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Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Weekly Post, NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures From Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum (Posts #426+)

 NO PEBBLE MINE Pictures From Ground Zero by Robert Glenn Ketchum


Since 1998, I have been working to protect southeast Alaska, and the fishery of Bristol Bay. The fishery is an annually renewable, BILLION-dollar-a-year industry that employs thousands and thousands of workers in multiple states. 2021 provided the largest commercial salmon catch in history (64-million+). There is no intelligent reason to allow the proposed development of the Pebble mine to go forward and imperil these resources. The United Tribes of Bristol Bay, the United Fishermen of Alaska, Trout Unlimited, Trustees For Alaska, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, all oppose the development. Even Alaskan Senator, Lisa Murkowski, has stated her opposition. The momentum is building. Now is the time to SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE permanently! 
~Robert Glenn Ketchum





Tuesday, December 5, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #574
NO PEBBLE MINE #574: 
Here is another big valley with a lot of colors and textures. This could easily be a tapestry.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________
Tuesday, October 3, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #573
NO PEBBLE MINE #573: 
Flying above the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains in the late Fall is a spectacle of color and textures. This valley is huge, and for a sense of scale near the center of this image is a dense forest of yellow-leafed trees.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #572
NO PEBBLE MINE #572: 
In the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains there are numerous valleys that have been carved by big rivers. Surely there is fishing to be had, but it is nearly impossible to get to most of them.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #571
NO PEBBLE MINE #571: 
Here is another big valley with a lot of colors and textures. This could easily be a tapestry.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #570
NO PEBBLE MINE #570: 
Flying above the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains in the late is a spectacle of color and textures. This valley is huge, and for a sense of scale near the center of this image is a dense forest of yellow-leafed trees.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #569
NO PEBBLE MINE #569: 
In the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains there are numerous valleys that have been carved by big rivers. Surely there is fishing to be had, but it is nearly impossible to get to most of them.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #568
NO PEBBLE MINE #568: 
Another area I scouted from the small plane was this summit and this forest of leafless trees. I had no illusion about not being able to motor up the summit, but from the air I was pretty sure I could get closer to it by working my way through the trees because from my aerial advantage I could see various openings. Now at ground level, those opening are completely unclear, and I don’t want to pick my way in and find that I am trapped.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
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WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #567
NO PEBBLE MINE #567: 
When I flew above this in the small scout plane, it seemed it would be navigable on my snowmobile, but now I am at the bottom of this incline and it is way too spooky to consider an attempt to motor up it.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #566
NO PEBBLE MINE #566: 
At the far end of Nuyakuk Lake, I thought I would find a way to travel further into the backcountry of the Wood mountains on my snowmobile, but the massive snow loads on the surrounding walls looked very dangerous, and the noise of my machine had already set off some small avalanches.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #565
NO PEBBLE MINE #565: 
This is one of the broader gullies, and for awhile I consider following it, but as I sat watching and pondering the move, my idling snowmobile caused dozens a small avalanches on the slope to the left. None of them reached the floor of the gully, but there was no way I was going to risk causing a bigger one that might.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #564
NO PEBBLE MINE #564: 
In the foothills of the Wood mountains at the end of Nuyakuk Lake, there were gently sloping gullies I could get my snowmobile into, but the problem was, they were narrow and surrounded by steep slopes with deep snowpack. The avalanche exposure was way to risky to try and navigate through them.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #563
NO PEBBLE MINE #563: 
At the far end of frozen over Nuyakuk Lake, I approached the first sizable mountain, and clearly I was not going to be able to run my snowmobile up this as I had on the other slopes and the end of Tikchik Lake.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #562
NO PEBBLE MINE #562: 
In the air, this mountain seemed approachable, but now in the foothills below it, I consider it to be of a very different scale, and I would have to be out of my mind to get anywhere near the base of it.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, June 13, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #561
NO PEBBLE MINE #561: 
The further into the Wood mountains I ventured, the spookier things got. What appeared from the plane scouting to be navigable terrain, suddenly seemed far more dangerous now that I was below those walls, and the snow depth was mind-boggling.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #560
NO PEBBLE MINE #560: 
Even though I had had a successful snowmobile experience at the far end of Tikchik Lake, those mountains were small change compared the Wood mountains backcoutry I would encounter after I crossed over Nuyakuk Lake. Despite having scouted much of this terrain from the air, down on the ground the true scale of everthing was VERY intimidating.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #559
NO PEBBLE MINE #559: 
Although anything has the potential to avalanche, once I got behind the sheer rock face, the backside of the summit seemed navigable, and not very threatening, so cautiously began the climb to the summit.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #558
NO PEBBLE MINE #558: 
The backside of the steep rock face was a much less steep rollup, and if I could get to the top of the summit the view promised to be expansive, The attempt would also prove to me what my snowmobile was capable of.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #557
NO PEBBLE MINE #557: 
Going out on my own in the middle of winter in Wood-Tikchik State Park is initially unnerving so my first exploration is to go to the end of Tikchik Narrows Lake and explore the domes at the end of the lake. I have flown over them many times and I know them to have steep faces on the lake, but their backsides gently roll up, and my thought is to try and take my snowmobile to the top of the backside.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, May 9, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #556
NO PEBBLE MINE #556: 
Here is another basin I can access with a snowmobile, but it also looks sketchy. It is surrounded by tall summits with huge snow accumulations and it is clear the scraglly trees have been swept by avalanche in the past. The noise of my snowmobile motor could easily set one off.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #555
NO PEBBLE MINE #555: 
This is a dramatic basin I can reach from the end of Nuyakuk Lake, but this is about as far into the basin as I would be prudent to drive. The summit slope to the right rises up into a considerable mountain that could throw off an avalanche that would sweep the entire valley floor. The scraggly stands of trees are some indiction that it has done that in the past.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #554
NO PEBBLE MINE #554: 
Bud Hodson, the owner of Tikchik Narrows Lodge, had told me before I returned to Anchorage I could take his snowmobile out for a day to explore that park at ground level, but that required some insight as to where I might go and still be safe. Flying with the pilot in his tiny scout plane gave me a great opportunity to see what I might need to navigate at ground, For instance, from the air, you can see there is a way to work though these trees, but at ground level those connected passages might not be so apparent.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #553
NO PEBBLE MINE #553: 
Bud Hodson, the owner of Tikchik Narrows Lodge has also arranged for me to do some on-the-ground work traveling around by snow mobile, so another thing I am doing as we fly is to try and get some sense of the rugged terrain so I will know where I can, and cannot, take the snow mobile!


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #552
NO PEBBLE MINE #552: 
When you ski in the overcast you often experience a condition called “white out”, which makes the variations in the terrain in front of you to appear flat and featureless even if it is not. Flying around in Wood-Tikchik State Park, we experienced those same conditions across a much larger landscape. In this image the massive Nuyakuk Lake has virtually disappeared.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #551
NO PEBBLE MINE #551: 
The winter caretaker for Tikchik Narrows Lodge was also a guide for people hunting moose and bear. So, he maintained a tiny, 2-seat scout plane to locate where the animals were wintering. This would become my aerial platform. For the first 3 days we flew every morning. On my first flight I expressed concern about having to shoot through the plexiglass bubble of the small cockpit as there was no window I could open. He told me he could fix that, came around to my side of the plane, and removed the entire side of the airplane. That worked for me. My first aerial views of the park were sobering as there was so much snow, and the backcountry seemed more rugged than it ever did in the fall.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #550
NO PEBBLE MINE #550: 
I spent a good deal of time flying over Wood-Tikchik State Park thanks to Bud Hodson the owner of Tikchik Narrows Lodge. He not only put me up at the lodge, he let me fly everyday at his expense. Most of the work I did was in the summer and the fall, so one day Bud said if I really expected to represent the park in a book, I needed to see the winter as well. He had a home not far from the lodge and there was a property manager that stayed in one of the lodge cabins. I flew to Anchorage in February, and Bud flew me out to the lodge in his plane, putting me up at his home, and letting me fly with the lodge manger in his tiny two-seat scout plane.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #549
NO PEBBLE MINE #549: 
The Wood Mountains had hundreds of glaciers fifty years ago, but the warming climate has melted most of them away. Clearly the one seen here is in retreat, but seeing one at all is a rarity. That meltwater pool is certainly a colorful spectacle.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #548
NO PEBBLE MINE #548: 
Fifty years ago most of the summits in the Wood Mountains hosted glaciers, but thanks to our changing climate, the mumerous glaciers have disappeared and have been replaced by remnant snowfields left over from the previous winter.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #547
NO PEBBLE MINE #547: 
Up high among the peaks of the Wood Mountains, the river valleys don’t exist, but there some spectacular lakes, many with astounding blue colorations because they are formed from glacial melt and there is a lot of till in the water.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #546
NO PEBBLE MINE #546: 
Eventually the summits of the Wood Mountains form a barrier between Wood-Tilkchik State Parkt and the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. Headwater streams begin here, but there are no longer any broad river valleys.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #545
NO PEBBLE MINE #545: 
A large river system pours into the far end of Nuyakuk Lake. It flows down a broad valley that in which I have hiked and fished. Because it is as wide as it is, I also drove my snow mobile up into it when I visited the park in the winter. I felt the width offered me the room to avoid an avalanche, In this shot the bigger lake is in the top, left corner. What you see in the foreground is a small pond located on a shelf above the river valley.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #544
NO PEBBLE MINE #544: 
As I pointed out in a previous post, with the ample rain and snow providing an immense amount of water, the vegetation leaves very little ground exposed and often grows up the mountain walls all the way to the summits.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #543
NO PEBBLE MINE #543: 
Many of the valleys in the backcountry of the Wood Mountains are quite expansive, such as this one. The scale of it is hard to appreciate. The river looks like a stream here, but it is actually quite large. Perhaps it is easiest to compare everything to the large groves of Aspen and Birch trees that dot the valley floor. Those are large mature trees, and they look like matchsticks from this altitude.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #542
NO PEBBLE MINE #542: 
In the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains, Pacific storms delver a lot of water and snow. There are rivers and small lakes everywhere, and dense vegetation blankets the landscape. Trees, dense shrubs, and tundra cover everything. Seldom do any rocks or soil become visible, and this growth goes to the very top of most mountains.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #541
NO PEBBLE MINE #541: 
Here is a typical river system meandering itself through the deep backcountry of the Wood Mountains.Very likely, the fishing is excellent, but equally as likely it is possible no one has fished this stretch of the river, as it is too remote to hike into, and too narrow to land a plane on the water.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #540
NO PEBBLE MINE #540: 
The lakes in Wood-Tikchick State Park are fed by numerous river systems that are the gateway to the backcountry of the Wood Mountains. In this image you can see a large river system feeding into the head of the lake, and wending its way down from the distant heart of the range.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #539
NO PEBBLE MINE #539: 
The heart of Wood-Tikchik State Park are the numerous lakes that lie at the southern end of the Wood Mountains, many of which are quite large bodies of water. The one shown here is Lake Chauekuktuli. It has a very convoluted shoreline and is dotted with islands. This would be a perfect destination for a kayak camping adventure because there is a lot to explore. Aside from the nooks and crannies of the shore, there are numerous rivers that feed into the lake, and I am sure they offer spectacular fishing. The small islands would also protect campers from bears. Although I flew over this lake many times, I never got to camp there and kayak because no one in Dillingham had collapsable kayaks, and you can’t fly a rigid frame kayak on a fixed wing aircraft.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #538
NO PEBBLE MINE #538: 
Lake Chauekuktuli in Wood-Tikchik State Park ( the many lakes ) is quite long and at its western end, cuts back into some substantial mountains. Dozens of rivers and streams feed into at that end. At the other of the lake, the outlet Allen River is born (shown here) as it meaders its way down to Nuyakuk Lake where is ice, clear blue waters will pour into that, one that is nearly twice the volume of Lake Chauekuktuli. Nuyakuk is salmon spawning paradise, and it also hosts trophy-sized trout.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2023, 
@RbtGlennKetchum @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

