Earth, 18,000 years before the present
it's a world locked in cold
at the height of the last great Ice Age
Across tens of thousands of years
unmelting snows have compacted into massive glaciers
Buried under ice sheets averaging a mile thick
are lands where hundreds of millions live today
As Earth's water is increasing locked up in ice
sea levels plummet more than a hundred meters
Exposed sea floor nearly joins Australia to Southeast Asia
Japan becomes part of mainland Asia
Across North America ice fields and glaciers
envelop all of Canada and northernmost United States
As the Ice Age spreads Alaska emerges as a crossroads
Off it's Bering sea coastline
the retreating ocean exposes a great land bridge
a thousand miles wide connecting Asia to America
Across this corridor a river of living creatures would flow
It was the genesis of a great wave of life
that would inhabit the Americas and this was it's Eden
Crossing into ancient Alaska
migrating herds find new forage and sheltering valleys
but they're followed from Asia by fierce carnivore
saber toothed cats giant bears
and the greatest of all predators
They arrive in small bands from Siberia
pressing east in pursuit of game
unaware they're discovering a continent
The hunters are sustained by bison moose woolly mammoth
and the wild reindeer called caribou
Where frozen tundra limits vegetation meat is life
Most of the year it is kill or starve
The hunters prosper here across millennia
but as the receding Ice Age
opens the wall of glaciers to the south
most move on with the herds
into the virgin continents beyond
Their descendants will become Apache and Sioux Aztec and Maya
Inca and Amazonian
Yet some remain in Alaska
For them this is a world of
mysterious forces and spirits
To science the Aurora Borealis is created
by streams of charged particles from the sun
colliding with the atmosphere
To some Native Americans the Northern Lights
were children not yet born at play in the heavens
Here at the far edges of existence
the wildness of the ancient earth
never vanished
Even today the solitude of the past
is broken only occasionally by the sound of the present
In Alaska the last great Ice Age survives
Vast regions appear as lifeless as a frozen planet
Sheer walls a mile deep loom as monuments to the power
of the glaciers which carved them
Most of its rugged terrain can be crossed only with wings
Massive snowfalls compress glacial ice
so dense in some places
only a single color of the spectrum is reflected
an ethereal blue
chilling and strangely beautiful
Where the frozen rivers end
icebergs are born in a spectacle so mighty
native tribes call it "While Thunder"
Some blocks are the size of 30 story buildings
It would seem a place too hostile for living things
but each year after a winter that can last nine months
Alaska erupts with life
Hundreds of thousands of birds
stream here from as far away as Antarctica
to breed in Alaska's protected cliffs and coves
and to feed on it's rich seas
For one brief season of abundance
life flourishes
Ice falls turn to waterfalls
Grasses emerge fueled by up to 24 hours of sunlight a day
Animals hurry to store up nutrients
before winter returns
Without the plenty of the warm season
life couldn't survive the long months of bitter cold
Famished from half a year of hibernation
even the lordly brown bear
is content to graze in spring
sharing the meadows with caribou too fleet to be caught
As bellies fill play begins
There is other business conducted
in the fields of fresh grass
the age old rite of spring
They will remain a couple for only a day or two
sharing a rough affection
Bear hugs will lead to the conception of new life
to be born in the hibernation den
in the dead of winter
A world of extremes
Alaska is swept by enormous tidal fluctuations
Low tide can drain an entire bay like a bathtub
Taking advantage of the low tides
brown bears roam the exposed tidal flats
to dig for clams
Any protein is welcome in the effort
to replenish a body that can weigh 1,400 pounds
Perhaps noticing the success
of mother and cub an imitator arrives
But clamming is not as easy as it looks
and just move on
As summer's warmth deepens
Alaska's three million lakes turn to gathering places
Beavers prepare
for the ravages of cold weather ahead
by repairing their lodges
Moose feast on tender aquatic plants
hidden on lake bottoms
Wolf pups gorge on mother's milk
to reach near adult size before winter arrives
But the serenity of summer
can be shattered by the approach of an intruder
The black bear has a fearsome reputation
but it's the most playful of bear species
and with the coast clear and the water cool
even a bear may succumb
to the impulse merely to have fun
Life along the coast too is eased by the warm season
After a winter battered by North Pacific storms
sea lion colonies haul out to sun themselves
like vacationers enjoying a day at the beach
A game of King of the Mountain ensues
In the world of sea lions size matters
but patience succeeds
Ungainly on shore the sea lion moves in the sea
with the ease of a circus performer
both acrobat and clown
Like its meadows Alaska's seas bloom with fertility
under the lengthening daylight
So rich are the waters