this was certainly an unusual wake up call, but i also found myself in an unusual place, sailing through the heart of southeast alaska with lindblad expeditions. sleep would have to wait — i was here for adventure after all and whale sightings are a once-in-a-lifetime experience. furiously matting my bedhead, i donned a rain jacket and hurried up to the deck. 

i was struck by a sharp wind and a spray of mist as i opened the door to the outside world. i eagerly scanned the horizon and, after a brief moment, was greeted by half a dozen whale tails, seemingly waving at me as they dove back beneath the water’s surface. they didn’t stay under for long, however. it was feeding time and the whales were evidently hungry. 

up and down they went, smooth arched backs diving beneath the surface, each flourishing tail a sight to behold. shiny black blubber, flowing like a heart shaped fan, glistened in the morning light and sent droplets of water rippling through the air. 

i grabbed my camera, hoping to catch a whale fully breaching, but it was those tails that kept appearing in my viewfinder. at first, i found myself frustrated at my inability to photograph anything more than that last bit of whale disappearing into the water. but i soon learned that there was more to these tails (and thus this tale) than it seemed.

more than a fluke

on the deck, shannon malone, the ship’s naturalist and undersea specialist explained that photographing these whales, specifically their tails, could actually be a huge benefit to science. it turns out researchers and scientists can learn a lot just by looking at this small section of the animal. 

“what we’re trying to do is learn about the whales as much as we can without altering their behavior,” malone said. the fluke [the two lobes of a whale’s tail] is really like seeing their face. so you see the same individuals, then you start to know other parts of them.”

yes, believe it or not, a whale’s tail is like a fingerprint, each wholly unique to the individual. the shapes of tails vary widely among species and scarring from broken off barnacles and/or predation further distinguishes one whale from the next. by identifying specific whales, scientists can then track them and study migration and behavioral patterns as well as their life histories.

“the way that they [scientists] figured out that those markings mattered, was actually just random happenstance,” malone said. she explained that in the 1960’s researchers from hawaii met with a high school science teacher from juneau and compared whale photos. previously, the researchers in hawaii were unsure of where the humpbacks were going to migrate and thought this might be the missing link. “they sat down and just started playing the game of like, mix and match with their pictures and realized ‘wow, these are the same.’ that’s how it all began,” malone said.

from tails to happywhale

these days it’s no longer necessary to identify whales by hand. back in 2015, ted cheeseman, a conservation biologist, founded happywhale, a website that utilizes a custom-made algorithm to analyze and identify humpback whales through photo comparisons.

just as detectives find fingerprint matches by analyzing ridges of a finger pad and comparing them to an existing database, happywhale’s algorithm matches newly uploaded fluke photos with previously uploaded photos to find matches. from there, scientists, researchers, and the public can find information on the whales they have identified, such as their gender and where they previously have been spotted. 

“the importance of it is only as important as it is to understand the fate of our oceans, which as we are seeing today, the health of human societies is quite dependent upon,” cheeseman said. “this is basically another lens we have … that has provided effectively a tool to be able to see in near real time how marine conditions are faring.”

a unique aspect of happywhale is that anyone can upload photos and anyone can access the information on these whales found on the site. the result is a diverse community of citizen scientists, researchers, and environmentalists working in tandem to achieve a variety of goals.

for the casual uploader, happywhale provides the opportunity to track “your” whale and even name it, if you are the first to discover it. for the researchers, it provides unprecedented access to a vast trove of information on a specific species. with an ever-growing database of more than 500,000 submitted photos and 200,000-plus identified encounters, the knowledge of these majestic creatures will continue to expand as well. 

“i see the whole thing as being kind of equal parts a research tool, a public education tool, and a public experience,” cheeseman said. 

a large portion of uploads actually come from tourism. i witnessed this first-hand as some of the naturalists aboard the ship spent hours logging dozens of fluke photos they had taken in the morning. 

when i later sat down with malone she explained that having naturalists like herself, as well as tourists, contribute to happywhale’s database saves research groups a lot of time, effort, and money. in addition to whale identification, the website also offers similar algorithms to analyze and track everything from penguins to sea otters.

“if we just relied on the researchers to gather the information about whales, we would have maybe a handful of people working. but with citizen science, you’re now getting to use the resources of thousands of people,” malone said. “like with any science, the more data points we have, the more accurately we can speak about the population as a whole. it’s not only adding to the science, but it’s adding to the group of stewards for the environment by informing people about this.”

cheeseman agreed, emphasizing how happywhale can serve as a tool for people from all walks of life.

