For five decades, scientists have f locked to a research camp in the Yukon to study the

surrounding mountains and glaciers. The food and showers are hot, the camaraderie is

contagious and the possibilities for discovery are endless. BY TERESA EARLE WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY FRITZ MUELLER

ICEFIELDS OF DREAMS

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 3534 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

Field assistant Chris Baird(ABOVE) coasts past the messhall at the Kluane LakeResearch Station. The base andits seasonal field camps, such asPika Camp (PREVIOUS PAGES, left),have given scientists access toMount Logan (PREVIOUS PAGES,right), the St. Elias icefields and other terrain for nearly 50 years. KLRS is also known forhearty meals in the mess hall(OPPOSITE LEFT) and impromptugames of ultimate Frisbee onthe airstrip (OPPOSITE RIGHT).

AA yellow JetRanger helicopter emerges from the shroud ofsmoke that envelops Kluane Lake Research Station and lands onthe gravel airstrip. When the rotor wash subsides, four beardedresearchers pile out and duck under the spinning blades. Thisscraggly-looking crew, wearing hard-shell bib pants and moun-taineering boots, has just spent a month doing fieldwork in theSt. Elias icefields, in nearby Kluane National Park. Weary fromtheir extended expedition and craving a hearty meal, they strolltoward the mess hall, followed by the pilot, who knows that arriv-ing around 6 p.m. always elicits a dinner invitation.

Tonight, more than 30 people are eating and bunking atthis bustling science outpost, 220 kilometres northwest ofWhitehorse. Wielding the kitchen’s cleavers and blackenedpans, two university students named Virginia have turned outa spread of gravy-laden roast pork, vegetables, macaroni, saladand Nanaimo bars. Researchers and field assistants load theirplates, grab bottles of beer and mugs of juice and find seats atthe folding tables in the middle of the room.

The research station is the flagship facility of the Universityof Calgary-based Arctic Institute of North America (AINA), butthe mess hall is a Second World War-era U.S. Army hut that waspurchased for $1 in the 1960s from a road construction camptwo kilometres down the Alaska Highway and reassembled here beside the airstrip. A painting of a Kluane Lake scene by aformer artist-in-residence anchors one end of the hall, andframed black and white photographs of icy peaks hang betweenthe windows. Under the glare of incandescent lights, several generations are gathered for this meal, like a large extendedfamily. Graduate students rub elbows with Parks Canada archae-ologists and academic superstars: the three University of BritishColumbia (UBC) emeritus profs here this evening — ecologistCharles Krebs, anthropologist Julie Cruikshank and glaciologistGarry Clarke — are leaders in their fields. Several of the youngerprofs first came to Kluane Lake Research Station (KLRS) as gradstudents; now they’re back with students of their own.

Although the University of Ottawa’s undergraduate geogra-phy field school ended last week, student energy still dominates.“We had a rockin’ party here when you guys were away,” Ioverhear one field assistant report to another, who just returnedfrom the icefields. Later, the camp’s twentysomethings will congregate in the mess hall, raid the fridge, play Spoons and sample a batch of spruce-tip beer.

Legendary and jocular bush pilot Andy Williams presides over the scene. Williams and his wife Carole have managed KLRS for 37 years; their daughter, son-in-law and grand-daughter are here too. Adding to the family vibe, I’m joined bymy biologist-turned-photographer husband Fritz Mueller, whocompleted his master’s fieldwork at the base in the early 1990s,and our two young daughters. They quickly stake out the kids’corner near the barrel stove, adding their crayons to the pile ofbooks and toys that has been accumulating for decades.

After dinner, I step outside. The air is thick with smoke —it’s early August, the forest is tinder-dry, and it’s wildfire seasonin the Yukon. The station’s signature view of the Kluane frontranges is reduced to a hazy outline of Sheep Mountain, so I takein the dreary foreground: a utilitarian hodgepodge of about20 cabins, sheds and repurposed barracks for work and sleepscattered across 60 hectares of bog on the shore of Kluane

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 3736 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

Lake. The smell of sewage cuts through the smoke; thebase’s septic system and outhouses need work.

