There Is No Tomorrow

My article, in two parts, about our fat-bike expedition through Arctic Alaska - Point Hope to Utqiagvk. Published in the Arctic Sounder.

Bjørn Olson, Alayne Tetor, Kim McNett and Daniel Countiss pause in front of a whale bone yard in Point Hope before beginning their fat-bike traverse of the Arctic. 

The Beaufort Wind Scale labels wind speeds between 56 and 63 knots as a violent storm. Anything above 64 knots is a hurricane. For the next four days, the winds hovered between these two classifications. We became sober-faced and hyper conscious. Simple tasks like adding or removing a jacket required methodical intention. To let go of a strap or sleeping pad, even for a second, meant risking it being blown out of reach, most likely never to be seen again. Each of us at various times, when the strongest gusts hit, was entirely thrown from and over our bikes.

Read Part one here: There Is No Tomorrow

There Is No Tomorrow - Part 2

Point Lay dancers at the Nalukataq festival.

As I cleaned the peat chunks from my bike I looked ahead at the rapidly thawing landscape eroding into the sea and wondered how different it would look here in five or 10 years ... or even next month. I also wondered when Alaska and the rest of the nation would get serious about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and mitigating climate change. Will we choose to take action before reaching a critical tipping point? Again, the saying I'd heard in Wevok came to my mind, "There is no tomorrow." The time for action is now.

Read part two here: There Is No Tomorrow - part two