“what’s most powerful is this becomes a tool for the guides, folks like shannon, to have more resources so that they can do their job with science support,” he said. “at the end of the day, what this is trying to do is help people understand. my goal is not at all to get every one of those folks to submit, it’s really more to have a few people turn on and stay turned on.”

the ship sails on

by the end of the expedition, i was hooked by happywhale’s mission. scanning their website, it’s easy to see the appeal and how powerful a tool it can be. a quick search allowed me to find the whales the naturalist had identified on our expedition. i then clicked on another upload from alaska and found other humpback whales, decades old, spotted as far as hawaii. 

unfortunately, i never got any close-up shots on my expedition to submit to happywhale. still, the memory of my adventure lives on thanks to the uploads of so many others. even having now left alaska, i am confident this tale will continue.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

there we were, hiking through the vast wilderness, or standing on the shores of remote beaches, or floating near the bases of staggering glaciers — and, yet, we didn’t feel separate from these unfamiliar surroundings. humbled; inspired; overwhelmed? absolutely. but not separate.

on the final day of our expedition, lindblad naturalist tim martin led a hike into the old growth forest of chichagof island. throughout our time in alaska, i’d had a camera in hand, filming our adventures and interviewing our planet forward cohort about the experience, with the intention of editing this very film upon our return. yet, we were warned that this particular hike was for those looking for a challenge and, sure enough, i found myself tucking my camera away in my pack to free two hands to brace myself on treacherous terrain and uncleared trails.

i nervously climbed up a steep, soily incline, steadied by the reaching hands of my human companions and the strong roots of the trees above. once at the top, we embarked deeper into the forest and tim stumbled upon a small, yellowish-green animal on the mossy floor. never one to pass up a teaching moment, tim picked up the banana slug and, at my request, handed it to me.

at first coiled into itself, the slug began to unwind once in my palm, revealing its four sensing tentacles and angling them directly toward me. i looked into the face of this seemingly alien creature, startlingly aware that, as it oozed protective mucus onto my hand, it saw an equally alien face looking back.

i beamed with pure joy.

in a time when so much of my life has been mediated through screens and one way interactions, when so much of my attention is pulled away from reality and toward something else, someplace else, the glance of this tiny, slimy being delivered a message. it said, “you are not a spectator on this planet. you, too, are part of the show.”

throughout our time in alaska, i got the sense that each of the storyfest winners had had their own parallel experiences: interactions with the landscape, its non-human inhabitants, and our human guides and companions, that viscerally reminded them of the ways in which we are all connected — the ways in which all of our actions are never truly ours, as their impacts stretch outward in ways we as individuals can never comprehend.

this, of course, is why we tell stories. we share experiences through stories with a deep knowledge that, in fact, all experiences are already shared.

will these heightened moments of connection with the earth and with each other, shared through stories, save our planet? 

no — but they remind us we have no choice but to keep trying.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

if you want to observe change and see how humans affect the world, go to the edges. whether it’s a natural landscape, a community, or a feeling inside you, spending time on life’s boundaries can transform your perspective. in ecological terms, edges are zones of transition from one ecosystem to another, where you can see dynamics and changes in species and activity that can explain, for instance, how some generalist plants thrive and others don’t. planet forward’s contingent traveled to the edge of southeast alaska, visiting its remote glacier-filled landscape, fjords, and islands with lindblad expeditions.

as a journalist covering environmental change and looming climate crisis over the past 23 years, i’ve hiked 100 miles along the continental divide in wyoming, accompanied a seedbank expedition in the andes of colombia, lived for two weeks at a remote biological research station in the peruvian amazon near bolivian and brazilian borders, sailed from the north atlantic to the caribbean, and walked through rice paddies of northern punjab, in india, reporting on the water adaptations near the pakistan border. in each instance, the location mattered. my stories covered the consequences of human actions on the people, food, and nature because these were places on some edge.