Leaving the camp common, I wander down a soggy trail,through thickets of willow, to the lakeshore. Without thesmoke, the view from this spot would be stunning: a ceruleanlake foaming with whitecaps and mountain flanks draped inalpenglow. It’s largely because of these mountains that scientists enjoy a rich smorgasbord of research possibilitiesat KLRS and its half-dozen satellite camps in the surround-ing wilderness. They can move between boreal forest, alpinetundra and ice on a short hike. Elsewhere in Canada, onemust fly thousands of kilometres to experience similar tran-sitions between ecosystems.

This facility is hardly a luxe destination, yet KLRS is a storied hub of northern science that has generated around1,200 peer-reviewed papers and hosted some 3,000researchers who have come here to study glaciology, geomor-phology, geology, geography, ecology, botany, zoology, hydrol-ogy, limnology, climatology, high-altitude physiology,anthropology and archaeology. Although many head into themountains and forest to conduct fieldwork, sometimes forweeks on end, all rely on the base as a place to eat and sleepand shower, to aggregate and analyze data, to collaborate and socialize with colleagues. For the 100 or soscientists who beat a path to its door every year, KLRS offersan intangible mix of wilderness and camaraderie and myriadopportunities for scientific inquiry.

Even on the longest days of the northern summer, themorning sun takes a while to warm the bluffs lining PrintersPass, about 20 kilometres north of KLRS in the Ruby Range.A mug of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal take the edge off thecold as Queen’s University ecologist Ryan Danby and his fieldassistant Aimée Brisebois prepare for another workday.Juneau, Danby’s yellow Lab, wags his whole body excitedlyas they pack lunches and shoulder backpacks. All is quietexcept for the shrill “eep!” of collared pikas scamperingaround this alpine Eden.

Brisebois and Danby are setting out to take soil samplesand record soil temperature using buried thermistors.They’ll also spend a lot of time hunched over a one-square-metre quadrat, a frame used by ecologists to systematicallymeasure vegetation. Much of Danby’s research focuses onupward advances in the treeline — the transition zonebetween boreal forest and subarctic alpine tundra — inresponse to a warming climate. Using tree-ring analysis, aerial photography and GIS mapping, he has documentedrapid treeline advances, challenging conventional thinkingthat such movement would be gradual.

Danby is part of a network of circumpolar researchers whocollaborated on an International Polar Year (IPY) projectinvestigating changes in the Arctic treeline. His interests arebroad and interdisciplinary, which helps explain why hefavours the flexibility of a tent to the comforts of a fixedcamp. Danby and Brisebois will stay in the pass for fournights before hiking back to KLRS to shower and resupplyfor their next stint in the field.

Danby first came to this area in 1996 to work on a master’sdegree in environmental studies, looking at ways of integrat-ing ecology with park management. He couldn’t have pickeda better destination. Prompted by the construction of the

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Alaska Highway during the Second World War, the Canadiangovernment had set aside a triangle of wilderness in southwest-ern Yukon as a wildlife reserve. Kluane National Park andReserve is the 21,980-square-kilometre legacy of this decision. Combined with adjacent parks — Tatshenshini-Alsek Park in British Columbia and Wrangell-Saint EliasNational Park and Glacier Bay National Park in the UnitedStates — it forms the world’s largest international protectedzone. Noted for many superlatives — it is home to NorthAmerica’s most genetically diverse population of grizzly bears,for example, and contains the planet’s largest non-polar icefields— Kluane National Park is the research station’s wild backyard.

“I don’t know if there’s a suitable adjective that reallydescribes everything here in one word,” says Danby. “It’s theplace, it’s the people … I feel comfortable here.”

A third-generation KLRS alumni, Danby conducted hisPh.D. fieldwork here with University of Alberta ecology professor David Hik, who did his research here with Krebsin the 1980s during a landmark study of boreal forest ecology. From 1986 to 1996, led by Krebs, nine professorsfrom three universities, 26 grad students and 93 assistantsand technicians participated in an academic assault on theforest. The star of the Kluane Boreal Forest EcosystemProject was the snowshoe hare, a keystone species that’scentral to the fate of many other animals and plants, but thebody of work that emerged from the study was far-reaching.As a large-scale examination of an entire ecosystem — onethat circles the globe and remains relatively intact — Kluane’sboreal study has global currency, says Hik. It became amodel for ecological research around the world.

