In recent times, conservation photographer Gerrit Vyn has ventured repeatedly to a spot most individuals have by no means heard of, a lot much less visited: Teshekpuk Lake.
Flat, buggy, and distant, this wetland complicated within the Alaskan Arctic attracts few photographers. What retains Vyn coming again? “It’s by far crucial, ecologically essential piece of actual property within the nation for migratory shorebirds,” he says. Some 600,000 of them return every spring to breed there.
In June, Vyn returned for a seven-week keep to doc what’s at stake for a vibrant, delicate panorama that few individuals will ever see.
Teshekpuk Lake sits on the northeast nook of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska (NPR-A), the nation’s largest tract of public land. The federal government created the reserve as an emergency oil provide in 1923 and later designated 5 delicate “particular areas” inside it to guard the immense wildlife and subsistence values.
Amongst them was the immense community of wetlands surrounding Teshekpuk Lake, fashioned by softenwater pooling atop permafrost. The world offers breeding grounds for birds from each continent besides Antarctica. As much as 100,000 geese molt there each summer time, together with Higher White-fronted Geese, Brant, Cackling Geese, and Snow Geese. “It’s irreplaceable and simply completely crucial to migratory birds the world over,” says David Krause, vice chairman of Audubon’s Alaska program.
The Teshekpuk Lake Particular Space additionally offers denning habitat for polar bears, in addition to calving and insect-relief grounds for the Teshekpuk Caribou Herd, which has sustained Indigenous individuals for generations.
“Right here’s an extremely essential panorama, globally, for biorange—and no one’s ever heard of it,” says Michael Wald, a wilderness information whose firm outfitted Vyn’s newest expedition. “It’s a spot largely and not using a constituency.”
Now this unsung ecosystem faces unprecedented stress from oil and gasoline improvement.
Whereas crude started flowing from federal leases within the NPR-A in 2018, guidelines restricted improvement within the particular areas. In 2013 Audubon and companions helped safe a twofold growth of the Teshekpuk Lake Particular Space to three.65 million acres.
Final yr, nevertheless, the Trump administration opened greater than 80 % of the reserve to fossil gas improvement, and in March oil firms snapped up drilling rights on 1.3 million acres—a lot of it within the once-protected wetlands. Even earlier than any drilling, seismic exploration with heavy equipment might depart lasting scars on the tundra panorama. “The Teshekpuk Lake Particular Space,” Krause says, “has by no means been extra endangered than it’s now.”
This yr’s report NPR-A lease sale was the primary of 5 that Congress mandated in final yr’s One Huge Lovely Invoice Act. Opponents have challenged the sale with a number of lawsuits, together with one introduced by an Iñupiat nonprofit that led a federal choose to place a number of the leases on maintain.
With the way forward for Teshekpuk Lake on the road, Vyn says he’s extra motivated than ever to encourage the general public with scenes of the realm’s wild magic. “At this level in my profession,” he says, “that’s the place I need to make investments my power.”
A model of this story initially ran within the Fall 2026 difficulty as “Out of Sight.” To obtain our print journal, turn into a member by making a donation today.
