Arctic Wilderness Photography

06/17/2026

or centuries, biologists, hunters, hikers, and one particularly confused geology professor have reported sightings of a mysterious creature inhabiting Alaska’s remote mountain talus slopes. Official science dismisses these claims as mistaken observations of the common pika. Those who have encountered the beast know better.

They call it the Pikalope (Ochotona antlerus magnificus).

At first glance, the Pikalope appears to be nothing more than a harmless pika—a small rabbit relative no larger than a potato with fur. This illusion lasts only until the creature raises its head and reveals a magnificent rack of antlers seemingly borrowed from a mature bull moose.

No one knows how the Pikalope acquired these antlers. Some indigenous legends claim the Great Spirit accidentally mixed spare moose parts with an overly ambitious pika. Others believe the first Pikalope challenged a moose to a contest of stubbornness and somehow won. Modern wildlife biologists simply avoid the subject altogether.

The Pikalope’s preferred habitat consists of steep talus fields in Alaska’s mountain ranges, where it spends its days gathering vegetation and glaring suspiciously at anyone carrying a camera.

What truly sets the Pikalope apart, however, is its legendary vocalization.

Unlike ordinary pikas, which emit a small squeak, the Pikalope produces a roar so powerful that it echoes across entire valleys. Witnesses describe the sound as a cross between a rutting moose, a chainsaw with bad bearings, and a middle-aged man stepping barefoot onto a Lego in the dark.

The roar often begins with a high-pitched squeak before building dramatically:

“Eeep… EEEEP… MRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

The resulting echoes bounce from cliff to cliff, causing unsuspecting hikers to immediately begin looking for grizzly bears, mountain lions, or insurance agents.

Despite its fearsome reputation, the Pikalope is largely harmless. The exception occurs during the autumn rut when males compete for mates by lowering their antlers and charging at speeds approaching “surprisingly fast for something the size of a sandwich.”

These battles can last for hours and are accompanied by roaring contests that have been mistaken for avalanches.

The greatest challenge facing wildlife photographers is documenting the species. The Pikalope possesses an uncanny ability to detect cameras. It can remain perfectly hidden among the rocks until a photographer has spent six hours crawling through tundra, endured dozens of mosquito attacks, and consumed the last of his trail mix.

Only then will the creature appear.

Unfortunately, it usually appears directly behind the photographer.

The first confirmed photograph was captured after a veteran Alaskan wildlife photographer heard a strange roar echoing through a mountainside. Assuming he had discovered a rare moose, he spent the next hour stalking the sound.

After carefully positioning himself and preparing his camera, he finally spotted the source.

There, standing proudly atop a boulder, was a Pikalope.

The tiny beast threw back its head, its antlers spread wide, and unleashed a roar that echoed across the valley.

The photographer later described the experience as:

“Like watching a mighty bull moose emerge from the body of a squeaky hamster.”

The Pikalope then vanished into the rocks, leaving behind only footprints, confusion, and a photograph that scientists continue to insist is “clearly fake.”

The photographer, however, knows the truth.

The mountains of Alaska still hold secrets.

And somewhere among the talus slopes, the mighty Pikalope continues to rule its rocky kingdom—one thunderous squeak at a time. 🫎🐹📸

06/16/2026

Tucked among a carpet of emerald horsetail, wild geraniums, and summer blooms sits one of Alaska’s most unusual residents—a blue-phase Arctic fox kit (Vulpes lagopus) taking its very first steps into the world. Barely two weeks old, this tiny explorer had just emerged from its den on Shemya Island when it found itself face-to-face with an equally curious visitor: a large, camera-wielding photographer (Davidus neelius shutterbuggus)

Most people are familiar with the classic image of the Arctic fox—a snow-white animal perfectly adapted to the frozen tundra. Far fewer have heard of the blue-phase Arctic fox, a darker color variation found primarily in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Unlike their white cousins, blue-phase foxes retain a charcoal, brown, or slate-colored coat year-round, allowing them to blend seamlessly into the rocky coastlines and lush vegetation of the islands they call home.

The story of these foxes is as fascinating as the animals themselves. During the fur trade era of the 18th and 19th centuries, Russian traders recognized the value of the luxurious blue fox pelts and established fox-farming operations throughout the Aleutians. Islands such as Attu and Shemya were ideal locations. Millions of seabirds migrated through the region each year, providing an abundant food source, while the islands themselves offered a natural enclosure from which the foxes could not easily escape.