Longtime KLRS manager AndyWilliams gets a hug from his

granddaughter Bronwyn (ABOVE),who has spent all of her eightsummers at the base. Williams

and his wife Carole raised theirchildren at KLRS and have

worked together to maintain afamily atmosphere that keeps

researchers coming back.Scientists are also drawn to the

location’s stunning scenery, suchas this flash of fireweed (TOP) on

the shore of Kluane Lake.

KLUANE

TATSHENSHINI -ALSEK PARK

GLACIER BAY NATIONAL PARKAND PRESERVE

KLUANE WILDLIFE SANCTUARY

Carcross

PACIFIC OCEAN

ALAS K A HIGHW

AY

NATIONAL PARK

AND RESERVE

A L AS

KA

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Kluane Lake Research Station

Y U K O N

B R I T I S H C O L U M B I A

Sheep Mtn.Printers Pass

PikaCamp

Glacier 1, 2 camps

Icefield Discovery Camp

WRANGELL-ST. ELIAS NATIONAL

PARK AND PRESERVE

Kluane Glacier

CANADA

U.S.A.

Kaskawulsh Glacier

S t . E l i a s

i c e f i e l d s

K L U A NE R A N G E S

Mount Logan

RUBY RANGEKluane

Lake

WHITEHORSEHaines Junction

Burwash Landing

Yakutat

Skagway

Haines

3

1

21

7

98

0 100 km50

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 3938 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

“It is often said that the longest way round is the shortest way home.… We have been doing a great deal, butour research accomplishments have been few.” Walter Wood’sjournal entry on July 22, 1961, acknowledged that workingin the St. Elias Mountains consumed a significant amount oftime and resources and didn’t leave much of either for science.Bad weather hounded Wood and his team, and they foundthemselves preoccupied with logistics, camp constructionand an icefield rescue. Nevertheless, the founder of KLRSreported that his first Yukon field season was both challeng-ing and inspiring.

An AINA director based in New York City, Wood beganstudying the region’s glaciers in 1948 from a coastal basein Yakutat, Alaska. In 1961, he helped launch the IcefieldRanges Research Project (IRRP), an ambitious multidis-ciplinary study of the high-mountain environment, andoversaw the creation of a field station at an abandonedairstrip beside Kluane Lake. The new base provided morefavourable weather conditions than did the coast and easyaccess from the Alaska Highway.

Station infrastructure was spartan in those early years,mainly Jamesway huts and canvas tents. KLRS was family-run, with wives and children staying through the summer andhelping with cooking and camp chores. In the mid-1970s,a log building was erected to support year-round researchprojects. Largely funded by a donation from Wood, it remainsone of the station’s few winterized structures. Except for thewash house, a lab and a few sleeping cabins, KLRS looksmuch as it did 30 years ago.

The centrepiece of the St. Elias Mountains is MountLogan, which, at 5,959 metres, is Canada’s highest peak. Themassif dwarfs more than a dozen 4,500-metre peaks in therange. When the American military took a strategic interestin altitude sickness in the 1960s, a team of medical researchersselected Logan for the High Altitude Physiology Study(HAPS), which ran from 1967 to 1979 and was one of theIRRP’s flagship programs. HAPS was launched to study theeffects of hypoxia and other altitude-related ailments, and itwouldn’t have been possible without the handful of ballsy, talented pilots — men like Dick Ragle, Phil Upton andAndy Williams — who landed and took off throughout theicefields in turbocharged, ski-equipped Helio Couriers. Thesepilots enabled researchers to conduct intensive scientificinvestigations across a region the size of Switzerland.

Williams, a former Outward Bound instructor and moun-taineer from Wales who had worked at research stations inAntarctica and northern Quebec, was hired as KLRS manager in 1973. Within a year, in addition to running dailyoperations and overseeing field logistics, he was routinelylanding at the 5,440-metre HAPS camp on one of MountLogan’s snowy, sloping plateaus. There was little margin forerror, yet Williams successfully completed nearly 200 flights,including 11 trips in 1980 to position the equipment neededto take the first ice core from Mount Logan’s Northwest Col— 103 metres of ice that proved vital for paleoenvironmen-tal studies. “Believe it or not,” says glaciologist GerryHoldsworth, “we’re still analyzing data from that ice core.”

