~ ENROLLMENT OPEN NOW ~
Alaska Wildlands: The Wrangell Mountains Project
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Join us this summer in the Alaska wilderness as we live and travel within one of the state’s most spectacular regions: the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Team members will join an experienced staff to research the complex geological, ecological, and cultural elements that have shaped this landscape, including glacial melt, threatened wildlife, and the critical management issues that will determine this region’s future.
THE PROJECT
With glaciers flowing from 16,000 foot peaks, canyons deeper than Yosemite, and spruce forested valleys, our study area is in the middle of the world’s largest complex of protected wilderness lands. Glaciation, volcanism, erosion, and ecological succession are expos
ed and active, making it an ideal natural laboratory in which to study Alaska’s landscape of extremes.
Team members will embark on a series of backcountry explorations and research projects from our base in the heart of the Wrangell Mountains. Our interdisciplinary studies focus on understanding geophysical, biological, and cultural change in this rapidly evolving setting. We learn about the politics of Alaska lands and explore our personal role in wildlands preservation.
During field investigations in the backcountry, we will gain an appreciation for geologic time and geomorphic processes. Our s
tudies there will focus on the formation of the Wrangell Mountains and the history of the glacier systems they support. Hiking up from the valley floor, we will examine successional changes in the fluctuating glacier-edge environment and ecological characteristics in the alpine habitat of Dall sheep, brown bear, and mountain goat. We will study adaptations of plants and animals to the stresses of sub-arctic existence and see firsthand the effects of global climate change on the landscape and its life.
Alaska’s parks are uniquely mandated to allow continued traditional use by their local rural residents. This summer, team members will discover the passionate connections people have to the Wrangells, both as a home and a park. We will examine the dilemmas a community encounters as it works to sustain an Alaskan bush lifestyle in the face of an increasing change of pace brought about by tourism and other human activity.
Our team will use writing and discussion to reflect on relationships between culture and landscape, and on how those relationships influence land use and management. Our work can 
suggest creative possibilities for the future of the Wrangells and help us understand why Alaska’s wilderness affects us so profoundly. By the end of the project, each of us will gain a firsthand knowledge of the natural history of a complex wilderness and an enriched appreciation of the continuity of life in the north.
The on-site In-country Fee is $2100 (approximately)
Scholarships for this project are available through the Wrangell Mountains Center. Click here for more information.
Read the Full Project Description
PROJECT LEADERS
MEGAN GAHL is an ecologist whose field work focuses on northern environments, including aquatic ecosystems and ecosystem response to changing conditions.
KAREN MAGER is a wildlife ecologist and oral historian who studies long-term change in Alaskan caribou herds, including research on genetics, traditional ecological knowledge, landscape ecology, and history.