Follow Robert Glenn Ketchum's Photographic Activism Online: 
SOCIAL MEDIA by #LittleBearProd: LittleBearProd 
WACH GALLERY: Wach Gallery
_____________________________________

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #537
NO PEBBLE MINE #537: 
Many of the larger rivers in Wood-Tikchik State Park have their headwaters in numerous glaciers throughout the Wood Mountains. What starts as a trickle of snowmelt from one glacier, then merges with other trickles creating a stream. As the stream travels to one of the lakes, it is being constantly fed by other incoming trickles. These waters do not host fish, but the rivers and many lakes they eventually create, are full of trout, and the destination of thousands of spawning salmon.


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #536
NO PEBBLE MINE #536: 
Getting into the air above Wood-Tikchik State Park makes it very apparent how many lakes and rivers comprise the habitat. The park represents 1/3 of the watershed into the Bristol Bay fishery, and besides the full time fish residents of these waters, the spawning salmon also show up in abundance every year. This aqua system is as pristine as you can get, and there is no place here for a cyanide-leach gold mine. SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!


photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, December 13, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #535
NO PEBBLE MINE #535: 
My lunch in the Native home in the village of Quinhagak featured several varieties of smoked salmon, a staple of most households because the river has a massive run, and everyone fishes it so they will have provisions to last through the next year. The river mouth where the village is situated, is quite beautiful, and also quite shallow, so if you stand in the water, the fish will swim right through your legs with their shimmering red color of spawning. Villages opposed to the Pebble mine development state that they would rather have “red” gold, than gold from the mine, to which I agree. There is no sensible reason to put the Pebble mine in the Bristol Bay headwaters. PLEASE SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!


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Tuesday, December 6, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #534
NO PEBBLE MINE #534: 
As I have several hours before my flight comes to take me back to Dillingham, one of the rangers I was with on the river lives in the village of Quinhagak, so he came out to the airstrip with his 4-wheeler, picked me up, and took me to his family home for a “native” meal. He lives with several siblings, and his parents in this relatively small house on stilts. There was a great variety of food on the table that included several kinds of fish, muktuk (whale blubber), some pasta, and Alaskan ice cream, which is wild berries gathered from the field and then stirred into Crisco. The family was impressed that I tried a little of everything, most of which I liked, but I didn’t think much of the muktuk.


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Tuesday, November 29, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #533
NO PEBBLE MINE #533: 
Having spent several days on the Kanektok river with river rangers, they drop me back at Quinhagak, the Native village at the mouth of the river, where I have arranged for a pilot to pick me up and fly me above the river, back into the headwaters, which are part of what you see here. After a productive flight we begin our return towards the mouth and experience an afternoon with some great light. This pilot is going north after he drops me at the village, and I intend to go south, so another pilot will come for me in a couple of hours.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, November 22, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #532
NO PEBBLE MINE #532: 
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game wardens with whom I stayed while photographing the Kanektok River in the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge supported my project to protect the Bristol Bay fishery from the development of the Pebble mine, so they were happy to indulge my whims to find unusual pictures. One of those was to take me upriver at night so I could get ashore on a low cutbank because I knew there was going to be a full moonrise that evening, and there was a broken sky that meant we might be able to see it. This is the result.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, November 15, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #531
NO PEBBLE MINE #531: 
When I photographed the Kanektok River in the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, I was assisted by Alaska Department of Fish and Game wardens who patrolled the river daily by boat, and best of all, they had a small cabin mid-river so they did have to go all the way back to the nearest village every evening. Staying with them at their cabin also meant that I could be on the river working with the often spectacular late light. Here is the end of one of those days slipping into the “golden” hour.

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Tuesday, November 8, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #530
NO PEBBLE MINE #530: 
Many of the rivers in the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge are generated by streams flowing from the foothills of the Ahklun Mountains. This drainage is part of a headwater, and there are quite a lot of beaver ponds here.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #529
NO PEBBLE MINE #529: 
The rangers who hosted me on the Goodnews river, had a snug cabin in the lower third of the river, which we would return to at the end of the day. The cabin had an excellent view of the distant mountains to the west, and Bristol Bay, and the open Pacific sent in some incredible skyshows at sunset.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #528
NO PEBBLE MINE #528: 
This is one of the larger rivers in the refuge, the Goodnews which I got to explore because the Alaska Department of Fish and Game supported my work in southwest, and made rangers available to me, who took me upriver on their daily runs, stopping to put me ashore when I found subjects of interest. This embankment is typical to the shoreline of the river, and this one, in particular, is profuse with edible berries, so as well as taking pictures, I am grazing.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #527
NO PEBBLE MINE #527: 
These are the Ahklun Mountains which mark the northern edge of the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. The nearly 4,103,000 acres of the refuge however are a kaleidoscope of landscapes. Shaped by volcanic activity, significant seismic events, and numerous glacial advances (and retreats), the refuge hosts a staggering 48 different mammal species, 31 of which are terrestrial, and 17 are marine. Twenty-seven species of fish ply the rivers and streams, and 201 species of birds have been identified, as well.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, October 11, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #526
NO PEBBLE MINE #526: 
The Togiak, the Kanektok, and the Goodnews are three of the largest rivers in the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. All of them are also quite lengthy. I was particularly grateful to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who supported the work I was doing, by arranging for me to travel on all three of these rivers with rangers who had small lodges and boats. Staying with them for several days at a time, I had many chances to move up and down these rivers, and the rangers were happy to put me ashore, as well, when we came upon subjects I felt worth approaching. This is one of the amazing sunsets that blazed above our camp on the Goodnews. What a night!

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Tuesday, October 4, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #525
NO PEBBLE MINE #525: 
In the last post I recounted that the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge host 32 species of fish, and it can do so because in the 4,000,000+ acres of the refuge there is water in the form of rivers, or lakes, quite literally everywhere. As you can see here, lakes connect to other lakes by rivers, and streams, and even the tundra ponds feed into the larger systems. This makes for abundant spawning habitat, and world-class recreational trophy fishing.

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #524
NO PEBBLE MINE #524: 
The 4,000,000+ acres of the Togiak National Wildlife Refugee are roadless wilderness and can only be approached from the air, or by water. There are hundreds of rivers and streams, and just as many lakes. These waters support a rich, and diverse, fish population that includes five species of salmon, and twenty-seven species of other fish which include Dolly Varden, Arctic graying, and rainbow trout. Many villages live subsistence lifestyles using the refuge’s resources, and sport fishermen come from all over the world, hoping to catch trophy salmon and trout.

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Tuesday, September 20, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #523
NO PEBBLE MINE #523: 
Our flight from Wood-Tikchik State Park over the Wood and Ahklun mountains and into the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge encountered a good deal of weather on the way, but now we are above the refuge and the sky is beginning to open up, letting some spectacular light illuminate the landscape.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #522
NO PEBBLE MINE #522: 
As our flight this day transitions from the Wood Mountains of Wood-Tikchik State Park to the Ahklun Mountains of the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge, we begin to descend into the vast 4,000,000+ acre terrain of the refuge, home to 48 species of mammals, which include 150,000 caribou.

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Tuesday, September 6, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #521
NO PEBBLE MINE #521: 
With a good pilot and a float plane you can land on almost any water. On this day, we were flying through the Wood Mountains from Wood-Tikchik State Park to the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge to the north, and we came upon Heart Lake with some dramatic weather rolling through, so we landed on the lake in order for me to get out and take some pictures. Even the pilot was impressed by the spectacle.

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Tuesday, August 30, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #520
NO PEBBLE MINE #520: 
Deep into the heart of the Wood Mountains there are few lakes, but there is water everywhere. Streams flow down mountainsides, and feed into bigger river systems, that have carved their sinuous courses through the terrain. At this point, this is a big river that has flowed for miles and miles, across the distant valley. It is entirely possible that no one has ever fished, or floated on this water. This is as wild, and pristine, as any place on this planet, and I feel so lucky that I got to spend as much time flying above this landscape as I did.

