How do you encourage youth to connect with threatened places, to identify and empathize with a space so foreign and far beyond the comforts of their homes? A group of educators and I flew into Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska to figure out just that. Our intention was to gain our sense of place here and become familiar through immersion.

Anaktuvuk (anec-too-vek) Pass is a small native village tucked in to Brooks Range in Northern Alaska, just outside of Gates of the Arctic National Park (link to map). It’s more than 400 nautical miles north of the majority of the population in Alaska, lying within its own band of beautiful mountains within the arctic circle.This area is the home of the last settlement of the Nunamiut peoples who were nomadic inland caribou hunters up until the late 1940s, and who account for nearly all of the village's population.

We flew from Fairbanks North over the Yukon River and into the Brooks Range. The plane seemed to move faster through the sky than we could process. There was so much to study as our eyes scrambled to see and know. We followed the trans-Alaska pipeline, traced the braids of the Yukon, looked for ski lines on as many mountains as we could, mouthed excited faces to each other, and admired the lonesome cabins speckled here and there.

After our group arrived, stunned from the flight and barren landscape we’d found ourselves in, we curiously hiked up the nearest ridge to get oriented. We’d set out the next morning to explore the valleys off in the distance, now looking lifetimes away. While too big to conquer after a long day of travel, we made our way to our respective corners in our cozy indoor accommodations and attempted to get some rest. Right before nodding off I peered over to see Eli reading a book that gave me a flutter of reassurance as my nerves set in to head into double digit negative temps, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu**”.

The next morning the temperature offered no mercy. We packed up our sleds as a concerned local gave us a shotgun and compared stories of waking up in the middle of the night, hearing snow machines blaze by the windows. Our curiosities were quickly laid to rest when we learned that the AK Pass kids cruised around all night and returned as the sun came up. While I headed out to load my things, I dodged a 5 year old zig zagging down the street, grinning, on a tiny snow machine with her goggles hanging off of her face. It looked like she had just been set free, with her siblings on full size machines for her to look up to. I was left giggling with that image as we finished dividing up gear and headed into the mountains.

While heading uphill, we quickly learned what 50lbs of venison, butter, and gear felt like while our skins slipped and sleds rolled, forcing us to tag team steep hills ascending into the tundra. It's during those times you start to take stock of all of the unnecessary items you shoved into your bag. In this case, all of the damn condiments.

After finding a suitable place to lay our condiments to rest, we set up camp and called it a night. While concerned but excited to be sleeping outside, that evening we had a rude awakening to the arctic as a storm rolled in. We slept in mids and somehow I managed to park myself next to a loose piece of tarp that slapped me in the face every 20 minutes. When I wasn't getting slapped by the long hand of the arctic, the snow was swirling in through the floor gaps we’d neglected to bury, producing a snow globe effect. The bitter bite of the cold was enough to freeze your eyelashes while you slept and anything that was covering your face. It was impossible not to think about the caribou and their 3 inch thick skin with hollow hairs happily hanging from their bodies, keeping them warm in the harshest conditions. To harvest them for their nourishing sustenance, and then to wrap yourself within their warmth, commands the utmost respect for their existence, resilience, and help with allowing humans to survive up here.

While I dreamed of riding a caribou out of here, I was thankful for Jon's brave soul for making coffee the next morning. I dusted off my boots and we all enjoyed sharing stories of the storm while echoing the same ‘what the heck are we doing here’ tone. Eli seemed to not give a fu** that he’d forgotten camp boots, and that he'd be living in frozen ski boots for the next 10 days. That’s when I decided I’d buy that book.

Happy to leave behind a sleepless night, we packed up camp and headed down the valley. The valley was quiet, there was no wood for a fire, steep walls on both sides which made for little sun, seemingly endless mountains ahead, and it produced nonstop blowing winds. It was harsh, yet mysterious. We periodically took breaks to combat signs of frostbite. If you were lucky Adam would let you put your toes in his jacket, nestling into his armpits. If he was lucky, you’d feed him snacks at the same time, while you both sat there trying to normalize the whole thing.

The skiing appeared to provide endless pow fields with beautiful spines, some exposed rock, and signs of glaciers peeking their colossal heads out here and there. As we traversed the valley, we admired the lines but were determined to get comfortable, setting up a proper camp to make food and water. We dug out our camp along a Willow grove and set ourselves up to do some exploring. As we settled in, and as any type 2 trip can hope for, we adapted. The cold faded into comfort, the laughter picked up, the music found its station, and the inside jokes found their place. Once our basic needs were met, we quickly went from surviving to thriving. Eli even seemed to like living in his frozen ski boots.

Photo by Jon Mancuso. Michaela on the right - the brains behind the adventure

We skinned up the drainage across the way after eye-balling a sunlight ridge the day before. I expected nothing but bulletproof ice. While coming up the ridge we watched a bear running from the other side of the river, he must’ve been squinting at us as we were to him. From the top we found ourselves staring at 3 in-your-face alaskan spines. More eye candy than anything. Conditions were dicey, a large layer of puff-ball like crystals underneath a thick wind layer. I could’ve dug a cave underneath the top layer, crazier than anything I've seen. We got turns in from the top and they felt like the most magical, low angle, 7”, soft, sweet, supple, turns in the world. I got to cruise from one side of the slope to the other, singing in my head with the biggest smile on my face.

While the skiing proved to be sketchy, we got efficient moving from camp to camp, and finally landed on the perfect amount of daily butter intake to keep ourselves warm (it's a lot). The vast tundra became our canvas for whatever we wanted. We studied ptarmigan, followed arctic fox tracks, learned about the mountains, and about the Nunamuit peoples that inhabited the area. The beautiful thing about going on a trip with outdoor educators, is that there’s infinite knowledge to pass around and the willingness to teach each other. We spent many hours talking about birds and animals, patterns in nature, geology, the watershed, the Nunamuit history, and all of the pieces in between.

A few nights later after trying to wrap our minds around Buckminster Fuller's words, we saw the sky glowing off in the distance. We pulled out our sleeping bags, laid under the stars, and watched as the Northern lights grew in brightness dancing from just beyond our toes to right over our heads, encompassing so much of the sky. Often misconstrued by a photo, these lights were very much so alive, or perhaps souls of the dead.

The Brooks range continued to blow our minds. If it wasn’t getting up on top of a ridge and peeking down a new valley, we’d spend our time sharing curiosities with each other. We then dove into them with seemingly infinite space and time to explore within the vast mountain range we’d found ourselves in. By the end of our trip we’d learn to love this space and drew a new appreciation for what had originally seemed like a barren landscape. We went back to town and started our next chapter: understanding the Nunamuit culture, their relationship with these extraordinary valleys, and the next generation to lay their roots here.

Brooks Range Splitboarding