Welcome to the Summer 2018 Newsletter from me, David W. Shaw! Here you’ll find updates about the trips and tours I’ll be offering, recent publications, trip reports, and other news. I’ll trouble you with these no more than four times a year, I promise. However, I get that we all receive too many emails, so if you decide to unsubscribe (see link at the bottom) you won’t hurt my feelings. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and please respond to this email if you have any questions or comments!
Summer News
Summers are short here in the sub-arctic, and those of us that live here try to make the most of them. It’s late-July as I write this, and it’s hard to believe (and maybe a little painful) to think that summer only has a few weeks to go. Still, it’s been good so far. In June I led a 12-day canoe trip down the incredible Kokolik River in Alaska’s NW Arctic which was followed up quickly by a 10-day trip to Umnak Island in the Aleutians (see below for some reports on those journeys). Coming up in a few weeks, I’ll be taking a group down one of my favorite rivers, the Noatak, and wrapping the summer season up with a custom photo workshop to the Brooks Range.
In the mean time, I’ve been planning for the future, and that is the big news. I’ve just rebuilt my travel and tours website and have put a bunch of new trips on the schedule including photo expeditions to northern Argentina, Botswana, and here in Alaska in 2020, and added a bunch of idea-generating itineraries for custom birding and photo workshops. That’s in addition to my regularly scheduled Arctic Aurora Workshops (only 2 spots left for next year!). Take a look and keep your eyes open for even more tours appearing in the next few weeks including at least one compelling new summer photo itinerary here in Alaska. Here is the link: www.explore.david-w-shaw.com
Now on the schedule for late November-early December 2020, is this knockout African photo safari. Twelve days, all-inclusive from Johannesburg, South Africa. An incomparable opportunity to see and photograph African wildlife.
Off the beaten path tropical wildlife and one of the most dramatic (dare I say jaw-dropping?) natural features in the world, all in one trip. Eleven days of wildlife and waterfalls.
12 Million shorebirds visit Alaska’s Copper River Delta each spring. TWELVE MILLION. Come photograph them with me. It’s going to be great. Here are the details.
Trip Reports
Kokolik River
In mid-June, I guided a 12-day canoe trip down the Kokolik River in Alaska’s northwest Arctic for Arctic Wild. As I was reminded, there is a good reason that this is a trip that the Arctic Wild guides fight for.Like so many trips in the Arctic, we encountered about every kind of weather. It started off cold, with blowing snow squalls mixed with patches of sunshine. Beautiful to look at, but chilly to paddle through. Really though, we could have put up with about any weather because for almost the whole trip, we were surrounded by herds of migrating caribou. Tens of thousands were seen over the course of the trip, as bands, and big groups crossed the landscape of the Utukok Uplands. At times, during hikes, we were entirely surrounded by caribou.And that nasty weather eventually burned off as well, leaving behind days of sunshine and blue skies. If it weren’t for a relentless upstream wind, it would have been perfect.
Many of the trips I lead for Arctic Wild carry us to the mountains of the Brooks Range, but the Kokolik is a bit different. The entire trip happens north of the mountains, and instead passes through the Utukok Uplands. The uplands are a series of long ridges that stretch across the region from east to west. Gentle ramps of low tundra lead up from the river from virtually every camp, resulting in some of Alaska’s best day-hikes (as far as I’m concerned anyway). When hiking high above the river, with the crisp wind in your ears, there is no question that you are in the arctic. And when a big musk-ox brushes by, you may as well be in the Pleistocene.
Umnak Island
I’ve lived in Alaska nearly 20 years (in fact, July 15 of this year was the 20th anniversary of my first arrival in the state) but somehow, I’d never managed a trip to the Aleutian Islands. Thankfully that unfortunate streak was broken a few weeks ago when I lead a basecamp trip on Umnak Island for Arctic Wild.This trip is not on the regular Arctic Wild schedule. Rather it is the kind of trip, for which you need to have the right clients, with the right amount of patience. The Aleutians are the kind of place that don’t adhere to a perfectly formatted schedule. No, this is the kind of place where wind and weather can pin you down for the count, and then hold you there just because it can.And maybe that’s part of the reason I liked it.
Actually, my clients and I lucked out. I arrived in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor on the evening of July 3rd to patchy sun and nearly calm. By some miracle, it stayed that way through the 4th of July where I enjoyed the local festivities (if you’ve ever watched the show Northern Exposure, it was like that. Just. Like. That.) And on the 5th, our departure day for Umnak, it was dead calm. Not a puff of wind rippled the water of the bay as we motored out of town.
We were aboard the Miss Alyssa, a renovated fishing boat captained by the one and only Jimmer MacDonald, a local Unalaska resident, who knows the waters of the Aleutians better than anyone. It was a 13 hour run to Umnak, the island west of Unalaska, but with calm seas and abundant wildlife, I wish it could have been longer.
Humpback whales fed and blew as we left Dutch Harbor, and we must have observed 40 flukes in a half hour as the whales dove again and again as we motored slowly passed. Out of the harbor, Jimmer swung the Alyssa west as we rounded the cape on the NE corner of Unalaska Island. We cruised along a little more than a stone’s throw from the north shore of the island.
