Alaska · National Preserve
Bering
Land Bridge
The itinerary belonged to the land.
Photo by D. Hughes
A continental crossroads
Bering Land Bridge National Preserve holds part of a landscape that once joined Asia and North America. It is not only a story of the distant past. Iñupiaq communities remain connected to this land through culture, family, travel, hunting, gathering, and knowledge carried across generations.
We flew toward Iyat, the traditional Iñupiaq name for Serpentine Hot Springs. Below us, lakes and waterways spread across the tundra. On the ground, the approach to the springs passed through wet shrubs and wild blueberries, with granite tors rising above them like weathered structures.
NPS: people on the land ↗
Iyat · the cooking pot
Warm water in the Arctic
Steam moved across the boardwalk and mineral colors spread through the shallow water outside the bathhouse. Inside, spring water filled a simple wooden pool. For a short time, in one of the most remote places we had traveled, we sat in warmth.
The bunkhouse, bathhouse, and outhouse are shared with whoever arrives. No reservation holds a place. The bunkhouse is first come, first served. When we visited, no campers were there.
NPS: bunkhouse and amenities ↗
For a moment
We were not passing over the landscape. We were inside it.
Granite tors
Finding a way up
Robbie moved through the granite formations, testing holds and finding a route toward the top. From below, the tors looked rounded and almost sculpted. His figure revealed their actual scale.
The climb was playful, but the sky was already changing. In the Arctic, delight and attention do not separate cleanly. Even while exploring, we remained aware of weather, distance, and the aircraft waiting below.
Reading conditions
Do not wander
When Rita stepped away to change in the outhouse, Jim came looking. When the door opened, he and Robbie were waiting with a large firearm and a direct warning: bears were out, and nobody should wander alone.
The firearm was not the meaning of the encounter. The care was. Jim had noticed that one person was no longer visible and came to find her. He and his son continually read the land, the weather, the aircraft, and the people traveling with them. We listened because their judgment was part of how everyone returned safely.
In the Arctic, a schedule is provisional. Wanting to complete an itinerary does not make conditions safe. The journey depends upon noticing what has changed and responding without argument.
The ceremony and the warning
Everything began moving at once
A park ranger traveling out with us swore Robbie in beside the steaming spring. The ceremony carried an unusual urgency. The pilots and the rest of the group were waiting, and we felt the ground move beneath us.
Then came the warning that ash from an eruption at Shiveluch on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula could reduce visibility. Although the volcano was hundreds of miles away, the safe window for our flight was closing. After roughly two hours at Serpentine, we left quickly.
The moment held several scales at once: a young person raising his hand, heat rising from beneath the tundra, movement in the earth, and volcanic ash crossing the Bering Sea.
On the flight out
The land began to move
After leaving Serpentine, we carried the ranger toward her drop off near Nome. Below the wing, thousands of caribou appeared across the hillsides. At first they looked like dark marks. Then the marks resolved into animals moving through the same enormous landscape that had shaped our own route.
We had left because movement elsewhere demanded it: wind, ash, weather, and decisions passing between pilots. The caribou made that larger pattern visible.
Field note
Attention was part of the passage.
We arrived expecting a place. We left understanding a relationship: between judgment and trust, freedom and restraint, the route we imagined and the conditions that made any route possible.
Robbie’s field notes
Part of the Scale
Scrambling to the top of the granite spires was exciting and wonderful. It helped me connect with the place.
From the top, I did not feel like I was only looking at something enormous. Climbing made me feel like I was part of its scale.
Planning the journey
Traveling into the Western Arctic
Practical notes on bush flights, weather, lodging, food, and moving respectfully through these roadless parklands are being prepared.
Western Arctic field guide · Coming soon