Starting today I am taking this blog site in a somewhat different direction. Not only do I want to share with you the environmental importance of the Teshekpuk Lake area but I want to share our experiences. Our 18 year old daughter, Alena, has written a diary of our trip that I will post. Before posting the diary I want to acquaint you with some maps of the area.

Teshekpuk Lake is in the National Petroleum Reserve and it is the blue area in the north east area. The second map shows where oil companies have done seismic testing. The third map shows how the area is divided and can be used to determine oil lease sites. Although this is an environmentally sensitive area, it appears that there has been a lot of traffic from oil companies, trappers and fishermen. Having made this statement we met some researchers from the University of Alaska that had not seen any people using the area for recreation but us on the ground in four years. The tundra is very delicate. It takes many years to recover and the scars stay for a long time, so this is why we can see where there has been activity some time ago. Included is a photo of a scar created by an ice road. The oil companies claim they can drive cats and other vehicles over the frozen tundra in the winter time with out having an impact. This is an argument they have been making when proposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in an environmentally friendly way.