“whenever possible, go into the field,” i tell my science journalism students, “to a place where you can report what you see. what does it tell you?” place-based reporting has been harder in this time of covid-restricted travel, soaring fuel costs, and canceled flights. this trip with planet forward’s digital editor victoria middleton and our storyfest winners was a welcome return to the field, a chance to work with environmental storytellers to find their inspiration, and to experience a landscape where lindblad naturalists shed light on the world around us.

wild places are capable of making us feel small, yet they are places where humanity’s footprint is disproportionately large and visible.  
 
more of the world’s boundaries are at risk from human development and have proven to be at further risk from climate change, and so it’s important for those reporting on the natural world to spend time in it. alaska is being transformed by climate change at a rapid pace. temperatures have warmed more than 3 degrees fahrenheit, more than twice the warming seen in the rest of the united states. annual precipitation is increasing by 10%. late summer arctic sea ice has decreased significantly — it’s predicted that arctic waters in summer will be free of ice by 2050. still, alaska remains a source of resilience with its adaptation planning centered regionally.

we often turn away from news and images of climate destruction and environmental change, like the melting glaciers and dying animals that attest to the challenges of our sustainable future. but going to wild places focuses our attention on the forgotten beauty worth protecting, the precious intact environment teeming with life. that week in alaska, i saw a brown bear foraging for barnacles on the beach at dawn; humpback whales cooperatively feeding by forming “nets” by blowing bubbles; sea lions feasting on schools of fish; the marbled murrelet seabird, which takes its first flight to shore from its nest high in the old growth forest several miles away; and a mother sea otter diving for fish, surfacing with her pup on her chest to share in the catch.
 
this natural richness asks us — in all its beauty — to look at its strength of resilience and reflect on our own. wild places are capable of bouncing back. so are we. in 2015, the world came together and agreed to limit emissions that lead to an extreme and unpredictable climate future. it’s now time for us to deliver the goals we set to build a peaceful, more resilient planet — starting at the edges.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

during my time in alaska, i was in awe in many moments. but nothing felt as breathtaking — and unexpectedly alarming — as being in a sea of ice.

i always hear about the glaciers melting and that coastal areas will be underwater in a couple of decades. while that statement alone is terrifying, being in alaska raised some questions. what other visible changes can we see now due to climate change? how can we tell the story of climate change without words?

i learned more about the science and history of glaciers in alaska. for example, while they melt, they also tend to advance and retreat throughout the valley. so, when we went out into a fjord, i began connecting the dots — the glaciers leave imprints on the mountains, and that’s one of the ways scientists and environmental enthusiasts can study glaciers.

as i photographed ice and the mountains, i noticed some rusted terrain. these are called trimlines. as glaciers advance and retreat, they leave the rock bare, causing a line to form an iron-colored surface. what is alarming about this is how fast it’s occurring. tim martin, a lindblad expeditions naturalist aboard the national geographic sea lion, said some glaciers had advanced and retreated in the last five to 10 years.

before traveling to alaska, i would always note ongoing studies and research regarding climate change and the environment. yet, the clear visualization of trimlines brought me to realize that climate change doesn’t just exist in data but before our eyes.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

however, people’s use of oils came before we had engines to burn them. we have always chased fats for their energy. 

before my lindblad expedition trip to southeastern alaska, i subconsciously saw oil as something unnatural and something always damaging to ecosystems and to our own health. i now see oil as just another resource that industrialized societies have exploited and reaped in excess. the way we go about searching for energy, though, can vary from disastrous to or harmonious with nature, and we are at a crucial point in our atmospheric timeline to relearn old and sustainable ways of energy harvesting. 

fish as candles

the revelation began with my introduction to candlefish. on our second day in alaska, i joined a tour of the chilkat valley. with its pristine water and air quality, it is home to the latest salmon run of the year and is thus where eagles congregate in the fall. 

chilkat valley is aptly known as the valley of the eagles for its yearly visit of up to 3,000 eagles that decorate the trees like ornaments. living below the soaring eagles in this part of southeast alaska are the tlingit people who have been able to maintain their artistically expressive and resourcefully subsistent culture. historically, with all that their environment had to offer them, there was enough time for woodcarving, tapestry-weaving, and storytelling. 

“they have so much candlefish that the river turns black during their run,” our naturalist yelled over the bus engine and rattling windows. 

my ears perked up at that new fish name.

“hooligan is another name for candlefish, and it is so dense with oil that once it’s dry, it can be lit like a candle,” he continued. the klukwan clan gathered enough of the candlefish and traded the excess with the nearby abathascan peoples, establishing trade routes that were known as “grease trails.” this oil allowed them to light their homes and communities, as well as store food for up to a year in the oil. the fish itself also offers people half of their daily caloric needs due to the lipid density. agutuk or akutaq was even a pre-freezer ice cream made of hooligan oil, berries, and fresh snow for people in western alaska. the tlingit people who would procure the hooligan oil would mostly use it themselves to preserve berries, such as highbush cranberries, blueberries, and salmonberries, year-round.

