On the intrinsic value of arctic snow cover

While individually processing the tens of thousands of vertical mapping photos from my last trip to the 1002 Area of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I couldn’t help but to ponder the uniqueness and beauty of the snow cover I found there. The shapes, sizes, textures, colors, patterns — like individual snowflakes, no snow drift is exactly like another. While processing these photos I realized that, despite my scientific understanding of the importance of snow in ecology, hydrology, and glaciology, I had been overlooking it’s intrinsic value, I guess because it melts each year. But we place a lot of intrinsic value on the caribou or polar bears that migrate in and out of the Refuge each year — is snow cover really that different? Can we not take as much delight in how nature does such a spectacular thing each year with snow, like a massive performance art installation, done by nature for nature? It’s what happens between a wind and a hard place in the dark of winter, it’s the interdependence of oceans and atmospheres, of suns and planets, of sand grains and stars, it’s the impermanence of all things shown within a season. In any case, as I was processing a day’s worth of photos (April 3rd, about 8000 photos, all mostly located between Camden Bay and the Sadlerochit Mountains), I tagged about 200 that especially caught my eye due to something I found unique or appealing about them so that I could share them with you. There’s no rhyme or reason to the selection other than that. The photos themselves each cover about 1000 meters by 700 meters on the ground, though that coverage varies slightly with each. For those of you familiar with my blogs, you may or may not be relieved to know that this paragraph is the only text you will find here as I thought the imagery itself — or rather the snow itself — had more important things to say…