Remote bases are notoriously difficult to staff, but inWilliams, AINA found a triple threat: a manager, a pilot and a consummate host committed to sticking around.

“It’s totally unique in the history of northern research stations,”says his boss, AINA executive director Benoit Beauchamp.“Andy can land that plane just about anywhere, but moreimportant, he creates a very family-oriented atmosphere,”which keeps scientists coming back, says Beauchamp, in spiteof the infrastructure.

Williams is part of the institutional memory at KLRS.Through decades of observation, he has even earned co-authorships on academic papers. But he’s more comfort-able holding court at the airstrip, where tourists sometimesstop by as they drive up the Alaska Highway. A few years ago,actor Ewan McGregor pulled in on his motorcycle. Somewomen at the base were swooning, but the TV-averseWilliams had no idea the man was a celebrity. “Sport,” hesaid to McGregor, “come and have lunch, but frankly, I don’t have a clue who you are.’”

Kluane National Park’s Lowell Glacier(OPPOSITE) and the surrounding icefieldsform an ideal study area for glaciolo-gists like Gwenn Flowers (BOTTOM). Sheand her team spent a month campedbetween a pair of glaciers last summeras part of a project to create bettermodels of climate-driven glacierchange. Their field season windingdown for another year, Flowers’ gradstudents and assistants unload equip-ment from a helicopter at KLRS (BELOW)and pack it up for storage (LEFT).

A handful of ballsy, talented

pilots landed and took off

throughout the icefields, making

it possible to conduct scientific

investigations across a region

the size of Switzerland.

Fresh snow dusts the mountaintops ofKluane National Park in early September.The park, home to North America’s mostgenetically diverse population of grizzlybears and the planet’s largest non-polar ice-fields, is the research station’s wild backyard.

42 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

For a glaciologist determined to tease out the rela-tionship between glaciers and climate change, the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains are a dynamic study area. According toGwenn Flowers, who has spent eight seasons working fromKLRS since 1995 — first as a UBC grad student and nowas an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair inGlaciology at Simon Fraser University — it’s one of theworld’s fastest-shrinking glaciated mountain complexes andis making a significant contribution to rising sea levels.

After spending the past month camped on a morainebetween the Kaskawulsh and Kluane glaciers, about 50kilometres southwest of KLRS, Flowers and her four-personcrew have been back at the base for 48 hours. They’re pack-ing equipment for storage, poring over the contents of

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 43

dozens of aluminum crates, but when the thwump-thwump-thwump of a helicopter gets louder, they bolt toward the runway to receive another slingload of gear. A large steamdrill, a relic from glacier research in the 1980s, hangs in thecargo net. The smoke has thinned, and two days of gustingwinds and poor visibility have broken, so Williams’ plane anda helicopter from nearby Haines Junction, Y.T., are busy until evening, when the airstrip is appropriated for a gameof ultimate Frisbee.

In the field, the morning commute for Flowers and hercolleagues was a 45-minute walk from camp to a glacier fora day of skiing and climbing to various sites on the crevassedice, all the while hauling sleds and backpacks loaded withsafety gear and research tools. Some days, they clocked

University of Alberta stu-dent Natalie Stafl (ABOVE)

worked on long-term pikaresearch at Pika Camp lastsummer. Her study on pikafood preferences included

some live trapping. Theclutter in the camp’s field

laboratory (RIGHT), housedin a Weatherhaven shelter,

offers a glimpse of thechaos researchers embrace

while away from theiroffices and urban routines.

10 hours on the ice before they had finished downloadingdata from a weather station or installing a new GPS receiver.

Conducting glaciology research, says Flowers, is as muchabout budget, safety, strong backs and mountaineering skillsas it is about the science. “It wouldn’t have the same allure,”she says, “if everything were easy.” Flowers spends a “largefraction” of her budget on training for personnel (such aswilderness first aid and crevasse rescue courses) and equip-ment (bear fences, climbing gear, satellite phones). “You lookat your priorities,” she says, “and the science almost alwayshas to come last.”

Her team is trying to better understand the mechanics ofdiminishing glaciers. Flowers is part of a communications-savvy generation of researchers who routinely articulate

their theses for public consumption, and she describes herresearch in a way that makes it sound compelling and relevant. Still, terms like parameterization, till viscosity andbasal mechanics creep into her speech, and she patientlyexplains herself for my benefit. In short, Flowers is here tocollect data that will help them build more reliable modelsof climate-driven glacier change.