the fish and its oils provided light, food preservation, and nutrition for people. the grease from the fish is high in unsaturated fats and provides more vitamin a, e, and k than other sources of fat. even meriwether lewis, of lewis and clark, stumbled upon it during his travel and journaled that it was “superior to any fish [he] ever tasted.” with so many benefits and uses, i was amazed i had never heard of this fatty fish. hooligan, however, remains a prized possession only to alaskans. because hooligan is primarily found in southeast alaska, it was not a resource that is known to outsiders and was never harvested on a large scale. 

whales as lamps

 

later that day, back aboard the national geographic sea lion, we spotted and watched a humpback whale join us at the surface. it was bubble-net feeding, creating a tunnel of bubbles in which plankton and small fish would be trapped. then it swam with an open mouth through the middle and burst through the surface. in 2022, it was captured only in our photographs, but if it had been 50 years ago, the spotted whale would have been hunted down. since whales are found in all of the world’s major oceans, they are a prized and sought-out source of oil. 

between the 18th and mid-19th centuries, oil lamps across the united states and much of the western world required oil extracted from whale blubber. while in inuit cultures, whaling is a culturally, spiritually, and materially significant tradition, american whalers went out to sea to harvest profitable carcasses. from when they first arrived to the north pacific in the 1830s, the american whalers over-hunted the waters. and by the 1940s they had pushed north into the bering sea. they were primarily after bowhead whales, since each yielded 100 barrels of oil whereas sperm whales averaged only 45 barrels of oil. 

in addition to the blubber oil, bowheads also provided bristly baleen, of which the baleen plates were cut and filed into corset fixtures, fishing rods, or buttons. the oil was used for lamps, cooking, soap, candles, paint, and mechanical lubrication. since whales provided so much raw material for luxury goods, there is a genre of paintings that glorify the whaling industry for the goods they produced. 

 

whereas subsistent cultures involve the whole community in the hunting, processing, and consumption of a whale, industrial societies left the hunting to the professional whalers, the processing to the factories, and consumption to the elite in societies. 

the commodification of whale oil and baleen were devastating to their populations. in 1853 whaling became the fifth-largest industry in the u.s., where 8,000 whales were killed for the sake of commercial goods. about 20 years later, petroleum wells popped up on the west coast of the u.s., providing an even more accessible and powerful oil. 

oil as explosive modernity

the growth of the new oil industry didn’t correlate with an immediate decline in whale hunting. petroleum-powered engines outcompeted wind-powered sails, and whaleships had a chance to become even more effective. the petroleum industry thus increased whaling efficiency before whaling would be officially banned in 1971. 

 

alaska’s first oil reserves were discovered in 1957, two years before alaska was granted statehood. it was in 1967, though, that alaska became known as an oil hub with the discovery of prudhoe bay’s oil deposits. experts estimated there to be 24 billion barrels of oil, of which 12 billion have been recoverable and so far extracted. 

but today’s oil flow is slowing. the petroleum flowing through the 800-mile trans-alaska pipeline from prudhoe bay is estimated to be about a quarter of its peak flow in the 1980s. not only does the petroleum seem to be slowing, but land sales and industry interest in the region seem to be dropping as well. most recently, the biden administration canceled the cook inlet lease sale which “would have opened more than one million acres for drilling.” 

while this was met with contempt from pro-oil representatives and individuals, the bureau of ocean energy management has canceled lease sales in the region in 2006, 2008, and 2010 due to a “lack” of interest from the industry as well.

having read headlines about alaskan residents relocating towns due to the permafrost-dense soils melting below their houses and infrastructure, i thought all of the state’s residents would be eager to move away from fossil fuels. but while they are feeling the effects of climate change so directly and rapidly, alaskan residents also directly benefit from the alaska permanent fund. the fund provides an annual check to families that is a percentage of alaska’s oil revenues, averaging a payment of $1,600 annually. beyond fossil fuel money however, alaskans can cut down costs by investing in renewables since they already pay almost double the amount citizens in the lower 48 are charged for utilities. 

a future for alaskan energy

on that day on the klehini river when i learned about candlefish, i also learned about a mining operation that has sprung up between klukwan and deishú (now known as haines). across from the river that is home to candlefish, salmon, and eagles, as well as the human residents of the valley, stands a shredded mountainside. known as the palmer project, the mine provides copper and zinc to the metal-heavy electronics and energy markets. here stands the frustrating reality of our industrial society. to continue feeding our energy-intensive lifestyles, we must source the energy from somewhere. 

europe and the united states were once fueled by local vegetable oil, before whales were hunted down in alaska, and later abandoned for oil reserves there and abroad. today, internationally, we are in an era of pushing past fossil fuels to reach mineral-intense electrification. our air may be near free of fossil fuel emissions, but is it guaranteed that our soil and water will be free of leached minerals and chemicals?