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Tuesday, August 23, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #519
NO PEBBLE MINE #519: 
In Wood-Tikchik State Park, the backcountry of the Wood Mountains are a diverse habitat of evergreens, stands of deciduous trees, dense scrub bushes, and large expanses of tundra meadows, all of it laced with rivers, streams, and pockets of wetlands. When fall settles on this landscape, it puts on an unrivaled show of color. The above view is an expansive interior valley, that is at peak. That would be a great river to float.

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Tuesday, August 16, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #518
NO PEBBLE MINE #518: 
The lakes of Wood-Tikchik State Park are one of the park’s most accessible attractions, but the Wood Mountains are no less beautiful, just more inaccesible. Most of the lakes lie at the foot of the mountains, and their often convoluted shorelines can be navigated to carry you further into the range, where you might be able to hike up a river valley, but even so, that is barely scratching the surface of what there is to see, and explore.

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Tuesday, August 9, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #517
NO PEBBLE MINE #517: 
This is Nuyakuk Lake which is very long, and also over 900ft deep. Tikchik Narrows Lodge ($10,000 a week, per person) sits on the point of the narrows that links Tikchik Lake with Nuyakuk. The lake is fed by many streams and rivers, and also hosts several US Forest Service cabins.

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Tuesday, August 2, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #516
NO PEBBLE MINE #516: 
This is Chikuminuk Lake featuring a dramatically irregular shoreline, some small islands, and several substantial rivers that feed into it. This is kayak camping heaven, and there is good fishing to be had in the river valleys. Hard to beat a day like this with perfect glassy conditions.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #515
NO PEBBLE MINE #515: 
The large, glacially carved lakes that lie at the foot of the Wood mountains mark the entrance to the Wood-Tikchik backcountry, where a myriad of rivers flow through landscape, hosting great fishing, and quite a range of wildlife including moose, caribou, and some very large bears.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #514
NO PEBBLE MINE #514: 
The peak fall landscape of Wood-Tikchik State Park is a spectacle of color, and it is not just the trees that go off, so does the tundra. Add rain to further saturate the colors and 6,000,000+ acres become some of the most beautiful terrain in the the world.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #513
NO PEBBLE MINE #513: 
Something else that happens when you are shooting pictures from an aerial perspective is that the blueness of water is often intensified because it is reflecting the sky, and here that is not only true, but some clouds have been added. Nice touch.

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Tuesday, July 5, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #512
NO PEBBLE MINE #512: 
Thanks to Bud Hodson, the owner of Tikchik Narrows Lodge, I got in a lot of flying time above the park. On this particular day, we had peak fall colors, saturated even further by a good deal of rain, and at just this moment the sun has broken through the cloud deck, setting the landscape aglow.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #511
NO PEBBLE MINE #511: 
This is Mirror Bay, another part of Nuyakuk Lake, and notably colored by azure blue water. In most of the rest of the lake (last post), the water is a deeper blue, but here the bay is fed by several streams of glacial meltwater, which has a lot of suspended, pale blue till in it, and as it mixes into the darker lake water, it creates this startling shade.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #510
NO PEBBLE MINE #510: 
In the late fall there is a good deal of moose hunting done in Wood-Tikchik State Park, and hunters usually use cabins provided by the park service, and the US Forest Service, because being in a tent, with dead animal scent abounding would also attract some of the very significant bear population, and some of the biggest grizzlies are full-time residents of the area. I made this image flying above Nuyakuk Lake, and I show it here because it lends some scale to this landscape. On the gravel beach to the right, there is a tiny yellow dot. That is a sizable 4-man raft that delivered several hunters, and their gear, to the cabin which can be seen at the edge of the treeline opposite the crescent shore. The cabin seems small in this view, but in fact, it is actually quite large, and sleeps eight.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #509
NO PEBBLE MINE #509: 
I arose early at the Tikchik Narrows Lodge, and joined some of the other guests who had gone down onto the shoreline of the narrows, to get in a bit of fishing before breakfast. The sky was overcast, but as the sun came up, the horizon was cloud-free, so the low, golden light of early morning flooded across the landscape. This view is looking directly across the narrows at the adjacent hillside.

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Tuesday, June 7, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #508
NO PEBBLE MINE #508: 
This is the lower end of Tikchik Lake in the late evening light. My pilot and I had been flying over the park for several hours, and at this point we are headed back to Tikchik Narrows Lodge for the night. What a beautiful, calm end of the day. Now, for another GREAT meal at the lodge, in the company of VERY excited fishermen, who have been out for the last 8hrs. having their minds blown by the quality of their experience, fishing the surrounding lakes and rivers,..BIG trout, and lots of salmon.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #507
NO PEBBLE MINE #507: 
This is Tikchik Lake at sunrise from the shoreline of Tikchik Narrows lodge, where I frequently stayed. This was a sunrise well worth being up for, and it went on for about an hour, as the sun rose and set the entire landscape aglow.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #506
NO PEBBLE MINE #506: 
The heart of Wood-Tikchik State Park are the deep, glacier-carved lakes. Some 14 of them stretch from near Dillingham to many miles north as the planes fly. Tikchik Narrows Lodge, where I stayed, is right in the middle of them all. There is some hiking to be done in the park, but for the most part, the way to really get around is using the water. There are kayak, and canoe paddlers, people with motor boats, and of course, float planes. In the course of the many weeks I spent at the lodge, I flew over all of them. The large lake to the left in this image is Tikchik, and one of the all-day fishing adventures, is to land there, walk through the meadow and brief forest, climb down the waterfall, and fish that river to the next lake into which it feeds. A plane will arrive there late in the day to pick you up, and bring you back to the lodge.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, May 17, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #505
NO PEBBLE MINE #505: 
This is Tikchik Mountain, overlooking Tikchik Lake, with the much larger Nuyakuk Lake in the distance. Tikchik Narrows Lodge, where I am staying, is built on the peninsula of land coming in from the right, between the two lakes. The foreground here is a beautiful wetlands complex, that would be a nightmare to navigate on the ground, but spectacular to see from above.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #504
NO PEBBLE MINE #504: 
Moving closer to the big lakes that lie at the foot of the Wood Mountains, the elevation of the landscape increases, and the streams cut deeper channels into the terrain. Some of those valleys are so filled with trees, you can barely see the water course, but the bulk of the vegetation is tundra, which in this image is just starting to show the colors of the coming fall.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2022, 
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Tuesday, May 3, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #503
NO PEBBLE MINE #503: 
The lower elevations of Wood-Tikchik State Park that are not swampy, feature islands of trees surrounded by tundra, which is laced with hundreds of streams. When fall colors this terrain, different tones define the wetter locations from the drier ones, and make the flow of the drainage distinctly visible. It is an amazing landscape to view from above, and thanks to Bud Hodson of Tikchik Narrows Lodge, I got to fly everyday

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Tuesday, April 26, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #502
NO PEBBLE MINE #502: 
I am now moving from the swampy high mesa’s above the Chilikadrotna River in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, to the equally swampy lowlands of Wood-Tikchik State park, which also contributes to the Bristol Bay drainage, providing about 1/3 of the water flowing into the fishery. This terrain is tricky to navigate in the summer season, and locals from Dillingham much prefer to do so when the winter freeze has solidified the landscape. Here, at the edge of late fall, it is a thing of beauty to be seen from the air.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #501
NO PEBBLE MINE #501: 
In a dayhike midway down the Chilikadrotna River float, we climbed up into a swampy tundra mesa, that was quite a slog to work our way through in order to reach some exposed rock. Interestingly though, on our decent back to camp we had a remarkable experience watching three wolves trying to run down a lone caribou. The alpha male was pure white, and stunning to look at.

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Tuesday, April 12, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #500
NO PEBBLE MINE #500: 
Although there was some whitewater, and an occasional log jam to work around, the float down the Chilikadrotna River to its intersection with the Mulchatna afforded my work some great ground level views of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, as well as the headwater system of two important rivers in the Bristol Bay drainage.

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Tuesday, April 5, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #499
NO PEBBLE MINE #499: 
Our party has two large rafts, and each has an “oars” chair, not so much to paddle us forward, but to steer us around things, like rocks, or log jams. As a consequence, one person has little to do except sit and watch the scenery go by, and without much activity, you can get cold and stiff. Fortunately for us, we have had a window of good weather so far, and that would remain with us to the very end. This trip from Twin Lakes down the Chilikadrotna River would be blessed with very comfortable conditions considering how late in the season we have chosen to make it.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #498
NO PEBBLE MINE #498: 
After a day long hike around the shoreline of Twin Lakes, we are headed back to our camp, bathed in the warm light of the late afternoon. We just spent a day of perfect fall weather among tundra terraces and moss gardens, and we are now toast, and ready for a good dinner. Tonight we will gather our gear, and begin packing the rafts, because we hope to get an early start in the morning to float the Chilikadrotna River, and there are many miles to cover before we reach the junction with the Mulchatna.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #497
NO PEBBLE MINE #497: 
Our late-in-the-season camping and float trip to Twin Lakes had impeccable timing, as the fall colors were peak, and the dayhike around the shoreline offered spectacular garden after garden of flaming tundra terraces and glowing shrubs. Since there was no “mission” to our day, we simple loafed around, enjoying the numerous variations in the terrain, and consumed lots of “snacks.” We planned to returned to camp in time for dinner, and the next day we would launch ourselves for the 60-mile float down the Chilikadrotna River.

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Tuesday, March 15, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #496
NO PEBBLE MINE #496: 
After a big breakfast of Mountain House scrambled eggs and spicy sausage, we waddled out of camp for our all day hike. We are in no hurry to be anywhere, which is good, because we have not gone very far when I find this in which I get lost for about 1/2 hour while my friends stomp around trying to keep warm. Sorry team! But thanks for waiting, I got several remarkable images from this garden of frosted twigs and leaves. At this point, our traverse turned away from the water and moved inland to an astounding world of spongy tundra gardens, which we sproinged through for the next few hours.

