Wilderness Refuge

The Wilderness Refuge, Wellston, OK. likes. CURRENTLY BOOKING WHITETAIL DEER HUNTS FOR THE SEASON. Also, reservations for events.
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• Wilderness Refuge | Buy Online in South Africa | leondumoulin.nl
• Western North Carolina's Free Spirit Of Enterprise
• The Wilderness: A Refuge for the Mind
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• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Giant trees saddled up to the Pacific Ocean, which I had yet to see, and I needed to see.

It was a place to go to find yourself or lose yourself. As a nineteen year old I found a job working trail crews with the California Conservation Corps doing trail maintenance and construction. We cut trails and cleared rockslides. Hauling into remote areas and doing whatever labor needed to be done for the State Parks and National Forestry service. It was hard labor. At the end of the day, body beaten and battered, I would imagine those clear blue Carolina pools, and it would soothe me. I hopped around the northern part of the state, driving up the curves of Highway 1 through the redwoods and along the perilous cliffs of the California Coast.

These excursions were even more perilous in the mechanically questionable VW squareback for which I had paid three hundred bucks. My first interaction with the Pacific precipitated at Shell beach at the far North Coast of California. I saw it, stripped down naked, and ran towards the water. I did not realize that the water was quite as far as it was, and by the time I raced into it I was fairly winded.

I hit the water running and came back out running. It was really damn cold and smelled different than the Atlantic. A group of campers previously well concealed by a dune laughed hysterically as I happily shivered and limped by them to my clothes and friends. Had I been in North Carolina they would have laughed even harder but handed me a towel, a beer, and a seat by their fire. Like many young folks before, the West had called me. It seemed like the right place to go, and it certainly was for a time.

I left North Carolina unsure if I would ever return for more than a visit, but as the journey progressed I knew it was just that, a journey. I would return to the East in my own time, but I would definitely return. I felt a longing. That and nothing makes you want to go to college like clearing rockslides. I had been back in North Carolina for several years and making good progress in my undergrad degree. A yearning for escape found me once again. This was no surprise. It is a tendency that, for better or worse, never left me. A craving that would call me to step into the unknown. In passing, a friend Brad in one of my classes had expressed an interest in hiking the Appalachian Trail.

That was his own damn fault. With a little debate, we decided on starting at Mount Katahdin in Maine and southbounding our way back. It would eliminate any safety net and appealed to my romantic inclination for ill advised journeys. It would be a pilgrimage home. As we sat trapped between a washed out river and a snow covered ridgeline in the midst of a Nor Eastern squall, it was apparent that our reach had exceeded our grasp.

We had run out of food coming through the Hundred Mile Wilderness due to some ambitious unreasonable expectations of progress.

Having nearly been torn off the stony shoulder of the mountain while trying to reach a safer location in the midst of the storm, Brad and I descended to a rough outcropping that would block some of the wind shear. We pulled out our bivy sacks and hunkered down for what would be a very long and most likely unpleasant night. I passed him my flask and closed my eyes, listening to the howl of the wind as I harkened back to the thunder and tumult of the storms I had experienced with my father out on Lake James.

I saw his face smiling and smelled the onion rings he had fried in the duck blind. I heard the thunder and lightening but saw the familiar ranges I grew up with in Western North Carolina. As it turned out, I was smelling the hole I was burning in my bivy with the cigar I was attempting to smoke, as well as possibly hallucinating from hunger. But, in all sincerity, it was those early memories that soothed, warmed, and gave me the comfort I needed to weather one of the worst storms of my life. I owe a great deal to the experiences that blessed my youth and the people who exposed me to them.

My grandmother, who would take me for hikes and teach me to recognize flowers, had taught me to pay attention to the smaller things. The smells, textures, and sounds which will always transport you home. Back by the fire Oby and I sip a little nightcap sitting in hammocks by the fire. My pup is snoring behind a tree, having managed to wear himself out for once. This trip will be a quick one, but we managed to pull away and get a little hiking and fishing in, and that I think, is something to be proud of.

For Those with Ideas: No Disbursements for a Couple Years: Rainy-Day Fund Softens Trauma: Transylvania County Board of Mike Schatzberg of Cherokee Hill Farm. Two Among the Few: What about… Pegasus Saddles: Air Traffic Controllers on Autopilot. On the northern edge of the refuge is the Inupiat village of Kaktovik population [9] and on the southern boundary the Gwich'in settlement of Arctic Village population Generally, visitors gain access to the land by aircraft , but it is also possible to reach the refuge by boat or by walking the Dalton Highway passes near the western edge of the refuge.

In the United States , the geographic location most remote from human trails, roads, or settlements is found here, at the headwaters of the Sheenjek River. The Arctic is mostly an ocean surrounded by land. The Arctic is relatively covered by water, much of it is frozen.

The Arctic area is mainly known for sea ice surrounding the region. The Arctic experiences extreme solar radiation. North America's two largest alpine lakes Peters and Schrader are located inside the refuge. The refuge supports a greater variety of plant and animal life than any other protected area in the Arctic Circle. Along the northern coast of the refuge, the barrier islands , coastal lagoons , salt marshes , and river deltas of the Arctic coastal tundra provide habitat for migratory waterbirds including sea ducks , geese , swans , and shorebirds.