 

with four years spent pursuing a bachelors in environmental studies at george washington university, punctuated with my trip to alaska, i continue to be skeptical of an industry-first approach to solving our climate crisis. this is where technological advances paired with profit are expected to spur change. as we’ve seen from how we’ve fueled our societies since the industrial revolution, it is damaging and unsustainable. 

in contrast to phrases we hear in mainstream politics and media like “boost growth,” “revitalize the economy,” and “energy superpower,” the word we often heard in klukwan and describing the tlingit culture was “subsistence.” through art, business, and architecture, even today the tlingit people focus on the renewable and the regenerative. one tlingit woman, jodi mitchell, founded the inside passage electric cooperative, which is an energy group that installs small-scale hydroelectric dams that use slow-spinning blades that small fish can swim through and large fish can swim around. 

mitchell started a renewable energy project that meets human desires and needs as well as those needs of surrounding animals and the land. her work follows the increasingly renewable trend in alaska, where its contribution to state-wide energy has increased by 25% between 2010 and 2019. 

across the state, with many native alaskan-run projects, we see solar projects saving their communities $7,726 each and dams safely built on salmon-rich rivers that plan to soon provide 90% of igiugig’s power. beyond the typical solar and hydro projects we often discuss in the lower 48, alaska also now has biomass facilities that process wood or fish waste and kelp. 

humans, like all living things, need to take resources from the environment in order to survive. but like all other creatures, we collectively need to be more in tune with natural processes so that we don’t continue to strain our environments. 

einstein is quoted as saying, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” i deeply believe that we cannot solve an industrial issue with industrial methods. in this time of climate transformation and societal potential, we can use thoughtful technology on a smaller and more local scale to meet our energy needs. not energy wants, but energy needs.

i think it’s time we ask ourselves if we need to hunt a whale when we can just stick with a fish.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

we were three-quarters of a mile away and yet the glacier stood as a towering monument that was almost too large to comprehend. our boat’s collective silent awe broke when a sudden thunderous pounding traveled down the canyon like a booming heartbeat “ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.” 

“did you all hear that?” naturalist tim martin asked excitedly. a large chunk of ice breaking off the face of a glacier caused the sound — in an event called a “calving.” in addition to being a naturalist for lindblad expeditions, martin teaches geology, astronomy, art, and earth science at elon university. he has 20 years of experience in his field and i was grateful he was our guide on the zodiac that afternoon in tracy arm. being with him in that hallowed place of geology was an inspiring experience. 

my time in alaska taught me that rocks are our eldest knowledge holders. understanding ice, glaciers, mountains, and rocks is like understanding the language of the earth. after this trip, i believe that when we understand and connect personally with the earth, we are more deeply inspired to protect it. 

building and destroying the southeast alaskan mountains

“geologically, southeast alaska is a confusing place,” martin said. “southeast alaska’s mountains are like a conveyor belt at the grocery store that doesn’t have a cashier or bagger. all the material moves and then piles up at the end, tumbling and rolling over each other.” the tectonic activity (the large plates of land and ocean that make up the earth’s surface) in southeast alaska is strange and unique. it has produced some of the most beautiful and complex landscapes in the united states. southeast alaska has all three standard types of rock, sometimes several occurring in the same rock face. however, alaska has an iconic fourth kind of rock.  

“you know,” martin said, as he threw his whole upper body over the bow of the zodiac. “ice is a rock too!” martin popped back into our zodiac holding a 30-pound chunk of crystal-clear ice that had been floating in the fjord. he passed the hefty ice cube to me, and as it melted on my lap i listened to him tell us about the power of ice.

if rock built alaska, ice carved it. more specifically, ice was the vessel through which rock carved rock. the last ice age, which was 115,000 years ago, brought massive deposits of snow, creating vast snowfields across alaska with ice a mile thick. as these massive glaciers advanced and receded in cycles, they scraped huge amounts of fine rock material –– like the world’s heaviest piece of sandpaper –– across the great mountains of southeast alaska over and over and over. 

because of the glacier’s erosive power, the fjords and bays of alaska have a distinctive u-shape. in contrast, rivers carve canyons in sharper v-shapes like the grand canyon in my home state of arizona. the u-shaped chilkat valley can be seen clearly from about 3,000 feet on an airplane.