The foxes thrived—perhaps too well. With few natural predators and a seemingly endless buffet of nesting birds and eggs, fox populations exploded. The impact on native bird colonies was devastating, and by the late 1800s many island ecosystems had been dramatically altered. In some areas, fox populations were eventually eliminated as the fur trade declined and conservation concerns grew.

Yet the story did not end there. Blue foxes were reintroduced to Shemya Island in 1911 as fur stock. Later, during World War II, the island became strategically important. After American forces retook the Aleutians from Japanese occupation, Shemya developed into a major military airfield. Rather than removing the foxes, military personnel discovered they served an unexpected purpose: helping reduce bird populations around the runways and thereby lowering the risk of dangerous bird strikes to aircraft.

Over the decades, the foxes became part of life on the island. Air Force personnel affectionately nicknamed them “Scruffies,” a reference to the somewhat ragged appearance adult foxes acquire each summer. After shedding their thick, luxurious winter coats, the adults often look more like disheveled drifters than the elegant fur-bearers that once fueled a thriving trade. The nickname stuck, and generations of service members came to know and appreciate these hardy island residents.

This little kit, however, had not yet reached his scruffy years, like his parent in the last image. For now, he was all oversized eyes, tiny ears, and boundless curiosity. Hidden among the vegetation, he peered cautiously at the strange human crouched nearby with a camera. Every leaf, flower, and shadow was a new discovery. The world beyond the den was enormous, filled with unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells.

For a few brief moments, history, wildlife, and wonder intersected. Descended from foxes whose ancestors arrived through a remarkable chapter of Alaska’s fur-trade history, this tiny pup represented another generation adapting to life on one of the most remote island chains on Earth.

And while he may one day earn the title of “Scruffy,” on this particular summer morning he was simply a young Arctic fox experiencing the world for the very first time—completely unaware that his debut had become a photograph and a story worth sharing.

06/16/2026

Shemya island “Scruffies” (Vulpes lagopus) or Russian blue phase arctic fox

06/15/2026

There is a seemingly unending list of “National (fill in the blank) Days.” More than there are days on the calendar, actually. It's pretty easy to feel overwhelmed by, or to simply ignore, these ‘special’ days altogether. I mean, how many people out there are celebrating “National Pop Goes the Weasel Day?” It's a day set aside each year to… wait for it… acknowledge the famous nursery rhyme. Yeah, that was yesterday. Did you remember to acknowledge it?
No offense meant to those who celebrate Pop Goes the Weasel Day, but TODAY is different because today is ‘National Nature Photography Day,’ and that is an important day for me since that is what I do. This day is meant to promote the enjoyment of nature photography, but not just that.

To celebrate I am sharing some of my favorite images.

06/08/2026

The Day I Kicked a Black Bear Out of My Tree Stand

Most people spend their entire lives hoping they never have to defend themselves from a bear.
At sixteen years old, I managed to do it with my right boot.

At sixteen, I was a big kid by any standard—well over six feet tall, broad through the shoulders, and wearing size-13 hunting boots. Years of working around our family’s hunting lodge had given me the build of a laborer and the confidence of someone who’d spent most of his life around bears. As I would soon discover, however, there is a considerable difference between being around bears and having one face to face with you.

My family operated a remote hunting lodge above the arctic circle. But for part of the spring, we would manage several bear baiting stations scattered throughout the wilderness near Beluga, Alaska. While most sixteen-year-olds were worried about driver’s licenses and dating, I had the dubious honor of hauling buckets of expired candy bars through the woods.

My father had somehow developed a reliable supply chain from the PX on the nearby military base, where outdated candy could be obtained by the case. The bears didn’t care that the Snickers were past their expiration date. If anything, they seemed to appreciate the effort.

Each afternoon I’d make the rounds, replenishing the bait stations with candy, pastries, and whatever other sweet treasures were available. Once the bait was refreshed, I’d help ensure the hunters and guides were settled into their stands for the evening hunt.

Only then would I head to my own stand.

On this particular evening, everything seemed routine.

I climbed into my tree stand about twenty feet above the ground, and used a rope to pull up my bow and backpack after me. Once I was settled, I did what I often did while waiting for bears to appear.

I pulled out a Louis L’Amour novel.

If you’ve spent enough evenings in a tree stand, you learn that hunting often involves long stretches of absolutely nothing happening. A good western novel helps pass the time.