Among the challenges facing scientists who come to KLRS,the high cost of transportation stands out. Many rely on air-craft while conducting their projects. At $1,300 an hour fora helicopter, Flowers spends up to $2,600 for each round tripto her research camp. Aircraft charter has always been anexpensive part of northern research, but with rising fuel,insurance and maintenance costs, the price of a flight has

UBC Ph.D. student JennieMcLaren uses a quadrat(LEFT) for a project examingthe role different plantcommunities play in ecosys-tem function while fieldassistant Peter deKoningtakes notes. To reach PikaCamp (BELOW) from KLRS,one must embark on abumpy one-hour drive andthen hike for four hours.

44 CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

increased nearly 40 percent over the past 10 years. Moreover,while the politicization of climate change has helped mobi-lize resources, it has also created a quagmire of interests andbureaucracies of which many researchers have grown weary.

But these are challenges, not barriers. And thanks to thediversity of research under way at KLRS, the station has longbeen a catalyst for the cross-fertilization of ideas and disciplinesthat might not otherwise occur. At the base, I meet two grad-uate students, Scott Donker and Michael Sheriff. They camehere to do separate projects — Sheriff ’s research focuses onsnowshoe hares, while Donker is examining population changesover elevation gradients among Arctic ground squirrels —and decided to take on an additional collaborative study onsquirrels. Similarly, Hik, Danby, Flowers and others collabo-rated on an IPY project to bring together ecologists and earthscientists to examine Kluane’s alpine ecosystems.

Before returning to their respective universities, Flowersand Danby also team up for the 45-minute drive to HainesJunction, headquarters of Kluane National Park as well as

If you renovate it, they will come

After decades of band-aid improvements, Kluane Lake Research Station is getting a

$3.4 million make-over. KLRS is one of 20 research projects spread across 37 sites

benefiting from an $85 million investment by the federal government to upgrade

Canada’s northern-research infrastructure. “This grant dwarfs anything obtained in

the past,” says Benoit Beauchamp, executive director of the Arctic Institute of North

America, which operates KLRS. “In the past, we’d have been excited about $10,000.”

Beauchamp’s plans for the coming year include a new kitchen/cafeteria, bunkhouse,

warehouse, powerhouse and showers. All new buildings will be winterized, and some exist-

ing structures will be renovated. A sizable part of the budget will be

dedicated to systems upgrades: wiring, septic, a new well, some solar panels. Scientists have

also told Beauchamp that better internet connectivity is a top priority.

Although $3.4 million is a lot of money, it doesn’t stretch far in a region with high

transportation and construction costs. Nevertheless, the investment will totally transform

what Beauchamp already considers one of Canada’s top three northern science camps,

along with bases in Churchill, Man., and Resolute, Nunavut. Nearly $49 million of the

$85 million Arctic Research Infrastructure Fund will build new facilities at eight research

centres in Churchill, Resolute, Iqaluit and Quebec’s Nunavik region. The remaining

$36 million will be divided among a dozen other projects from Labrador to the Yukon.

Scientists welcome this investment in infrastructure, but as the curtain comes down

on International Polar Year, there are lingering questions about the sustainability of

research in Canada’s North. “On the one hand, it’s fantastic,” says Simon Fraser University’s

Gwenn Flowers, before adding what many researchers think but few will say publicly.

“Scientists fear that all the money is going into infrastructure, while there’s less money

being put into operating grants to actually do the research, so it’s maybe a bit bittersweet.”

For now, Beauchamp is focused on making sure the renovated KLRS is ready for the

station’s 50th anniversary in 2011. “What a fabulous transition for a new crop of scientists

to start their careers in a brand-new place,” he says, “but also a place where they’re sitting

on the shoulders of giants.” T.E.

A late-night game of Spoonsin the mess hall (ABOVE)showcases the youthfulnessand camaraderie that’s usually evident at KLRS.Regardless of the upcomingrenovations, most peopleassociated with the camp feel that its magic won’t belost when new buildings areerected and the make-over is complete.

