running to and fro but I could see nothing chasing them. Minutes later – poof! – they were over the mountain and out of sight.

While kayaking on a wild lake one day, a bald eagle swooped down in front of me, snagged a fish, and flew to its nest high in a tree. Little ground squirrels entertained me at night. But nothing could prepare me for this ancient, moving ritual: watching the Porcupine Caribou Herd cresting the hills – at first a few, then hundreds and finally thousands – pouring over the passes!

Climate change brought an abundance of heavy thunderstorms and I experienced days of heavy rain, some sleet, and terrible insect infestations. Streams, only knee-high last year, became raging rivers. From my kayak, I observed a two-week-old moose calf struggling to swim across a flooded area, while its mother fretted frantically. Thankfully, the baby made it safely to her side and was rewarded with a warm suckle of milk. Many lakes and rivers reached flood stage, becoming too dangerous for me to cross.

Being a voice for Arctic Wilderness is not my career – I’m a classically trained musician and composer who taught at a school in Indiana – but it is my passion. Over the years, journeys to other areas of Alaska have revealed the dangers of environmental exploitation. During one trip while backpacking to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, I wandered into an abandoned copper mine and discovered warning signs: the water on the ground was poisoned – a danger to me and my dog, whom I had to vigilantly guard against the natural act of drinking water. I’ve been fighting against the injustice and damages of drilling, mining and logging on pristine public lands ever since. For decades I have worked to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, never dreaming I would ever set foot there.

The lust for gas and oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge and other priceless habitats has created a new urgency to protect our last, best places in Alaska. There are no guarantees of success in activism, but we will lose these special places for certain if we don’t do what we can to protect them.