Months spent in darkness; a major blizzard, -35ºF with 80mph wind driven snow - burning flesh, three days with no power, - 4ºF inside of the building we occupied. I have to speak for Feathered Friends and their down mountaineering suits: to survive that trial as a matter of fact occurrence ...

... it feels right.

With propane still flowing despite the -30ºF temperatures, the camp's Wolf range fired on demand. We prepared food for the blizzard stranded villagers, we handed out 100 pound propane tanks to the intrepid soles that dared face the storm. Talking down an Alaska Air Guard Blackhawk chopper in white-out conditions caused me some anxiety. Back-up batteries kept the aircraft radios up and running.

It felt right.

Standing the solemn watch, the frigid Arctic wind bleeding heat from my exposed hands, I watched and I waited. On January 22nd the sun reappeared above the horizon; as my camera froze, my spirit warmed.

Upon the face of the nearby Polar Bear, a look of curiosity, a hesitation in the course of business at hand. To kneel and watch this magnificent animal evaluate your being, to smell the air, to consider the presence of a human being: to have her accept you, to trust you: to gaze into this face of incomparable beauty ...

.... nothing has ever felt so right.

To attend the address by the political delegation that arrived in Kaktovik. To see in those eyes an empty, hollow void of conviction, blank of any sense of life that awaits the retreat of winter. To continue to hear and read of such distortions and misinformation, all designed to achieve the quest of greed driven impulse; mislead enough of the people that listen no further than sound bites, grandstand for a media that has lost its' purpose for being ...

... nothing feels more wrong.