Caribou, Birds, and Bears: Canoeing the Utukok and Kokolik Rivers
Tuesday 10/20 at 7:00 PM
Brian Elliott will show slides and talk about canoeing the Utukok and Kokolik Rivers of the western north slope of Alaska. Meeting is held upstairs in the First Presbyterian Church Education building, 869 N. Euclid Ave, Upland, take the left side stairs. New members and the public are welcome.
Sierra Club member Brian Elliott, along with three friends, canoed two rivers that flow north on Alaska’s north slope above the Arctic circle. Brian and his friends canoed 10 days in 2014 on the Kokolik River. He returned this past summer to canoe 9 days on the Utukok River, just east of the Kokolik River. He and his friends were then air shuttled back to the Kokolik where they canoed for 15 days, this time all the way to the Kokolik’s River’s mouth at the small Inuit village of Pt. Lay, a subsistence village of 190 people at the Chukchi Sea’s coast. The rivers flow through some of the most remote wilderness in North America and are renowned for viewing of the western Arctic caribou herd migration. Brian and his friends saw thousands of caribou along with much other wildlife. Each river is primarily located within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an area of national interest by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups who are trying to preserve it's great wilderness and wildlife. Brian will share his photos of his trip and advocate for the region's protection.