Ecologist David Hik (LEFT), whois also executive director of theCanadian IPY Secretariat, hasbeen doing research out ofPika Camp for 15 years.

the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. They’re two ofthe newest professors at KLRS, and they’re on their way toa meeting with Parks Canada’s new First Nations liaison.“Once, I heard that an elder had said, ‘How nice it is thatsomebody from the Arctic Institute is here — we hardly eversee them,’” says Danby. “We’re trying to change that slowly.It’s not a knock against past KLRS users; it’s just a changein the way things are done.”

Snowshoe hare research brought David Hik to KLRS in1988, but he was quickly lured beyond the area’s boreal valleys. Intrigued by stories about collared pikas in the icefields,Hik went into the St. Elias Mountains to investigate pikas that survive on nunataks, islands of rock that rise from the sea of glaciers. He found that the normally herbivorous rab-bit relative was supplementing its diet by eating dead birds.

A Canada Research Chair in Northern Ecology at theUniversity of Alberta and executive director of the CanadianIPY Secretariat, Hik has helped shape the objectives ofCanada’s IPY program. His IPY position has meant years oftravel and politicking, so right now, he’s just happy to be atPika Camp, his 15-year-old seasonal field station in theRuby Range.

With their gentle profile and worn appearance, the Rubiesare a stark contrast to the rugged, more seismically activeSt. Elias range. Getting to Pika Camp, a cluster of 10 dometents and three Weatherhaven shelters surrounded by an elec-tric bear fence, entails a bumpy one-hour drive from KLRS,followed by a four-hour hike. From late spring until early fall,graduate students and field assistants spread out across thesemeadows to study pikas, marmots, ground squirrels, vegeta-tion and other aspects of alpine ecology. It’s not glamorouswork. Eschewing bathing, fending off mosquitoes and doinga long list of camp chores are part of the daily grind, but whenyou spend most of your work life at a computer or a lectern,these light-infused months fuel the rest of your year.

Much of Hik’s early research had focused on the ecologyof grazing animals, so the industrious pika, which stores hayto eat through the winter, was an appealing subject. In theirfirst few years in the Ruby Range, Hik and his team believedthat pika populations were fairly stable, but then some

unusually warm winters saw their numbers collapse.Vulnerable to heat and limited in its mobility, the pika hasbecome a tiny harbinger of global warming. “I didn’t comehere specifically to study climate change,” says Hik. “Butonce we realized how responsive the plants and animalswere to these warm winters, it gave us a whole different reason to continue our work for the long term.”

Just as scientists seek insights that can be gleaned onlyover time, Andy Williams is all about the long term. Whenhe arrived at KLRS in 1973 in a VW van, with his youngwife and baby, the wayfaring mountaineer wasn’t thinkingabout building a legacy. But he raised his family here, andnow, at 67, he has begun gradually passing the torch to hisdaughter Sian and her husband Lance Goodwin.

The place they’re inheriting will be getting a long overduefacelift (see sidebar on page 44) in time for its 50th anniver-sary in 2011. Nobody, however, is worried that the magic willbe lost when new buildings go up. The consensus is that it’sthe people who make the place. “It’s an attachment,” says Hik,“that goes beyond the science itself.”

Although it’s barely mid-August, migrating red-neckedphalaropes are starting to congregate along the lakeshore; thesmall shorebirds breed in the Arctic and are on their way tothe tropics. The station’s eye-popping view is back, along withbracing winds that spill down the Kaskawulsh Glacier toKluane Lake. The base is quieter now; many students havereturned home already. A minivan with Alberta plates pullsup and a couple of departing researchers dash in and out ofbuildings to say, “See you next year.” In the mess hall, a fewstudents are gathered around a laptop, one of the Virginiaschops potatoes and someone strums a guitar. The doorswings open, and a young botanist pops in, pressing poemsabout her summer into Williams’ hand as they clap each otheron the back. Another Kluane summer is coming to an end.

Teresa Earle and Fritz Mueller live in Whitehorse.

ON THE WEB To watch a video about treeline changes in the Northand read a Field Report interview with photographerFritz Mueller, visit www.canadiangeographic.ca/ipy.

A researcher gets a lift to Asi Keyi Territorial Park, a proposed

park just north of Kluane National Park which, if established, willbe jointly managed by the Kluane and White River First Nations.

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC 45