The woods were quiet.

The air was still.

The pages turned slowly.

Then I felt the tree move.

At first, I barely noticed it.

I assumed the wind was picking up.

A few moments later the tree swayed again.

That struck me as odd because the surrounding trees weren’t moving at all.

Just mine.

I lowered the book and looked around.

The forest was perfectly calm.

Only my tree was dancing.

That’s when I heard a noise below me.

I looked down and immediately spotted a large black bear at the base of the tree.

She was standing on her hind legs, grabbing the trunk and shaking it with enough force to make the entire stand sway.

Suddenly the situation seemed considerably less relaxing.

Before I could fully process what was happening, I heard another sound.

This one came from above.

Slowly, I looked up.

Staring down at me from just a couple of feet overhead were two tiny black bear cubs.

They appeared just as surprised to see me as I was to see them.

For a brief moment we simply stared at one another.

Then my brain finally connected all the pieces.

The shaking tree.

The cubs.

The large black bear below.

I had unknowingly climbed into a tree already occupied by a bear family.

The next sound I heard was claws digging into bark.

I looked down just in time to see Mama Bear begin climbing toward me.

Now, black bears are impressive climbers under normal circumstances.

A mother bear climbing directly toward your tree stand tends to make that fact even more memorable.

I quickly set the book aside and pulled my .44 revolver.

Not because I wanted to shoot her, but because I was rapidly running out of alternatives.

She climbed higher.

And higher.

And higher.

The distance between us disappeared alarmingly fast.

Then her head appeared above the edge of the stand.

There I was looking into the face of a very determined mother bear. She wasn’t snarling, or even baring her teeth, she actually appeared kind of puzzled, like she didn’t expect to find a human halfway up a tree. More like she was annoyed that she had to come collect her misbehaving children.

Pure instinct took over, and I drove my hunting boot straight into her face.

The kick connected squarely with her nose, the mother bear’s expression shifted from fierce determination to what could only be described as utter disbelief. For a split second, she seemed suspended in midair, paws spread wide, eyes bulging, and mouth hanging open as if she couldn’t quite comprehend that she’d just been kicked out of a tree stand by a sixteen-year-old kid. Then gravity took over. She fell backward down the tree in slow-motion perfection, tumbling through the air with all the grace of Hans Gruber plummeting from the Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard. Limbs flailing, fur flying, and dignity rapidly departing the scene, she bounced off a few branches on the way down before landing with a decided THUMP on the forest floor, leaving me staring after her in stunned silence and wondering if I’d just become the first person in Alaska to drop-kick a bear out of a tree.

The woods became very quiet.

Then she exploded into the brush.

From somewhere just beyond sight came the unmistakable sound of deep moans and jaw-popping. If you've never heard an angry bear popping its jaws, imagine someone snapping thick branches together —a bear’s version of saying she was extremely unhappy with the situation.

Unfortunately, I still had a problem.

I was twenty feet in the air.

And the angry bear was somewhere below me.

I lowered my bow back down with the rope, along with my backpack to lessen the weight I had to climb down with. With every ounce of courage I could muster, I began to climb down the tree using the pegs we had screwed in as a makeshift ladder.

Climbing down a tree while keeping a .44 pointed toward a hidden bear turns out to be surprisingly difficult. Every step required equal parts caution, balance, and prayer.

Slowly I worked my way down. Every step down required keeping my eyes on her while somehow finding the next foothold.

I probably looked like a drunk squirrel trying to rappel.

Eventually my boots hit the ground.

The entire time she remained hidden in the brush.

The entire time I kept the revolver trained in her direction.

I began backing away from the area, expecting at any moment for her to reappear.

Instead, she watched.

When I had put a safe distance between us, the cubs finally climbed down from the tree.

Mama emerged from the brush, gathered up her youngsters, and led them away into the forest.

Only then did I fully appreciate what had happened.

She hadn’t been hunting me.

She hadn’t been acting out of aggression.

She was simply doing what any mother would do after discovering a sixteen-year-old boy had climbed into a tree with her children.

Looking back, I can’t blame her.

If anything, she showed remarkable restraint.

Still, whenever people ask if I’ve ever had a close encounter with a bear, I can truthfully answer:

“Close enough to kick one in the face.”

And thanks to a size-13 hunting boot, a little luck, and one very patient mama bear, everyone walked away from the encounter with a story to tell.

