Migrations

Caribou collar compilation provided by the National Park Service. Last week I traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska, for work. Though the melt had begun, plenty of snow still blanketed the ground and thick rafts of ice clotted the rivers. It had been a big winter in the area, the coldest on record, with 31 days at or below -40 degrees Fahrenheit, and more than 90 inches of snow. People in town were still talking about winter when I arrived, and it was clear it’d live on in their memories, and maybe their bodies, for a long time. The National Weather Service itself—not know for hyperbole—had called the season “a marathon of sub-zero endurance.” Despite all this spring was insistent, inevitable. The days were bright and mild. On distant hillsides pale painterly washes of red showed where the aspens were budding. At the top of town, on the University of Alaska campus, students were jogging in shorts. And even though the river downtown still appeared frozen solid, you couldn’t trust your eyes.…