Country Ecology: Arctic sea ice

Sometimes I think my brief sojourn flying on Alaska’s North Slope was most influential in terms of my ecological education. I was flying in one of the first Bell 206A Jet Rangers, at that time in 1969, and found the brand new small turbine helicopter a joy to master.

I was the farthest west of all aviation working out of Prudhoe Bay, and had that tundra regime of the Colville River Delta all to myself. There was nothing nor anyone to fly into, and that enabled me to fly low-level all the time over this topography others would later describe as the Arctic coastal plain. Only some snowy owls, ptarmigan and caribou to were there to encounter instead.