It was dead calm. Not a ripple on the Bering Sea. We paused for waterfalls, and vistas, and haul outs of Steller’s Sea Lions. We followed a pod of Orcas for a half hour as they slid around in a tight group, moving fast beneath the glassy water. Black-footed and Laysan Albatross sat looking forlorn on the wave-less sea, hoping for a breeze that we were grateful to avoid.
And we ate fresh salmon grilled on the back deck of the boat for dinner with fresh local herbs, and rolls from the oven.
We pulled into Hot Springs Cove on Umnak Island around 9pm. By 905pm, I’d caught a 30lb halibut, from which we pulled a filet for the next night’s dinner in camp. The zodiac unloaded, Jimmer ran my clients and me to the beach where we set up camp just behind the first row of dunes.
Yeah, it was a good day.
We spent a week on Umnak. And I found it a place of surprises. Fields of lupines and orchids, waterfalls fell from every mountainside, hot springs boiled from the rocks in the upper valley, and hot water percolated through the sand of the beach at low tide, where we could dig tubs to bathe our feet (or our whole selves).
And it got windy. Very, very windy. I’d heard nightmare stories of the Aleutian winds tearing poorly secured tents from the ground and hurling them into the sea. So, I spent hours securing our big dome basecamp tent agains the wind. I sunk anchors deep into the earth, and staked out every possible place on the tent. Even going so far as to scavenge discarded net line from the beach to add additional anchor points.
I’m glad I did. Our second day on the island the winds roared out of the south, and pounded on the in the fabric of our sturdy mountaineering tents. But thanks to my precautions, despite the gale, they all were held solidly to the earth. From inside the tents, we raised our voices to be heard over the wind and wondered aloud just how hard it was blowing.
We hiked each day, along the beaches, up the valleys, and onto nearby ridges. We identified wildflowers and birds, and watched foxes scavenge the intertidal for morsels of shellfish. It rained, and it didn’t. And we had sun, and clouds, and a steady wind which sent waves shattering against the rocks. And then on the afternoon of July 11th, the Miss Alyssa pulled into the cove, and within an hour we were motoring away, back toward Dutch Harbor.
But it wasn’t so calm on the way home. Suffice to say, I’m grateful I don’t get too seasick.
I’ve never been anywhere quite like Umnak. It wasn’t easy, but for those willing to have a bit of an adventure, it could be just the place.
Two spots still remain on my 1-5 April 2019 Arctic Aurora Workshop! There is no better trip to see and photograph the northern lights. 5 days in beautiful Wiseman, Alaska in the southern Brooks Range. Sign up soon, I don’t think these spots will last long!
Recent Publications
It’s been a slow few months on the publication front. I’ve been writing regularly for Expert Photography, and the Digital Photography School, and have a couple of forthcoming articles elsewhere, (but you’ll have to wait for the autumn newsletter for those details, once they’ve found their way into print, or follow me on Facebook for the latest news.)
Conservation Notes
Look everyone, I’m not going to beat around the bush. It’s a scary time for the environment, and the last wild places in the United States. This administration seems hell-bent on drilling everywhere, mining everything, and to hell with the consequences or economic realities.I’ve begun to refer to my social media feeds as my “Daily List of Atrocities”, a dark-humor method of coping, I suppose. It can seem hopeless, as though it doesn’t matter what we do, they will shove their absurd, environment and climate-wrecking agenda down our throats no matter what.
And maybe they will. But one thing is for certain, they DEFINITELY will if we let them, and don’t speak up.
But most important, this fall you need to vote. YOU need to vote. You NEED to vote. You need to VOTE. The best way to put the brakes on this mis-guided anti-environment administration is to change it.
Just to drive the point home, I’m going to say it one more time:
VOTE!
Thanks everyone for reading. Please feel free to reach out to me with your questions or comments, to share some of your recent images, or just to say hello.
Until next time, make good images, get outside, have an adventure, and be active for conservation!
Like so many trips in the Arctic, we encountered about every kind of weather. It started off cold, with blowing snow squalls mixed with patches of sunshine. Beautiful to look at, but chilly to paddle through. Really though, we could have put up with about any weather because for almost the whole trip, we were surrounded by herds of migrating caribou. Tens of thousands were seen over the course of the trip, as bands, and big groups crossed the landscape of the Utukok Uplands. At times, during hikes, we were entirely surrounded by caribou.And that nasty weather eventually burned off as well, leaving behind days of sunshine and blue skies. If it weren’t for a relentless upstream wind, it would have been perfect.
Humpback whales fed and blew as we left Dutch Harbor, and we must have observed 40 flukes in a half hour as the whales dove again and again as we motored slowly passed. Out of the harbor, Jimmer swung the Alyssa west as we rounded the cape on the NE corner of Unalaska Island. We cruised along a little more than a stone’s throw from the north shore of the island.
We pulled into Hot Springs Cove on Umnak Island around 9pm. By 905pm, I’d caught a 30lb halibut, from which we pulled a filet for the next night’s dinner in camp. The zodiac unloaded, Jimmer ran my clients and me to the beach where we set up camp just behind the first row of dunes.
And it got windy. Very, very windy. I’d heard nightmare stories of the Aleutian winds tearing poorly secured tents from the ground and hurling them into the sea. So, I spent hours securing our big dome basecamp tent agains the wind. I sunk anchors deep into the earth, and staked out every possible place on the tent. Even going so far as to scavenge discarded net line from the beach to add additional anchor points.
