Welcome to the Arctic

We have been working hard with photographer Florian Schulz and his wife, Emil, to prepare for our upcoming project To the Arctic. Although we're excited to have the book finished and sent to the printer, it is just the beginning of our advocacy work. We have some incredible partners in this project, including MacGillivray Freeman Films, Alaska Wilderness League, One World One Ocean Foundation and Oceana.

In the next few months we will be launching a new website: WelcometotheArctic.org. We want to create a platform where readers of To the Arctic, and viewers of MacGillivray Freeman's To The Arctic 3D, can learn more about the project - from the photography and stories, to the advocacy work that our partners are doing to protect the delicate Arctic landscape. We hope that you will connect with us at WelcometotheArcitc.org and that we can build a community of organizations and individuals that can have a real impact in protecting the Arctic for generations.

For now, you can join Welcome to the Arctic on Facebook or follow To_The_Arctic on Twitter.

Salmon in the Trees in Alaska

Photographer Amy Gulick spent months trekking through the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the US, to photograph the incredible array of wildlife there. Her book, Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest, describes the intricate connections between the salmon, bears, eagles and trees in the Tongass. Through her images and essays, Amy describes how all life in the rain forest is dependent on the health of the trees and salmon streams, including the people who call Southeast Alaska home.

This summer, Amy had the chance to bring the story of Salmon in the Trees back to Southeast Alaskan communities, at the heart of the Tongass. In celebration of United Nations International Year of Forests, we are partnering with the US Forest Service, Alaska Wilderness League, and the National Forest Foundation to bring the Salmon in the Trees photography exhibit to five communities in Southeast Alaska.

We have been thrilled by the warm reception Amy Gulick and Salmon in the Trees have received from the people of Southeast Alaska! In Amy’s words:

“One of the most gratifying achievements for me of Salmon in the Trees has been the overwhelming positive response from people who live in Southeast Alaska. Many local people have thanked me for making a book that celebrates their home and their special way of life. The book has given people a sense of pride for where they live. The 2011 collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service to tour the Salmon in the Trees exhibit throughout Southeast Alaska is an astounding step in the right direction that the Tongass will be viewed and managed as a forest that grows salmon.”

Florian Schulz in National Geographic

Several months ago, photographer Florian Schulz told us that images from his work in the Arctic would appear in the July issue of National Geographic. The magazine arrived on newsstands in the end of June, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with how it turned out! The incredible photographs of polar bears accompany a story by Audubon Contributing Editor Susan McGrath. The article is called On Thin Ice, and it describes the threats facing polar bears in the rapidly warming arctic climate. If the sea ice continues to shrink, polar bears could face extinction in the wild.

Polar bears have become a symbol not only for the arctic, but for global warming in general. No other species is being affected as dramatically as the polar bears that rely on the sea ice to hunt for food.

See the photos that appear in the National Geographic story, along with many more photos from Florian’s travels in the far north, will be featured in his upcoming Braided River book To the Arctic, coming Fall 2011 . The book follows the cycle of a year in the arctic, and captures the incredible diversity of life that can be found there. It is the companion book to the IMAX Theatre film by MacGillivray Freeman Films, which will be released worldwide in spring 2012.

For the full story from National Geographic, click here

To keep up to date with news about To the Arctic and events and exhibits by Florian Schulz, stay tuned here or head to our website (www.BraidedRiver.org) to sign up to receive our quarterly newsletter.

COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE

DECEMBER 2009

Before I left for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, I attended a holiday sale featuring our books. Two young girls around six years of age raced around the room stacked high with titles, pressing their noses to the covers and commenting to each other how each book “smelled” like whatever was pictured on the cover of the book. “This book smells like a tree.” “This one smells like a waterfall.” Their imaginations ran wild, and I enjoyed spying.

Stopping before a stack of copies of The Last Polar Bear one girl looked soberly at a mother with cub alone upon a vast field of broken ice.

CLIMATE CHANGE COLOR

December 10, Copenhagen. Six-foot whimsical globes encircle the square at KGS.Nytorv. The human scale allows for a more intimate relationship with the people who pass by.

Public art in public spaces engage in ways that a museum cannot duplicate. The chance encounters with something unfamiliar are provocative, and engaging. Is the experience also fleeting, and trivial?

Perhaps some remnant of the humor and irony will trigger a lingering mantra. A failure of political will begins with a failure of the imagination.

There is an abundance of public art at COP15—perhaps it might provide the gift of a more poetic reverie to those who have become burdened during this plodding process.

ANIMALS HAVE CLIMATE CHANGE ADVOCATE

December 10, 2009
Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
World Wildlife Fund
ARCTIC TENT, Nytorv Square
The life-size ice sculpture of a polar bear in front of the WWF Arctic tent has been slowly melting. The translucent white ice has disappeared in places to reveal projections of a skeletal bone structure of the great white bear. Envisioned by renowned wildlife sculptor Mark Coreth, this must be the most photographed piece of public art in the city. The dynamic dripping and alterations fascinate—and the metaphor is both blunt and literal. The Arctic is melting.

The WWF invited Braided River photographer and adventurer Steven Kazlowski to do two public presentations based on our book THE LAST POLAR BEAR: Facing the Truth of a Warming World. His images are also featured in the public square outside the giant WWF Arctic Tent. It’s a way to let the delegates to COP15 and citizens of Copenhagen hear the story of the turmoil facing this remote and highly impacted region.