Quinton's Alaska

Natural History, Dec, 1999 by Barbie Bischof

A Photo Essay

Four and a half years ago, nature photographer Michael Quinton retreated from his Idaho home at the edge of Yellowstone National Park. Driven away by what he considered the increasing population of Yellowstone, where several dozen shutter-clicks now always accompanied his own, he moved to Alaska. "For me" says Quinton, "wilderness is a feast-or-famine issue. If you don't have too much, you don't have enough. I was finding less and less in Idaho of what I needed the most: real wilderness and lots of it."

Upon arrival, Quinton inspected the small clearing he now calls home, perched at the northwestern edge of the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve. Along the creek, the Alaska Range peeked out from places where the spruce trees thin along the banks. South, beyond the cabin and the house, beyond the homestead clearing and the thick boreal forests, snow-covered Mount Sanford sparkled in the sun, dominating the jagged Wrangell Mountains skyline. Beyond it, Mount Wrangell, an active volcano, belched billows of steam into a sapphire sky. Quinton had found exactly what he was looking for: too much wilderness.

Many of the images on these pages were taken on short treks from Quinton's home, although he sometimes travels hundreds of miles to capture rare moments of animal behavior and survival in the continent's pristine northern frontiers.

A willow ptarmigan in winter plumage, above, nestles into an insulating, protective furrow of snow. Right: A northern hawk owl brings pieces of freshly butchered snowshoe hare to its young, only a few days old. This diurnal hunter is seldom seen south of Alaska and Canada.

Already in breeding plumage, a male redpoll A rests on a branch during an early spring snowfall. Redpolls, smaller than sparrows, are one of about two dozen bird species that brave the Alaskan winters.

In a welcome change from its winter fare of willow stems and spruce bark, a porcupine treats itself to some pussy willows. Lured by the same tender treat a snowshoe hare, below, ventures into a clearing.

Native to the mountainous regions shared by Alaska and Canada, Dall sheep lounge on alpine tundra. The species rarely wanders below the timberline.

Horned grebes, newly hatched, poke their heads out from under their father's wing as their mother, foraging nearby, announces an upcoming meal with a low clucking sound.

A shrew, above, emerges from its network of burrows beneath the sphagnum moss. Opposite page, bottom: spawning pink (or humpback) salmon return to their freshwater birthplace in a small tributary that eventually feeds into Prince William Sound. As these anadromous fish gather, they turn the tiny creek into a wriggling, flopping mass of fins and tails.