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Tuesday, March 8, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #495
NO PEBBLE MINE #495: 
A brisk breeze was blowing the remnants of the storm clouds away, and slowly but surely the peaks surrounding Twin Lakes, emerged with their snow-capped summits. Clearly it was going to be a hellava first day here. As my three campmates slowly arose and scrambled out, the show was rolling, so we started a fire, opened the kitchen, and made a big breakfast for all. We will not be back here until it is nearly dark, so we are fueling up. The wind across the lake would push our float rafts around too much, so today is a hiking exploratory, which will also allow me to take more pictures than I would from out on the water.

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Tuesday, March 1, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #494
NO PEBBLE MINE #494: 
Before floating the Chilikadrotna River, we planned to spend a few nights at Twin Lakes and do some exploratory hiking. We pitched an excellent campsite with some modest wind protection, and great views in every direction, got the kitchen set up for the night, and had diner. As we were going to hike all day the next day, we zoned out fairly early, and when I woke up during the night, I realized it had started to snow. The next morning the snow at the lower elevations had been washed away by rain, but everything sparkled. The clouds were lifting as the sun rose, setting the surrounding landscape on fire.

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Tuesday, February 22, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #493
NO PEBBLE MINE #493: 
Our trip to Twin Lakes, and the float of the Chilikadrotna River, was planned late in the summer season to take advantage of the coming of the fall colors. As you see in the last post, our timing was perfect, and the tundra was starting to glow. Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the spectacle of the Twin Lakes Basin. It was on fire with every color in the spectrum. We set up a great camp on a small spit that came out into the lower lake, and the view of it all from the “kitchen” was to die for. With tents set up, and dinner served, I spent a good deal of time after dinner, lens-scouting the landscape before us. About 9p.m., clouds began to roll in, and the temperature dropped noticeably, so because it had been a long day, we all decided to retire and crawl into the warmth of our sleeping bags. Somewhere around 2a.m., I left the tent to pee, and found that it had started to snow. Merry Christmas!

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Tuesday, February 15, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #492
NO PEBBLE MINE #492: 
In my exploration of Lake Clark National Park, I decided to do some on-the-ground work, to compliment the many images I made during flyovers. So with three friends, I organized a trip into Twin Lakes, where we would camp and hike for a few days, and then we would float out the Chilikadrotna River 86-miles, to where it merges with the Mulchatna. As our plane circled on approach to landing on Twin Lakes, I was provided with this view of the outlet and the headwaters of the Chilikadrotna.

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Tuesday, February 8, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #491
NO PEBBLE MINE #491: 
As I posted previously, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve is 4,000,000-acres of true wilderness. There are no roads, and a limited trail system, so the only way to appreciate the terrain for the sake of my NO PEBBLE MINE project, was to overfly, and river float through this landscape. I made many flights above the park, as you have seen in these posts, but I wanted to spend time at ground level, as well, so some friends, and I, planned a camp, and long float, so we could cover as much territory as possible. The starting point would be a float plane flight out of Port Alsworth, into the heart of some large backcountry lakes connected by a trail system. Telaquana, Turquoise, and Twin Lakes, lie at the foot of a many-glaciered Chigmit Mountains that feeds those lakes, and in turn, those lakes generate some substantial rivers, the Telaquana, the Mulchatna, and the Chilikadrotna, which eventually merges with Mulchatna. Therefore, our group planned to fly into, and camp at Twin Lakes, explore it for a few days, and then float the Chilikadrotna to the Mulchatna, a journey of 86 miles. The summit in this picture is the east face of the mountains surrounding Twin Lakes, as we are preparing to land.

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Tuesday, February 1, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #490
NO PEBBLE MINE #490: 
The more than 4,000,000 acres of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve are especially spectacular at the height of fall. The first of the color changes start with the reddening of the tundra, but eventually the seasonal shift creeps into the trees and brush of the landscape (last post). If there is a big salmon run, even the river water looks red. Salmon are so plentiful, the commercial sockeye catch in Bristol Bay accounts for 33% of all caught in the US, and 16% of world production. There is even a unique wolf pack that has been documented as the only pack in the world that is salmon dependent. This is no place for the toxic sinkhole of the proposed Pebble mine. Just Say NO!

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Tuesday, January 25, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #489
NO PEBBLE MINE #489: 
Lake Clark’s diverse habitat, sprawling over 4,000,000 acres, not only hosts numerous rivers, lakes, and mountain ranges, but the varied landscape is home to a stunning array of wildlife. As you might expect, both black, and brown bears find it their domain, but so do Dall’s sheep, moose, caribou, timber wolves, coyotes, marten, several species of fox, river otters, beaver, and Canadian lynx. Migratory birds pass through at various seasons of the year, but bald eagles, golden eagles, and peregrine falcons are full-time residents. There are trout in many of the lakes, and of course there are epic salmon spawning events, but at the coast there are also sea lions, beluga whales, harbor seals, and porpoise. When some friends, and I, floated the Chilikodratna River, we saw animals every day.

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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #488
NO PEBBLE MINE #488: 
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve is a vast wilderness of over 4,000,000 acres. It encompasses several mountain ranges, and a number of volcanoes. It also hosts numerous lakes, many of them quite large, and hundreds of rivers and streams. Lake Clark, itself, is 42-miles long, and the sixth largest lake in the state of Alaska. There are NO roads anywhere in the park. This landscape can only be accessed by float plane or boat. There are cabins and inter-connecting trails, so as wild as it is, the park offers excellent camping, hiking, and floating opportunities.

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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #487
NO PEBBLE MINE #487: 
The ranges that comprise a good part of Lake Clark National Park, and those mountains that surround Lake Clark itself, draw in some fierce weather (above), not only from the Pacific, but also from northern Alaska. When flying into Port Alsworth from Anchorage, rather than trying to climb above the ranges, most pilots, especially of small planes, fly through what is known as Lake Clark Pass, which begins at the end of Little Lake Clark, and winds through a deep valley surrounded by ice-capped summits, eventually opening onto Cook Inlet, not far from Anchorage. Traversing the pass during bad weather is frightening to say the least, and in fact, many have died on such flights, particularly during the winter months.

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Tuesday, January 4, 2022

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #486
NO PEBBLE MINE #486: 
The Newhalen River flows out of Lake Clark into Lake Iliamna. Lake Clark is not as large as Iliamna, but it is a sizable body of water, surrounded by significant mountains. The lake is fed by hundreds of streams and rivers, and at its midpoint, the town of Port Alsworth sits on the southwestern shore. Port Alsworth is the gateway to the national park’s backcountry, which can only be reached by air. The backcountry hosts many large lakes, and several cabins linked together by a trail system. The numerous streams and rivers offer excellent fishing, are are headwaters for spawning salmon, who travel a long way to reach these locations from Bristol Bay.

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Tuesday, December 28, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #485
NO PEBBLE MINE #485: 
Lake Iliamna has large national parks on both its north and south shores. Katmai National Park (numerous last posts) lies to the south, and Lake Clark National Park lies to the north. As Lake Clark is at a higher altitude than Iliamna, it drains into Iliamna through the Newhalen River. The Newhalen is big, and a spectacle of whitewater, flowing with considerable volume and force. The haul road for the proposed Pebble mine would bridge the Newhalen near the Native village of Nondalton, then parallel the river on the west shore to the town of Iliamna.

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Tuesday, December 21, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #484
NO PEBBLE MINE #484: 
The day ends. The bears feed, and the salmon splash. Sometimes the bears and the guests interact in very funny ways. One very blustery morning, everyone was at breakfast in the lodge, which features big windows so all the guests have views. One table in a far corner seated about 10, and was next to glass on two sides, offering a great perspective of one of the camp trails often frequented by strolling bears. All of those at the table that day were part of a Japanese tour group, and quietly munching away, when an especially large grizzly approached the window, then stood up, putting his gigantic paws over his head, and leaning on the window to peer in. That pretty much cleared that breakfast table, and scattered the Japanese diners like fleeing sheep in all directions. Hysterical!

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Tuesday, December 14, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #483
NO PEBBLE MINE #483: 
One of the most famous bear viewing locations in the world is the Brooks River falls in Katmai National Park. It is EXTREMELY popular when the salmon are running, and to control everything safely, the National Park Service has built a large viewing platform overlooking the falls, which they staff with a ranger who marshals crowd behavior. On busy days (for the bears) there may be 50-75 people on the platform, all vying with each other for the perfect view and camera angle. It is a bit much for me, so I do go there occasionally, but my closest and most personal bear encounters, have been randomly around camp. With the lodge in sight, I am standing on an elevated platform overlooking the mouth of the Brooks River, and this cub was browsing the shoreline about 20ft. away. Mom is swimming “guard” just offshore, and neither of them could care less about my presence.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #482
NO PEBBLE MINE #482: 
Back at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, after a day trip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes (4 previous posts), one slips back into bear “mode.” Seeing bears relatively closely, and still safely, is what attracts most of the park’s visitors, and they are never disappointed. The bears are everywhere, and walk through the camp on a daily basis. As the day trip I was on got back in the late afternoon, I wandered down to the beach, where the planes usually drop of incoming guests. As the night drew down, and dinner time neared, a bear wandered out onto the shoreline on the opposite side of the Brooks River, and foraged for his dinner on some salmon.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #481
NO PEBBLE MINE #481: 
Here the Ukak River is slowly undercutting an ash pinnacle as it wends its way toward Naknek Lake from the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. Perhaps you have noted in the last three posts that the river waters are quite clouded, and as you might imagine, that is because they are carrying so much sedimentation and ash. This ash has been so compressed over the last hundred years, that is now hard like rock, but still very susceptible to erosion, not only from the river, but also rain, and snowmelt. The volcano responsible for all of this, Novarupta, has been dormant since its eruption in 1912, but there are other volcanoes in the area that have erupted as recently as 1927. The “10,000 Smokes” no longer exist, however, as the fumarolic plumes of vapor dissipated in the 1950’s.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #480
NO PEBBLE MINE #480: 
As you can see, there is a great, and colorful, mix of boulder debris along the river banks. Some of these are hard stones that have been rounded and polished as they were swept downstream, others have tumbled down from the hillsides, as the river cut the banks, and the rains eroded the slopes. Within all of this, there is a good bit of pumice, porous stones so light, that many of them can float. They are especially odd to pick up, as even large ones weigh very little. This is a strange terrain to explore, but if you come to Katmai National Park to see the bears, and you do not take the daytrip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, you are missing out on a great visual experience.