Fish such as dolly varden and Arctic cisco are found in nearshore waters. Coastal lands and sea ice are used by caribou seeking relief from biting insects during summer, and by polar bears hunting seals and giving birth in snow dens during winter. The Arctic coastal plain stretches southward from the coast to the foothills of the Brooks Range. This area of rolling hills, small lakes, and north-flowing, braided rivers is dominated by tundra vegetation consisting of low shrubs , sedges , and mosses.

Western North Carolina's Free Spirit Of Enterprise

Caribou travel to the coastal plain during June and July to give birth and raise their young. Migratory birds and insects flourish here during the brief Arctic summer. Tens of thousands of snow geese stop here during September to feed before migrating south, and muskoxen live here year-round. South of the coastal plain, the mountains of the eastern Brooks Range rise to over feet 3, m.

This northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains marks the continental divide, with north-flowing rivers emptying into the Arctic Ocean and south-flowing rivers joining the great Yukon River. The rugged mountains of the Brooks Range are incised by deep river valleys creating a range of elevations and aspects that support a variety of low tundra vegetation, dense shrubs, rare groves of poplar trees on the north side and spruce on the south.

During summer, peregrine falcons , gyrfalcons , and golden eagles build nests on cliffs. Harlequin ducks and red-breasted mergansers are seen on swift-flowing rivers. Dall sheep , muskoxen, and wolf packs are active all year, while grizzly bears and Arctic ground squirrels are frequently seen during summer but hibernate in winter.

The southern portion of the Arctic Refuge is within the Interior Alaska-Yukon lowland taiga boreal forest ecoregion. Beginning as predominantly treeless tundra with scattered islands of black and white spruce trees , the forest becomes progressively denser as the foothills yield to the expansive flats north of the Yukon River. Frequent forest fires ignited by lightning result in a complex mosaic of birch, aspen, and spruce forests of various ages.

Wetlands and south-flowing rivers create openings in the forest canopy. Neotropical migratory birds breed here in spring and summer, attracted by plentiful food and the variety of habitats. Caribou travel here from farther north to spend the winter. Other year-round residents of the boreal forest include moose , polar foxes , beavers , Canadian lynxes , martens , red foxes , river otters , porcupines , muskrats , black bears , wolverines , and minks.

Each year, thousands of waterfowl and other birds nest and reproduce in areas surrounding Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk fields and a healthy and increasing caribou herd migrates through these areas to calve and seek respite from annoying pests. The question of whether to drill for oil in the ANWR has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since The controversy surrounds drilling for oil in a subsection of the coastal plain, known as the " area".

The current proposal would limit development to 2, acres 8. Much of the debate over whether to drill in the area of ANWR rests on the amount of economically recoverable oil, as it relates to world oil markets, weighed against the potential harm oil exploration might have upon the natural wildlife , in particular the calving ground of the Porcupine caribou.

Specifically, ANWR inhabits the land which sits on 7. In Alaska, it is known for major oil companies to work with the indigenous groups, "native corporations" to drill and export millions of oil barrels every year. It is estimated 5 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil and natural gas within the coastal plain of the refuge. This has contributed to the huge political controversy of whether or not of drilling in this area.

The opposed side of the controversy stresses the potential harm that oil exploration and drilling might have on the natural wildlife. Nearly all countries in the Arctic are rushing to claim the refuge to have the resources and minerals found in the Arctic. Furthermore, Republicans claim that drilling will make the United States more independent from other countries because the practice of drilling will increase the oil reserves of the country. For Republicans to grant this theory, they would need 51 votes to pass the House bill that cannot include the ANWR drilling language.

People who oppose the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge believe that it would be a threat to the lives of indigenous tribes. Moreover, the practice of drilling could present a potential threat to the region as a whole.

When companies are exploring to drill they are extracting the vegetation and destroying permafrost which causes harm to the land. Scientists are noticing that sea levels are rising at increasing rates. Sea levels are rising because polar ice caps are melting at a rapid pace. This process starts in the Arctic region, specifically in Alaska. Researchers at Oxford University explained that increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rising sea levels are all indications of warming throughout the Arctic.

Thinning has occurred due to the sun melting the ice at a higher pace. This backs up the concept of how the Arctic region is the first to be affected by climate change. Shorefast ice tends to form later in fall. In September , the concentration of sea ice in the [ Arctic Ocean ] was significantly less than ever previously recorded. Although the total area of ice built up in recent years, the amount of ice continued to decline because of this thinning.

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This phenomenon is called the albedo effect. This area for possible future oil drilling on the coastal plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, encompasses much of the Porcupine caribou calving grounds. Migratory caribou herds are named after their birthing grounds, in this case the Porcupine River , which runs through a large part of the range of the Porcupine herd.

These bears are known for traveling in the region to den and give birth. Nearly 50 of these species migrate along the coast to the refuge in September. These bears extend more than miles along the coast of Northern Alaska and Canada. Due to changes in climate, Polar bears are recorded to now spend more time on land waiting on new sea ice to form, as they depend on sea ice for much of their hunting.

This limits their ability to hunt seals to build up fat for hibernation. Much controversial, the polar bears are widely affected by the climate change happening in this region.

Pregnant females are forced to move onshore at unusual times to dig their dens. Usually, the bears are known to dig their dens in November, then give birth to one to two tiny cubs in December or January. The mothers then nurse and care for the young until March or early April, when they loom from the dens.