of ‘quartz’ rocks can speak!

martin and i first bonded over our shared love of rocks and outdoor rock climbing. i found kinship with the only other person on the expedition who would respond to the phrase, “it’s just a rock,” with a shocked and confused, “it’s just a rock?!” 

as i asked martin more questions about tracy arm’s unique geological features, i came to a profound and simple realization. once you understand the clues, places like tracy arm become storybooks. you can read a 100-million-year-old story written by earth herself. a rock’s type, age, magnetism, location, contents, shape, and composition are all bits of information one can use to determine the details of the place you are. 

i practiced this when i was walking with martin on the beaches of iyoukeen bay. he began to pick up the clues of his surroundings — the rocks began speaking to him. he noted the abundance of limestone and marble and the beach’s location in alaska and in relation to the pacific coast. he confidently said, “this was the bottom of the sea floor long ago.” i was amazed.

i wanted to get in on the conversation, so as any good budding geologist would, i had my eyes glued to the ground during our hike down the beach. i spotted a very peculiar and enchanting rock, and of course, i took it right over to martin for identification. “halley picked up fossilized coral,” he announced to the group. realizing i had picked up a piece of ancient history, i took my time admiring its smooth surface, its patterned grooves, and its dragon-like scales. the picture of the ancient sea bed was becoming clearer. 

martin then spotted more fossilized coral, and this time he was able to make an identification. he told me one of the fossils was that of a horn coral, an organism that existed only in the devonian period, making that fossil a minimum of 350 million years old. 

martin’s knowledge and my curiosity were the keys that unlocked a deep well of ancient knowledge. by reading the clues that earth left us on that beach, we were able to transport ourselves to a land before our time. it was a humbling experience to put myself and my life on the geological time scale of earth. it made me think about the blip that is all of human life compared to the forever of earth. the earth has always and will continue to leave clues for us to understand her. the earth speaks. rocks speak. we just have to know how to hear them. if humans spend less time talking and more time listening, we might just be able to make our profound effect on the earth a positive one. 

it is a magical experience to be able to read the earth in her native language in alaska –– it is a way to connect and engage with the natural world. that connection to the natural world is critical right now because it is what inspires us to fight for the health and safety of earth’s wildest places. martin said the reason he loves exploring alaska is that “…coming to wild and unaltered places is the way we can read the story of life on this planet.” i couldn’t agree more.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

it felt nice to feel so small. everyday i’m the center of my world, and it’s easy to get caught up in everything i have going on. but to feel tiny and insignificant gave me the freedom to slow down and take a breath. to walk through a forest that predates glaciers really puts my little life in perspective. and it feels so good to get lost in the wilderness (metaphorically, hopefully never literally). alaska is a place to go to lose yourself, and i think eventually find yourself.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

i was grateful to feel that on the boat as well. everyone on board had gratitude for the spaces we were able to explore and learn from. alaska has a long history of extraction where people have come to take advantage of the resources, animals, and people there, and before my trip, i was nervous about contributing to that. but now after talking to the naturalists and other guests, i’ve come to accept that humans, just like other animals do need and use parts of the environment. our responsibility is to not cause damage and be as subsistent as we can. along with the attention to not take away too much, i also realized i need to give back to spaces i’m in. i took away food, water, memories, and knowledge from alaska, and in return i made sure to pick up trash, spread seeds, and not bother animals when i could. going back to dc, i’m eager to grow the connections i have to the natural elements of my urban space so that eventually with volunteering i help can grow forests where we once had a yard; a river where we once had a stream; a family where we once had a group of strangers. i’m so grateful for this experience and am eager provide you with alaska’s story around lipids, from candlefish to whales to oil reserves.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

my intellectual curiosities were stoked by the seemingly endless knowledge of the many naturalists on board. the naturalists had incredible presentations about geology, glaciology, marine ecology, and even squid physiology (complete with a on-deck dissection of a squid we found on a beach)! i found myself falling deeper in love with the natural world and finding new exciting disciplines — like geology. i’ll be writing my story about the language of rocks — so stay tuned!

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

another highlight of the trip was the experiences lindblad scheduled for the passengers. we were able to pack crusading by the glaciers, kayaking, and hiking into one day — and that was only on day two! my favorite excursion was biking in lutak. i would never have imagined saying i biked 9 miles watching the snowy mountains and the vast oceans in alaska, but now i can!

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.