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Tuesday, November 16, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #479
NO PEBBLE MINE #479: 
The Valley of 10,000 Smokes is a unique part of Katmai National Park, and a most unusual landscape. At the far end of the valley in this picture, lies a now-dormant volcano called Novarupta, which in 1912 became the largest eruption by volume in the entire 20th century. The blast produced 3.1 cubic miles of magma, generated 14 earthquakes in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, and over 100 in the 5.0 range. It also buried the Ukak River valley (above) over 40-square-miles of ash, 700ft. deep. The explosion was heard as faraway as Fairbanks, and Juneau, and volcanic dust reached Wisconsin, and Algeria. Today many rivers and sidestreams have cut through the ash layers, and in this picture, Knife creek (to the right) flows into the Lethe. For visitors, and backpackers, there numerous trails throughout the valley, and I believe there are a couple of huts as well.

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Tuesday, November 9, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #478
NO PEBBLE MINE #478: 
Another unique feature of Katmai National Park is known as the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. There are daily guided tours of the valley that leave from Brooks Camp in the morning after breakfast. A day lunch is provided each guest, and the trip will take most of the day before returning. Those opting to take the trip, board a school bus for a drive of several hours that parallels the Ukak River, as it slowly rises up into the valley. The drive, especially in the fall, is quite beautiful, and the terrain is typical to most of the park, forests, tundra, and mountains, but when you arrive at the valley, everything changes, and you behold one of the strangest landscapes you will ever see. The bus arrives at a viewpoint overlooking the valley, and there is a hut there where guests can eat lunch inside if it is a rainy day. After lunch, a trail leads from the hut, down into the valley, and guests have about 3hrs. of time, to go down, and hike around on the trails in the valley,.. or, just stand and gawk!

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Tuesday, November 2, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #477
NO PEBBLE MINE #477: 
This is the very large Savonoski River, which flows into the Iliuk Arm of Naknek Lake. If you will click on my Google satellite map link, you will see a box in the lower left that allows you to switch from topographic map mode, to satellite picture mode. In the satellite picture mode, you can zoom in, or out, by scrolling. By zooming in, you can see the astoundingly complex braids of the Savonoski, meandering widely over the landscape as it heads for the lake. Pretty astounding imaging technology here, so be sure to take advantage of it, and enjoy this amazing aerial perspective. I am pretty sure there are visible bears in there somewhere.

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Tuesday, October 26, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #476
NO PEBBLE MINE #476: 
In the last post you saw a huge expanse of pothole lakes, but Katmai National Park also hosts some considerably larger bodies of water. The above is just a small portion of Naknek Lake, called the Iliuk Arm. In this view you can also see the much bigger North Arm in the distance, and neither of these is as big as Naknek Lake itself. Brooks Camp is located on the Iliuk Arm, and serves as the national park headquarters, as well as lodging for the guests that come, mostly, to view the bears. The bears congregate around the Brooks River, and during salmon runs, put on a spectacle display at Brooks Falls, standing on ledges of the falls, and snatching jumping salmon out of the air. Brooks River flows into the Iliuk Arm from Lake Brooks, which is also a nearby lake of significant size. The link I have provided shows all of this, and prominent in the first link satellite photo are the two “kissing” peninsulas seen above, separating the Iliuk Arm from the main body of Naknek Lake.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #475
NO PEBBLE MINE #475: 
Katmai is a world of mountains, and water, water everywhere. There are many rivers, some VERY big lakes, and, as you can see here, quite a display of pothole lakes as well. Fish and bear abound, and except for trails around Brooks Camp, and in the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, nothing is approachable unless you fly in. This is wilderness in its most undisturbed state.

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Tuesday, October 12, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #474
NO PEBBLE MINE #474: 
To the west of Lake Iliamna lies Katmai National Park and Preserve, a vast park famous for bear viewing opportunities, but also hosting a VERY diverse landscape of rivers, mountains, and lakes. The National Park Service maintains the only lodging in the park, Brooks Camp, a dining hall and cabins located at the shore of Naknek Lake. This is the Iliuk Arm of Naknek Lake as you approach Brooks Camp from an airflight out of King Salmon.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #473
NO PEBBLE MINE #473: 
On the eastern shore of Lake Iliamna is the town of Newhalen, and the Native village of Pedro Bay. Offshore of the village is an astounding complex of islands that extend into the lake, and make for some excellent kayak camping. The haul road for the proposed Pebble mine, would descend from Lake Clark National Park into Newhalen, and then turn west, following the eastern shoreline of the lake. It would be forced to bridge / disrupt dozens of salmon streams, and would also pass through the village. As the village opposes the mine development, and the road, they have placed all their land into conservation easement to block the building of the road. More Alaskans SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, September 28, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #472
NO PEBBLE MINE #472: 
At the far eastern edge of Lake Iliamna are two large bays, Pedro, and Pile. The Pile River feeds into the most easterly part of Pile Bay, and is one of the largest, and longest, of all the rivers and streams flowing into the lake. This (above) is the Pile River, about 6-miles from the mouth at Pile Bay. The river, itself, is fed by hundreds of side-streams on its way to the lake. The proposed haul road for the Pebble mine would come up this river valley, and would have to be supported by dozens, if not hundreds, of bridges. The fishery would be destroyed.

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Tuesday, September 21, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #471
NO PEBBLE MINE #471: 
People are not the only ones fishing the numerous streams and rivers that feed into Lake Iliamna. This is serious bear country, and boy do they love a good salmon run. The run is on in this river (above) and the white dots are dozens of seagulls that are feasting on the expired salmon carcasses. Difficult to see in this shot, so you will have to look closely, are three bear along the lakeshore. On the spit, above where the river flows into the lake, just before the greenery terminates, there is a mother and cub, then several more yards up that shoreline is another single bear ambling along. On this day we were flying over the south shore of Iliamna which has many inflowing streams and rivers, and salmon were running in ALL of them. It was a bear pig-out, and we counted 24 during our journey.

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Tuesday, September 14, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #470
NO PEBBLE MINE #470: 
Many of the rivers that flow into Lake Iliamna offer world-class fly fishing, but the most famous among them is Lower Talarik Creek, a portion of which is seen here. Fly fishing aficionados from all over the world come to Iliamna to try their luck at catching some of the largest rainbow trout in the world. These fishing adventures cost a pretty penny as well, although lodging, meals, guides, and plane time are included, $1,000 per day is a hefty price tag. Although the income stream from recreational fishing is nowhere near that of the commercial fishing in Bristol Bay, it is still worth MILLIONS of dollars, and is yet another reason to SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, September 7, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #469
NO PEBBLE MINE #469: 
In the last post, I talked about how the size of Lake Iliamna (1,000-miles-square) and surrounding of considerable mountain ranges, breeds A LOT of ferocious weather. High winds create sizable lake waves, and many times rain, and snow, completely obscure visibility. I found myself in one such episode when transiting from Katmai National Park, to Lake Clark National Park one day. The morning of my air pick-up at Katmai, the entire region, not just Lake Iliamna, was slammed with 60-70mph winds. The plane pick up at Katmai is usually done at the dock at Naknek Lake, but that dock was taking 6ft waves. The other passengers, and I, had to be bused to another Lake Brooks, which had a sheltered cove. Once in the air, we were bouncing all around, and eventually we had to cross the 22-mile width of Lake Iliamna. It took nearly 1/2-hour to do those 22-miles, and at times we were actually not making ANY progress against the fierce headwinds (above). It was QUITE a flight, and everyone was nervously edgy when we finally landed, and got out of the plane at Port Alsworth in Lake Clark National Park.

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Tuesday, August 31, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #468
NO PEBBLE MINE #468: 
Given the size of Lake Iliamna, and the fact that it is surrounded by some considerable ranges of mountains, very fierce weather sweeps over its 1,000-square-miles. Even on relatively clear days some dramatic wind storms can arise, and generate serious waves (above). This is NOT a good time to be out on this water in a small boat or kayak. A kayak could literally be rolled over, and the water is so cold as to make hypothermia deadly.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, August 24, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #467
NO PEBBLE MINE #467: 
This is Lake Iliamna. It is the largest lake in Alaska, and the third largest entirely in North America. It is about 1,000-miles square, 77-miles long, and 22-miles wide. It is also nearly 1,000ft deep. It is the headwater of the Kvichak River, the single most productive river in the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery. Although not as big an industry, Iliamna, and surrounding tributary rivers, are known world-wide for their excellent sportfishing. Rainbow trout of up to 28" are not uncommon. Iliamna also has one the few populations of freshwater seals in the world. In addition, there are stories about an alleged Iliamna Lake Monster (of course) that various researchers believe are either huge white sturgeons, or perhaps, Pacific sleeper sharks. The name Iliamna is actually based on the name of a mythical blackfish which was said to bite holes in the baidarkas of bad natives.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, August 17, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #466
NO PEBBLE MINE #466: 
By the time the Nushagak River reaches Bristol Bay it is quite broad, and flowing with a great deal of water. This is the view across the river from the dock at Dillingham, and as you can see, there is more water coming in from out of the Pacific. Just another cosmic afternoon thunderstorm, and a big skyshow.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #465
NO PEBBLE MINE #465: 
This is the smaller of the two Native villages on the lower Nushugak River, Ekwok. In the last post, I commented that the two villages in this part of the river relied significantly upon subsistence fishing for their living. Here is the evidence of that. EVERYBODY has a boat, some have several. When I floated the river, my group spent several nights in Ekwok, and those who fished were very successful, and had lots of fun.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, August 3, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #464
NO PEBBLE MINE #464: 
As the Nushagak River nears Bristol Bay, all the water that has been feeding into it gives it a high rate of flow and broadens the river considerably. It also requires knowledgeable navigation so that you stay in the deep main channel, and avoid debris in the river, like whole trees, and gigantic logs, that would do substantial damage to any boat that might hit one. There are also two principle Native villages in this lower part of the river, New Stuyahok, and Ekwok. Both villages do a great deal of subsistence fishing.