06/08/2026

So Facebook decides that because my profile photo shows a bear eating a salmon that it violates their family friendly rules and shadow bans me. I have requested they look at my content without using a computer algorithm and see that it is not violating any of their guidelines. If they still determine that I am in violation, I will be ending my relationship with the Meta-verse as they are not friendly to actual photographers and I will not continue to support a company that pushes AI generated content that do not reflect anything natural, while banning work that actually does show nature in It’s raw form.

06/08/2026

06/08/2026

The Day a Musk Ox Chose Violence

After spending most of my life in Alaska, I've had plenty of encounters with wildlife. Bears, moose, wolves—you name it. Most of those encounters follow a fairly predictable pattern: respect the animal, give it space, don't do anything stupid.
Some animals however, occasionally rewrite the script.

My friend Andreas Kieling was in Alaska in September hoping to capture video of migrating caribou herds for the BBC. The herds were having an extended summer and weren’t migrating yet, so he couldn’t get any footage. He contacted me to see if I knew of any other creatures he could get footage of and I invited him to come photograph musk ox with me as they were in full mating mode, and the bulls were fighting for dominance, in the Arctic near my parents hunting lodge.

Watching two bulls crash together on the Arctic tundra is like witnessing a scene from the Ice Age. Their ancestors used the same tactics while mammoths still roamed the north, and the sound of those collisions is likely very similar to what echoed across Alaska’s tundra for thousands of years.

When two mature musk ox bulls decide to fight for breeding rights or dominance of a herd, it is one of the most dramatic wildlife spectacles in the Arctic. These bulls testosterone levels are sky high and they compete for access to females.

A musk ox bull fight isn’t all that different from two overly confident guys competing for attention at last call in a bar.

Imagine the scene:

Two large, shaggy fellows spot the same group of ladies across the room. Neither is willing to admit the other might be tougher, more handsome, or have a better chance. So they begin with a lot of posturing.

They lower their massive heads, paw at the ground, snort clouds of breath into the cold air, and occasionally swing their horns in what translates roughly to, “You wanna go?”

The air is thick with tension as each animal decides whether the other is worth challenging. Friends nearby are thinking, “This is not going to end well.”

Then, instead of making sensible decisions and heading home, both parties commit fully to the worst possible course of action.

The human version involves stumbling across a sticky dance floor.

The musk ox version involves backing upwards of a 100 yards and launching several hundred pounds of Arctic beef directly at each other at full speed. A mature bull can weigh 700 to 900 pounds or more, and they accelerate surprisingly fast. The ground trembles beneath their hooves as they thunder across the tundra, closing the distance in seconds.

WHAM!

The sound is often described as resembling a gunshot, a car crash, or two baseball bats smashing together. Their massive horn bosses—the thick shield-like structures covering the forehead—absorb much of the impact. The force can echo across the tundra, startling birds and carrying for considerable distances.

After the collision, both stand there blinking for a moment as if trying to remember why they were fighting in the first place.

Then somebody decides, “I didn’t hear no bell,” and they do it again. And again. Slowly backing away from each other while shaking their heads from side to side, snort, and display aggressive postures while recovering their breath. But never breaking eye contact.

Eventually one realizes he’s losing. In a bar, that guy might be escorted outside by his friends.

For a musk ox, he wanders off into the tundra nursing a bruised ego and wondering how everything went so wrong.

The winner struts around acting like the king of the world while the females largely continue eating and behaving as though the entire performance wasn’t nearly as impressive as the males imagined.

The real similarity comes afterward.

The victorious guy is feeling invincible.

The defeated guy is angry at absolutely everyone. Redirecting his frustration toward an unfortunate bystander. Suddenly the poor wildlife photographer(s) who were minding their own business becomes the equivalent of the guy standing beside the jukebox who gets dragged into an argument he didn’t even know was happening.

Unfortunately, the loser decided that my friend Andreas and I were somehow responsible for his defeat.

We were standing what I considered a perfectly respectable distance away when the disgruntled bull suddenly locked eyes on us. A moment later he lowered his head and began charging.

Now, musk ox don't exactly look fast. They resemble a shaggy ottoman with horns. But appearances can be deceiving. That bull crossed the tundra with alarming speed.

At this point Andreas made a tactical decision.

He ran.

Not a casual retreat. Not a strategic withdrawal.

He flat-out abandoned the area.

