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Road to the Chukchi: a short poem & letter
The first thing you have to learn when you come up here is how to get up early when the mercury is stuck and the land is locked in ice and not think too much about it… A friend in another part of...
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The Night Sky at Point Hope (A Whaler to His Son)
The northern lights have been out nearly every night lately. Here they frame two umiak – seal skin boats used for the spring whale hunts. A Whaler to his Son This poem is an empty sigluaq a seal skin...
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The Light before the Fire (First Sea Ice, Point Hope)
There’s not much sun now - three hours or so from dawn to dusk and in those three hours, the sun doesn’t climb very high so that on clear days the world is bathed in soft pink and lavender and gold...
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Ghost Trees and Ghost Birds: Video and a Poem
At some point during my youth in western Pennsylvania, I read about a magnificent bird – the ivory bill woodpecker, the Lord God Bird. I wanted badly to see one and I knew that my dad – a naturalist –...
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Plastic Seas: From Water Bottles to Cigarette Butts, It All Becomes Tiny...
This tiny jellyfish and the octopus behind it are about the size of a pencil led, translucent, and barely visible to the naked eye. Key species near the base of the food web such as herring, sardines,...
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Gobi Desert Trek Day II: The Central Mongolian Steppe from Ikh Khayrkhan Uul...
It’s a tough breed of horses that call Mongolia home. Most Mongolians were practically born in the saddle, and even Ulaanbaatar’s urbanites ride them with ease. But these horses are never truly tamed...
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Super Fluffy Frittata: Brunch is Served
Bacon? Smoked salmon? Leaks? Mushrooms? Smoked cheese? Pick your ingredients and bake them into this deliciously fluffy frittata. We love our weekends – time to cook a special breakfast or brunch and...
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Fire and Ice Needles: Dawn, Hustai National Park, Mongolia
Stalked a group of stag red deer up a draw to the top of a rise where the sun broke fiery and cold lighting feather grass and ice needles suspended in the negative something air. Along the ridge,...
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Ink and Light: “Point Hope”– The Aurora Borealis & Jack London
Point Hope: Point Hope, Alaska Solar winds disrupting Earth’s magnetic field cause the Aurora Borealis. They are often most spectacular on finger-numbingly cold nights in the depths of winter. Point...
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dg nanouk okpik’s Corpse Whale – Sifting through Myth and Time in the Far North
Reading these poems is reminiscent of carefully digging through an archeological site located in Arctic permafrost as fossils, bones, carvings, memories and spirits emerge. While looking for a few...
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Ink and Light: Snow Birds and Basho
Snow Birds: House Sparrows, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Come! Let’s go snow-viewing till we’re buried! Matsuo Basho, 1644 – 1694 House Sparrow males and females are dimorphic: a female is center in this...
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Ink and Light: Silver on Ice and lines from John Masefield
Silver on Ice: Onboard Gillie, Gulf of Alaska outside Resurrection Bay Also known as Silver Salmon, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Coho Salmon return to Resurrection Bay near Seward,...
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Ink and Light: Double Limits! 120 Razor Clams & lines from Steve Kowit
Double Limits!* 120 Razor Clams near Whisky Gulch, Alaska Big, tender and tasty, Razor Clams are avidly sought along Pacific Northwest beaches. The year these were dug, the limit in Alaska was 60...
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Ink and Light: Bohemian Waxwing and Lines from Robert Francis
Panache: Bohemian Waxwing, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia The red, waxy tips on the Bohemian Waxwings’ wings are actually flattened feather shafts. …beneath a silk-blue sky… To sun, to feast, and to converse...
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Ink and Light: Claw Marks on Clay and a quote on Solitude from Jack Kerouac
Brown Bear Claw Marks on Clay Bank: The Trail to Clarks River near Chignik Lake, Alaska With two lakes, a river and numerous small streams that draw hundreds of thousands of spawning salmon each year,...
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Ink and Light: The Vixen of Contact Creek and lines from Pablo Neruda
The Vixen of Contact Creek: Contact Creek, British Columbia, Canada Red Fox, Vulpus vulpus, with rabbit for breakfast, likely on her way home to a den of kits. She loved me, and sometimes I loved her...
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Ink and Light: The Gobi Desert’s Singing Dunes and Inspiration from Herman...
Khongoryn Els: The Singing Dunes, Gobi Desert, Mongolia A trace of slate in the sand grains at Khongoryn Els results in vibrations that are not only easily audible, but which reverberate through one’s...
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Ink and Light: Chickadee Flamenco and thoughts on art and spring from Su Tung...
Chickadee Flamenco What a wonderful talent – that can create an entire Spring from a brush and a sheet of paper. If he would try poetry I know he would be a master… Su Tung P’o – On a Painting by Wang...
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Ink and Light: “Winter Hunt” and Shakespeare’s Poem for Runners
Winter Hunt: Saker Falcon, Kustai National Park, Mongolia Prized by falconers for their beauty and power, Saker Falcons are endangered due to black market trading and habitat loss. They are the...
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Ink & Light: “At First Sight”– Love and Lines from Richard Brautigan
At First Sight: Sandhill Cranes, Northern British Columbia Sandhill Cranes choose partners based on graceful mating dances and remain together for life. …and our graves will be like two lovers washing...
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