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Tuesday, July 27, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #463
NO PEBBLE MINE #463: 
Every mile in the flow of the Nushagak River, small streams like the one coming in from the bottom-right corner of this image, and larger rivers pour more water into the ever-broadening “Nush,” headed for Bristol Bay. This is a salmon highway that will see millions of them headed upriver during the height of the run. Amazing to me is the fact that they will all return to the exact sidestream or lake of their birth, even though they have been at sea for five years. Salmon, migratory birds, and monarch butterflies, have mapping skills we can only imagine. Hell, I can loose my car in a big parking garage!

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, July 20, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #462
NO PEBBLE MINE #462: 
Much larger than the stream in the last post, nonetheless, this river meanders just as erratically. Each of the yellow-green patches coming in from the left, are small streams feeding into the bigger river, and the accumulating waters will eventually become part of the flow of the Nushagak River.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, July 13, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #461
NO PEBBLE MINE #461: 
This bird’s eye view of the terrain in the Nushagak River valley makes it VERY clear how water saturated the landscape is. Lakes, kettle ponds, streams, and rivers are literally everywhere. In this view a large complex of ponds lies adjacent a beautiful, erratically meandering stream that will eventually pour into the Nushagak River.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, July 6, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #460
NO PEBBLE MINE #460: 
Besides the small streams and rivers, the landscape of the Nushagak drainage is a maze of kettle ponds and marshland. The entire terrain is water saturated, and it leaves me to ask the question, if the Pebble mine is going to be 2,000ft. deep, how much pumping will be needed to keep the water from filling the pit? Seriously! It is SO unrealistic! Go back to Canada, Northern Dynasty, and take your stupid idea with you! In the distance of this shot, you can see the meandering Nushagak, which this far down-valley has broadened significantly.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, June 29, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #459
NO PEBBLE MINE #459: 
The last post depicted the wetlands that initiate the first small streams, and as I pointed out, these streams eventually become small rivers, as you now see here. Hundreds of these flow through the Nushagak Valley system, and all feed into the growing Nushagak River as it meanders toward Bristol Bay. Salmon not only migrate up the Nushagak, but they diverge into all of these small streams as well, and the landscape literally flows with red-gold when the run is on.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, June 22, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #458
NO PEBBLE MINE #458: 
The landscape of the Nushagak River system is an aqueous world. There are swamps and marshes where the water pools, eventually seeping out through small, spindly streams that meander everywhere. Over time, these tiny arms find larger flows, and begin to form small rivers. Those small rivers number in the hundreds in the Nushagak Valley, and at some point they all feed into the Nushagak that swells over every mile that it flows. By the time it reaches the coast, it is VERY broad, and moving at a considerable rate, especially after several days of rain.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, June 15, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #457
NO PEBBLE MINE #457: 
Fed by innumerable side streams, and bigger rivers that include the Mulchatna, the Nuyakuk, the King Salmon, the Wood, the Iowithla, the Kokwok, and the Koktuli, the Nushagak meanders across broad valleys dotted with hundreds of lakes, and tundra ponds, as it flows towards Bristol Bay. The 45+-square-acres of tailings ponds that would be created by the Pebble mine would be constructed in the headwaters of the Koktuli. While the Nushugak is one of the two most important rivers draining into the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery, the waters of southwest are also the most diverse freshwater fishery in North America, hosting Alaska Blackfish, Arctic Lamprey, Burbot, Coastrange Sculpin, Humpback Whitefish, Least Cisco, Longnose Sucker, Ninespine Stickelback, Northern Pike, Pond Smelt, Pygmy Whitefish, Round Whitefish, Slimy Sculpin, Threespine Stickelback, Dolly Varden, Arctic Char, Cutthroat Trout, and Steelhead. Although not as income producing as the commercial fishing, the recreational fishing industry generates millions of dollars, and provides hundreds of jobs. People fly in from all over the world to stay in remote lodge and sport-fish these waters. A 5-day stay in a lodge can cost as much as $1,000 per day.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #456
NO PEBBLE MINE #456: 
To extend this blog until southwest Alaska and Bristol Bay are permanently protected from the proposed development of the Pebble mine, I am going to post select pictures previously seen among the 457 in this blogs’s history. These will define the amazing landscapes of southwest, and underscore the resources I am hoping to see designated to remain wild. Starting at the beginning, this is part of the mine site area. There is a lot of tundra, and many small streams that are coalescing as they flow into greater rivers. Ultimately this water (above) will flow north, and merge into the Nushagak, the mouth of which is one of the two most productive commercial salmon fishing areas in Bristol Bay. Were the mine developed on this site, the open pit would be 2-miles across, extending from the foreground, all the way to the most distant hills, and it would go down 2,000ft.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, June 1, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #455
NO PEBBLE MINE #455: 
Officially, this is the last post of this blog, but since Bristol Bay, and southwest Alaska do not as yet have protected designations, I will keep this blog up by reposting select images already within the 457 that I have previously used, just to keep the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign in front of you. This “final” image is a map of the mine’s “footprint.” Lake Iliamna, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, is at the bottom. Iliamna is the headwater of the Kvichak River, the single most productive commercial salmon fishery in the Bristol Bay system. A portion of Lake Clark National Park can be seen in the upper-right. The red hatching defines areas that the state has opened to mineral exploration. The black blob is the proposed Pebble mine. If constructed, the open pit of the mine would be 2-miles wide, but that would pale by comparison to the 45+-acres-square that would host uncovered, toxic, tailings ponds. The ponds would be “contained” by unreinforced, earthen dams taller than the Three Gorges Dam in China, and their location is on top of one of the most seismically active areas in the world. This is truly a bad idea. Please!, remember to SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE. Tell the criminals that run Northern Dynasty to go back home to Canada, and take their STUPID proposal with them. Protect thousands of American jobs, and our precious natural resources.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, May 25, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #454
NO PEBBLE MINE #454: 
You can’t keep a good man down, or quiet, so following his December, 2020 blog mini-history of the proposed Pebble mine development, and the campaign against it, Joel Reynolds, West Coast Director of NRDC, opened the new year with this January, 2021 blog blitz. With Biden barely in office, Joel compliments him for coming out strong on environmental issues, but makes it very clear he hopes that will include the protection of Bristol Bay, and southwest Alaska, from the Pebble in PERMANENT fashion. At the same time, I sent thumb-drive PowerPoint shows to President Biden, VP Kamala Harris, and the new Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland asking the same thing:  PERMANENTLY END THE POSSIBILITY OF THE PEBBLE MINE DEVELOPMENT. They should all SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE! And they will, if they hear that refrain from enough of us, so feel free to exercise your democratic right to send these leaders your thoughts on the issue.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, May 18, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #453
NO PEBBLE MINE #453: 
The success of his blog to deter Morgan Stanley emboldened Joel Reynolds, the West Coast Director of NRDC, to use his blog as a bully pulpit, so in December of 2020, he posted this (above). This relatively long blog post is a mini-history of the proposed Pebble mine development, and the broad campaign that had laid siege to the proposal. Underscoring the success of that campaign to date, he does note in his closure, his caution that it is never over until it is truly over, and that we, the coalition of campaigners, need to remain vigilante, and poised to act, if Northern Dynasty makes other moves. I certainly plan to, will you stay tuned as well, and SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE once and for all?

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2021, 
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Tuesday, May 11, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #452
NO PEBBLE MINE #452: 
Although Northern Dynasty’s permit was denied by the Army Corps of Engineers, Joel Reynolds, West Coast Director for NRDC wanted to be sure every investor abandoned the project. Although our add campaigns in major newspapers (many previous posts) had driven away all of the big corporations, there were still other channels that were smaller shareholders, and Joel wanted them out as well. The investment firm of Morgan Stanley was one of those, so in May of 2020, Joel wrote this blog as an open letter to their CEO, James Gorman. Of course, by posting it as an NRDC blog, it was read by millions. Rather directly, Joel reminds Gorman that on their website they state they are committed to sustainability, and sensitivity to the environment, concluding that offering shareholders investments in the Pebble development is directly contradictory of that. With that much negative visibility caused by the blog, Morgan Stanley withdrew their offering.

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Tuesday, May 4, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #451
NO PEBBLE MINE #451: 
Some of the companies I helped as part of the national coalition against the development of the Pebble mine are Tiffany & Co., Tommy Hilfiger, and Orvis. Orvis offers many fishing trips in the Bristol Bay region through its catalogue, and they have become very outspoken about the mine. So when the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers denied the permit late in 2020, they sent this email to all of their “friends,” and they have thousands of them. Clearly this kind of publicity is a further blow to the development company, Northern Dynasty. Of course, the real damage was done by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers that denied their federal permit over issues with the Clean Water Act. Go back to Canada, ND! SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

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Tuesday, April 27, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #450
NO PEBBLE MINE #450: 
In September of 2020, Joel Reynolds got ahold of another amazing document, the release of which caused Northern Dynasty’s CEO, Tom Collier, to resign in disgrace. Videotapes had been created by a DC-base group called the Environmental Investigations Agency. Members of this agency posed as potential Chinese investors from Hong Kong with links to the Chinese government. In the videotapes, Northern Dynasty’s two CEOs can be heard bragging to the Chinese about how stupid the Alaskan politicians, and the people in the federal agencies are, with whom they are dealing. They boast about their powers of political manipulation, and most shockingly of all, they reveal their proposed 20yr. plan for the Pebble mine is a Trojan Horse, and that the actual plan will eventually be developed as a 200yr. plan. This is a company of criminals that should go back to Canada, and be put in jail.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #449
NO PEBBLE MINE #449: 
Joel Reynolds was completely aware that even if the development permit for the Pebble mine might be denied by U.S. Army Corp of Engineers for reasons relating to the Clean Water Act, that Northern Dynasty was not going to back off, and that they would try to make changes and re-apply. Therefore, he monitored every move they made, and in July of 2020, he posted this as a blog. It went to the HUGE membership of NRDC, and to every media contact they had. Put your glasses on and read this, it is quite a summary. Joel doesn’t spare anyone here, and my picture at the end was glowing on the blogpost.