In the process, Andreas also abandoned his roughly $100,000 Arriflex video camera in the tundra. The charging bull was now seconds away from converting his expensive equipment into modern art.

Seeing this unfold, I did the only thing I could think of. I put myself between the bull and my fleeing friend and yelled at the musk ox.

To my surprise, it worked. The bull skidded to a stop, staring at me as if trying to determine whether I was incredibly brave or exceptionally stupid.

The answer was probably "yes."

Having photographed this herd for years, I began talking to him the same way I'd talked to dozens of musk ox before.

"Easy, big guy."

The bull responded by snorting loudly and pawing at the tundra while backing away from me as if to say. “You want a piece of me?”

Meanwhile Andreas had recovered from his sprint and was now standing at a safe distance. I yelled over to him that the musk was preparing to charge me.

Rather than helping.

Rather than distracting the bull.

Rather than retrieving his six-figure camera.

He lifted his Canon camera to his eye and started taking photographs.

Later he admitted he was hoping to capture what he called a "Pulitzer shot" of me being run over.

Some friend.

The bull charged again.

Now as hard headed as I can be, I certainly couldn’t compete with this behemoth. So I yelled again.

The bull stopped again. This time only a few feet away.

The look on his face was priceless. He seemed genuinely confused that the strange human kept shouting at him instead of screaming and fleeing.

Growing up in Alaska, I'd spent enough time around musk ox to know a few things. One of those things is that they're built like armored refrigerators. They're powerful, fast, and incredibly intimidating, but they don't change direction quickly. If things went badly, I could probably sidestep him.

Probably.

Not exactly the sort of word you want to build a survival plan around.

Never taking my eyes off him, I kept talking while slowly circling toward the abandoned Arriflex camera. Eventually I reached it, collected the camera, and carried it, along with my own gear—which had remained slung over my shoulder throughout this entire discussion—and carefully backed away.

The bull finally decided he'd made his point. Or perhaps he concluded that neither of us was worth the paperwork.

Either way, he wandered off into the tundra nursing a bruised ego, and wondering how everything went so wrong.

Back at my truck, Andreas looked at me and shook his head.

Now, Andreas isn't easily impressed. He shoots video around the world for the BBC. He told me he'd swum with sharks, been attacked by wild boars in the Black Forest in his native Germany, and had once even been stalked by a tiger.

Then he said something I'll never forget.

"David, I have never seen anything like what I just witnessed."

To this day, I'm still not entirely sure what he meant.

Maybe it was the charging musk ox.

Maybe it was the fact that yelling at a thousand-pound Ice Age relic somehow worked twice.

Or maybe it was watching a man risk his life to save someone else's camera while that someone else stood safely in the distance trying to photograph the obituary.

Either way, it was just another perfectly normal day in Alaska.

03/02/2026

Someone get that seal a tissue.

The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) looks almost cartoonish hauled out on a beach—huge eyes, wrinkled skin, and in the case of the males, that oversized inflatable nose that gives them their name. But once they slip beneath the surface, they become one of the most extraordinary deep-diving mammals on Earth.

These giants can dive over 5,000 feet (1,500+ meters) deep—some recorded even deeper—and stay down for nearly two hours at a time. And they don’t just do it once. They dive again. And again. For months. Spending nearly 90% of their time at sea underwater.

How? Their bodies are built for pressure.

• They carry massive amounts of oxygen in their blood and muscles.
• Their heart rate slows dramatically during dives to conserve oxygen.
• Their lungs actually collapse safely under pressure, reducing nitrogen absorption and helping prevent the bends.

And here’s one of the most fascinating parts: northern elephant seals produce a special pulmonary surfactant—a slippery fluid lining the tiny air sacs in their lungs. This fluid reduces surface tension and keeps the lungs from sticking together when they collapse at extreme depths. When they resurface, that same fluid allows the lungs to reinflate smoothly and efficiently. This is what is coming out of their nostrils.

Imagine diving into pitch black water, colder than ice, under crushing pressure that would destroy a human diver… and doing it routinely as part of your daily commute.

From awkward beach blob to deep-sea superathlete, Mirounga angustirostris might just be one of the most remarkable marine mammals on the planet

09/29/2025

I know this is probably a long shot but if anyone possibly found my pack of camera filters at the Hope turnoff, please let me know. I set it down on the concrete blocks in the parking lot of the rest stop while taking pictures and forgot it.