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Tuesday, April 13, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #448
NO PEBBLE MINE #448: 
Given the very powerful Economic Benefits report published by the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association toward the end of 2018, in June of 2019, Joel Reynolds and NRDC decided to run another attack ad in The New York Times, choosing again to use some VERY “in-your-face” messaging. If you read the above bullet points, you will see that they point out the embarrassment of Northern Dynasty having lost all investors, then they go all the way back to Nixon to show that all the listed Republican presidents opposed the proposal through their EPA, further, they call-out the Trump administration, which had not yet taken any action to oppose the plan. They also basically threaten any potential investors by making very sure they understand that NRDC will drag them into the court of public opinion if they consider signing on to the proposed development. Northern Dynasty hates this campaign!

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Tuesday, April 6, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #447
NO PEBBLE MINE #447: 
Towards the end of 2018 the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association published this very comprehensive piece of information about the value of the Bristol Bay fishery (on an annual basis), and the number of people the industry employed. They were kind enough to call me, and use one of my more prominent images from the campaign, and as a flyer, and PDF, this was circulated to all related industries, interested groups, and the media. This was another serious wound to Northern Dynasty’s proposed development of the Pebble mine, and I was glad to be part of this attack, as well.

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Tuesday, March 30, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #446
NO PEBBLE MINE #446: 
In 2018, Northern Dynasty benefitted from the Trump administration’s support of the proposed Pebble project, and lured a new investor into their plans. First Quantum Minerals came aboard, but only briefly, thanks once again to the immediate response from Joel Reynolds and NRDC. Resorting to our tried and true attack ad campaign, Joel/NRDC ran this in The New York Times pointing out the history of opposition, and detailing all of the prominent groups that were part of the NO PEBBLE MINE coalition. “We will never relent,” caused instantaneous blowback from First Quantum shareholders, and they withdrew their investment. Score another one for this campaign!

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Tuesday, March 23, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #445
NO PEBBLE MINE #445: 
Joel Reynolds, lead attorney for NRDC, and I, have worked together since 2010, using full-page attack ads in major newspapers, which you have seen in several previous posts, so when he and his staff attended the International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference in Hawaii, their conference display featured numerous images of mine. However, only those attending the conference saw those presentations, and Joel wanted a broader audience to also learn about the threat of the Pebble mine to southwest Alaska, so he returned to our well practiced newspaper adverts. This time, the messaging was especially strident, and he also wanted to show that there was a large coalition involved in the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign, so the ad included all the coalition member logos at the bottom of the page. Once again, a very effective strategy, that reached a large audience, and brought our campaign a broad public audience in the Hawaiian Islands.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #444
NO PEBBLE MINE #444: 
When Joel Reynolds, and some of his staff from the West Coast offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) attended the International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference in Hawaii, they created quite a presence, bringing some tribal members from southwest, Alaska with them to lecture, and using my imagery in several different ways to show the conference participants what Southwest looks like. One of the presentations using my imagery was in the form of very large posters on A-frames. Joel took a signature image NRDC had used many times in the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign, and overlay it with two different messages. Wherever they set up, rooftop cocktail party, panel discussion, or outside the conference hall, they used these two posters as bookends to their presentation area.

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Tuesday, March 9, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #443
NO PEBBLE MINE #443: 
When Joel Reynolds, and some of his staff from the West Coast offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) decided to attend the International Union for the Conservation of Nature conference in Hawaii, they brought along some tribal members form southwest Alaska, and they weaponized their display with posters featuring my imagery, and a 100+ loop of my photographs, scrolling across a wide-screen monitor. These tools were inside the rooftop cocktail party they hosted, in a booth at the entrance to the conference hall, and serving as bookends to their panel discussion. Look at the cool, decorated vests these two Native men are wearing. That is Joel at the podium in the top picture, and the tallest person, at the back, in the bottom one.

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Tuesday, March 2, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #442
NO PEBBLE MINE #442: 
In 2016, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, held a HUGE conference in Hawaii, and Joel Reynolds, the West Coast Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) wanted to be sure ALL the participants from their many countries, would learn about the proposed development of the Pebble mine, and how it would threaten the spectacular habitat of southwest Alaska, and the fishery of Bristol Bay. He arranged for several other attorneys, and staff from NRDC’s west coast office, to attend the conference as well. They paid for a booth outside the main conference hall which featured informative brochures, several of my framed prints, and a big screen TV that played a continuous loop of over 100 of my images of the region. The first night of the conference, they also hosted an open party in the rooftop garden of the conference center, that featured a variety of speakers, as you see above. My prints were displayed there, too, and the big TV featuring the loop of my pictures was also available to all.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #441
NO PEBBLE MINE #441: 
The final “page” of the 5-page, 5-day serial ad in Politico, which was being run by Joel Reynolds and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), had a completely different look to it. The red-orange polluted water was gone, replaced by blue, crystal clear water. The tail of the “dead” salmon from the day three ad, had suddenly sprung to life and was swimming. AND, if you are wondering how my imagery fit into this published campaign, the large-lettered words. “WALK AWAY FROM BRISTOL BAY” are comprised of my green trees - LOL! While my work was not the center of attention this time around, it still felt good to be included in any way, and know that the effort was effective.

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Tuesday, January 16, 2021
NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #440
NO PEBBLE MINE #440: 
For the fourth day of the serial 5-page, 5-day attack “ad” in Politico, Joel Reynolds, lead attorney, and West Coast Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) threw in a new twist. In the text, he made it clear to the reading public that all of the investors had withdrawn from the project, even though many of them took huge losses to do that. As the audience of Politico is SO Washington-centric, this was a huge blow to Northern Dynasty, who crafted the Pebble development project, killing any chances they might have at further persuading the support of American politicians. Personally, it was great to read the brief text you see above, and to know that all of those investors withdrew, and did so because of the attack ad campaigns that NRDC had been running in many significant newspapers, and in which I participated.

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Tuesday, January 9, 2021
NO PEBBLE MINE, Pictures from Ground Zero #439
NO PEBBLE MINE #439: 
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)’s serial attack ads in Politico against the proposed building of the Pebble mine, “evolved” over the course of five week days. Each day the contaminated water level dropped in the picture, revealing more text. With each day, that text also grew more aggressive. The shift in these ads, which differed from those B&W ones we had run in newspapers, was that these images invoked color, specifically “inflammatory” reds, and the subject matter shifted from the mine damaging the surrounding landscape, to the poison from the mine's tailing impoundments, polluting the waters of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. To make that point PERFECTLY clear, on day #3 (above), the tail of a “dead” salmon appears in the lower, right corner of the image.

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Tuesday, January 2, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #438, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #438: 
Politico also launched, Playbook, a daily, early morning, email newsletter, which quickly attained a huge following of more than 100,000 Washington insiders reading every issue. What got written in these emails clearly began to influence political decision-making. With the rising success and power of this publishing, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) lead attorney, Joel Reynolds, decided to broaden his tactics in the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign, and use this new media, to vary the full-page assault advertising we had been pioneering since 2010 in major newspapers. Because Politico was a well established “daily read” by 2015, and it cost less to use than did the major newspapers, Joel came up with the idea to run a “serial” ad for each day of one week. Joel, and his staff, also decided to change the visual content of the ad from focusing on the mine (and dirt), instead using contaminated water to reference the salmon fishery at risk.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #437, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #437: 
Just a few years before the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) began their full-page newspaper “ads” opposing the development of the Pebble mine in the headwaters of the Bristol Bay fishery, an American political journalism company was launched in Arlington, VA., The Politico. Given the changing technologies of the publishing industry, The Politico not only incorporated printed newspapers, radio, and TV, but they also had a robust website, and did podcasts concentrating their specific coverage on Washington, D.C., the U.S. Congress, lobbying, the media, and the presidency. The two founders were formerly prominent staff at The Washington Post and their first hire was a writer for The New York Times. From the beginning, their journalists covering political campaigns carried a video camera on every assignment, and the journalists were encouraged by their company to share and promote their work elsewhere, an unusual move that paid off, bringing Politico 3,000,000 visits per month in their first year. Within nine years they would have nearly 500 employees worldwide.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #436, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #436: 
The full-page ad on the left ran in the New York Times in 2012, and was followed in 2013 by the mailing of my sharply critical CD-Powerpoint slide show that Joel Reynolds of NRDC had me send to the executives of Anglo American, and Rio Tinto. Coupled with the increasingly visible lecture road shows which we also staged that year, it was finally enough for Anglo American, and they withdrew their investment from the proposed Pebble mine development. Two down, one to go! Rio Tinto could see the writing on the wall with their two partners having withdrawn, and the NRDC ad campaigns making them out to be pariahs, so early on in 2014, Rio Tinto also withdrew their investment. This brilliant campaign literally killed off ALL the investors. Then Joel/NRDC did something unexpected, and when Rio Tinto hosted their shareholder's meeting in London, NRDC ran the full-page ad to the right in the London Financial Times. Genius!

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Tuesday, January 12, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #435, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #435: 
Having lost ALL investors, Mitsubishi in 2011, Anglo American in 2013, and Rio Tinto in 2014, the Vancouver based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. was still touting the proposed Pebble mine development, but with no investors to help it proceed. So, Joel Reynolds and NRDC decided to run another full-page attack add in the Vancouver Sun, the hometown newspaper of that company, which you see above. As you might imagine, the company was not especially pleased to see this, but as someone opposed to the Pebble mine, it was fine by me, and my color photograph translated very dramatically to B & W.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2021

NO PEBBLE MINE #434, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #434: 
Joel Reynolds, my friend, and lead attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council on the West Coast, thought my CD-Powerpoint slide show was ingenious, and not only was he glad I had mailed it to numerous politicians, but he wanted me to send it to the executives of Rio Tinto, and Anglo American, both of whom were investors in the proposed Pebble mine development, which I gladly did. He also asked me to include a letter telling those executives which U.S. politicians had also received such a mailing, and I thought that was the perfect intimidation. Following the full-page attack ad that was run in February (last post), Joel, and I, went out as a tag-team, road show, to lecture and present slides. The card above was used as the mailer announcing our events, and the first was staged in May of 2013 at the Burke Museum located on the campus of the University of Washington. It was standing-room-only that night, which encouraged us to do other venues. Later in the year we held a second event in San Francisco, and a third at the Laemmle theater on the 3rd Street mall-walk in Santa Monica. On that night we also had a tribal spokesperson lecture with us as well, and since NRDC is based in Santa Monica, it has many friends in Hollywood, and the media community, so it was a star-studded event, that was also standing-room-only, enough so that it attracted a visit from the fire marshals who did not stop the show, but made people get out of the aisles. By now, the executives at Rio Tinto, and Anglo American, had also received my caustic CD-Powerpoint slide show, which along with the increasing public attention of our lecture and newspaper ad campaign, pushed Anglo American over-the-top, and they withdrew as an investor in the Pebble development.

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Tuesday, December 29, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #433, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #433: 
Then, in February of 2013, Joel Reynolds and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) ran this ad as a full-pager in The Washington Post. The combination of the last ad run in 2012 (last post) using such direct descriptions of the damage that the Pebble mine development would do, followed by this, was the final straw for Anglo American shareholders, and they voted to withdraw from the proposed project. Two down, one to go. Since I used my Aperture books, The Tongass: Alaska’s Vanishing Rain Forest, and Overlooked In America: The Success and Failure of Federal Land Management to directly lobby Congress by delivering copies to every legislator, some years later it inspired the photographer, Subhankar Banergee, to do the same with his book on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These book “bombings” infuriated the powerful Alaskan Senator, Ted Stevens, so he passed legislation to make receiving any “gift” over $25 would trigger an elaborate mess of paperwork that must be filed, therefore no legislators wanted to accept gift books any more. However, a CD, with a multi-image and text PowerPoint slide show, was well under that $25 limit, so I created a VERY caustic one, juxtaposing images of the pristine landscape of the Bristol Bay headwaters, with detailed text about the impact of the Pebble mine. It also had offsetting images of a similar mine in Butte, Montana, The Berkley Pit, which had a horrible toxic legacy, and impacted the surrounding watershed. I sent some of those CD’s to legislators that knew me, like Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer, and I also sent them to Barack Obama, and his daughters. I gifted Joel Reynolds one as well, and told him if he found it useful, I would gladly make more for NRDC.

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Tuesday, December 22, 2020


NO PEBBLE MINE #432, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #432: 
Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in LA, and I, reveled in the fact that Mitsubishi withdrew as a Pebble mine investor, not wanting to lock horns again with these widely read ad campaigns. Their withdrawal left Rio Tinto and Anglo American as the only two companies still in the game. Empowered by this success, Joel decided to strike again, and ran the above ad in The New York Times. Take the time to read what this ad says. The language is no longer making illusions to the Pebble being a bad idea. It IS describing its scale and toxicity precisely. This is about as in-your-face as you get. Of course, as you can see in the last paragraph, Joel timed this ad to precede the annual shareholders meeting of both these companies, and call them out. Brilliant!

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Tuesday, December 15, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #431, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #431: 
The first ads that Joel Reynolds and the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) ran in 2010 (last post) were placed in two of the most read newspapers in the world, and they put the Pebble mine development in front of a huge national, and international, audience, many of whom had never heard of it before. Joel and I had used this newspaper ad tactic successfully before, driving Mitsubishi out of their proposed development of an industrial salt mine in San Ignacio, an important whale-birthing lagoon in Baja. Now that Mitsubishi was an investor in the Pebble development, seeing those ads made them immediately nervous. The ads were expensive, so they had to be delivered strategically, and those two were the only ones we dropped in 2010. However, on the day before Earth Day, 2011, Joel/NRDC decided to run another full-pager in The New York Times, calling out specific investment partners to the mine development. That was the last straw for Mitsubishi. Concerned about their image in the global market, they withdrew from the project, leaving one out, and two to go, Anglo American, and Rio Tinto.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #430, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #430: 
I was very excited when my longtime friend, Joel Reynolds, lead attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought NRDC into the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign in 2010. Joel is a VERY clever attorney, with whom I had worked before to prevent Mitsubishi Corporation from developing a massive salt extraction plant in one of the most important whale birthing lagoons in Baja, CA. In that campaign, it was Joel’s idea to run full page “ads” in the New York Times and the Washington Post, calling out Mitsubishi for what they were trying to do. Japanese multi-national companies do not take public criticism very well, and as a result of several rounds of such ads, they withdrew their development plans. Joel thought we should do the same thing in the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign, and so on Earth Day in 2010, we dropped the add on the left using my picture of Lake Iliamna. In that add the text calls out Anglo American, one of the investors in the Northern Dynasty mining group from Canada behind the Pebble proposal. Simultaneously, Anglo American was about to hold a shareholders meeting in London, so Joel/NRDC ran the add on the right in the London Financial Times. These “ads” are expensive pages to buy, yet Joel thought they would be effective, and I appreciate NRDC’s willingness to let us run with this line of attack.

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Tuesday, December 1, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #429, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #429: 
Significantly, in 2010, working with my good friend, Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the West Coast offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), I encouraged NRDC to join in the NO PEBBLE MINE campaign. This was a VERY significant player to come into the arena, as NRDC by membership is the largest environmental NGO by membership in North America, and they could bring resources, money, and notable personalities into the coalition campaign. On the ground in Southwest, the battle was being fought by Native villages, as well as hunting and fishing groups, and it gave me great pride that the villages appreciated the work I had done. In the spring of 2011, the PEW Charitable Trusts flew numerous village leaders, and elders, to DC, to meet with various delegates, and directly with Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. They also arranged for him to be given one of the most well-liked prints from my national traveling show, “Southwest Alaska: A World of Parks and Refuges at the Crossroads.” So in this picture taken in Salazar’s office, he stands behind my print, surrounded by Native leaders and a few representatives from the PEW Trusts.

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Tuesday, November 24, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #428, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #428: 
Before the announcement of the proposed Pebble mine, in 2001 I was already trying to call public attention to a little known region of Alaska referred to as Southwest. Southwest is a very large portion of the state, but only has two small cities, Dillingham, and King Salmon-Naknek. It does host numerous Native villages, a number of significant National Parks, and National Wildlife Refuges, the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world, Bristol Bay, and a profusion of land mammals, birds, and freshwater fish, but at that time it was still a location pretty much off the public radar. My first Aperture book about the area, Rivers of Life: Southwest Alaska, The Last Great Salmon Fishery, highlighted the parks and encouraged the successful management of the Bristol Bay fishery. Then, I decided to do a second book on the area, this time focusing on the largest state park in North America, which comprised 1/3 of the bay’s watershed. In 2004, while Aperture had, Wood-Tikchik: Alaska’s Largest State Park, literally, on press, a Canadian company, Northern Dynasty, proposed their plans to build the Pebble, which would be the largest open-pit, cyanide gold-leach mine in the world. I immediately began working with Aperture to create a traveling exhibit of select images from my two books, that would launch in that same year as the national traveling exhibit, “Southwest Alaska: A World of Parks and Refuges at the Crossroads.” That exhibit went on to tour for four years, and was displayed in Washington, DC, three times. The traveling show elicited much attention that helped to stymy the progress of the mine’s developers, and in 2009, in recognition of the work I had done, then-Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, gave me the (above) “Partners In Conservation Award” for helping to unite various coalition groups that were trying to protect the fishery of Bristol Bay by opposing the mine.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2020

NO PEBBLE MINE #427, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #427: 
When I wake in the morning, weather is still rolling through, but the ceiling is high, and there is plenty of visibility, so walking to breakfast, I feel certain Penair will be flying, and I will be leaving soon, headed back to LA. That is confirmed when I return to the inn, as the airline has called to confirm my reservation. I pack my backs, say goodbye by to the Inuit woman at the desk that has become my in-town mother, and grab a cab to the airport. The plane is on time, so this is the end my friend. I am off. My last view of Bristol Bay is rather perfect - weather streaming over, and sunlight showering down through holes in the clouds, lighting up the waters of the bay like shimmering silver. I am going to miss being here in future summers, but I am grateful to have spent as much time here as I have. I want to thank Jan Konigsberg for introducing me to Southwest, Aperture for publishing my two books about the region, and the Turner Foundation, as well as the Alaska Conservation Foundation, for their financial support. Hopefully what we have accomplished will help us all to understand that we should SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE!

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Tuesday, November 10, 2020
NO PEBBLE MINE #426, Pictures from Ground Zero
NO PEBBLE MINE #426: 
After a pork chop pig-out at The Muddy Rudder restaurant, I decide to take a stroll around town before turning in. It seems likely that I will be flying out in the morning as the weather has backed off and the fog dissipated, so I want to have one last look at a place I have spent a good deal of time in during the last four years. As usual, my favorite bars are full of drunks, and the streets are quiet, so I wander down to the docks to gaze at the mouth of the Nushagak and the outer waters of Bristol Bay. I made the image above from the beach of Naknek village, and posted it previously in this blog, but as we are very near the end of this SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE blog, I repost it because it is a quintessential image of Bristol Bay, and quite similar to the conditions surrounding me tonight on the Dillingham dock. This world of Southwest in which I have immersed myself in for many, many months, has been one of the best experiences of my life, and one of the most dramatic, and dynamic of all the places I have ever visited. It is vibrant, full of life and should remain that way, a resource to those that want enjoy it, and not exploit it. Please SAY NO TO THE PEBBLE MINE and don’t let one of the most pristine parts left in the American landscape, be poisoned by a Canadian mining company and international speculators. We don’t have to Make America Great Again, it IS great. We have to keep it from being ruined by idiots.

photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RobertGKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd 

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