The Other Arctic

A band of caribou from Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake herd migrates across the vast coastal plain, traveling from calving grounds to windier areas where mosquitoes and bot flies are less likely to swarm. Protecting calving grounds, migration routes, and insect-relief areas is critical to the herd's health and survival. Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

A polygon mosaic takes shape when the ground freezes and cracks, allowing water to collect and form ice wedges that expande each winter. Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Caribou tracks. (Oil and the Caribou series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Brant and snow geese on Teshekpuk Lake. Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

These are tracks on coal seams made by the Western Arctic caribou herd over a very long period, perhaps many centuries or even millenia. The tracks are deeply etched in the coal surface. Caribou use this area both for calving and post calving aggregation. (Coal and the Caribou series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Caribou crossing Utukok River. (Coal and the Caribou series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Caribou tracks on wetland. (Oil and the Geese series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Caribou tracks on tundra. (Coal and the Caribou series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

The Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd rests in the Pik Dunes, a unique expanse of desertlike sand south of their calving grounds. The dunes offer the caribou relief from insects, their most numerous and relentless "predators." After calving takes place, insect-relief areas become essential for caribou survival. Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

"Known and Unknown Tracks" (Oil and the Geese series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Snow geese with their blue-gray young cross a tundra polygon, a common feature in the western Arctic's permafrost landscape. Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Snow geese with chicks. (Oil and the Geese series) Photo: Subhankar Banerjee

Subhankar Banerjee is an Indian-born American photographer, writer, educator, and activist. Over the past decade he has been a leading voice on issues of Arctic conservation, indigenous human rights, resource development, and climate change. He is currently editing an anthology, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2012). His photographs have been exhibited in more than 50 museums and galleries in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, and will be shown at the 18th Biennale of Sydney in 2012. Subhankar founded ClimateStoryTellers.org in 2010. He has received many awards including Cultural Freedom Fellowship from Lannan Foundation, Greenleaf Artist Award from UNEP, National Conservation awards from National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club, and was named an Arctic Hero by Alaska Wilderness League in 2010. Subhankar is currently Director's Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for fall 2011, and will be Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fordham University in New York for spring 2012. To see more work by Banerjee, visit http://www.subhankarbanerjee.org/ Photo: Subhankar Banerjee — Subhankar Banerjee is an Indian-born American photographer, writer, educator, and activist. Over the past decade he has been a leading voice on issues of Arctic conservation, indigenous human rights, resource development, and climate change. He is currently editing an anthology, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2012). His photographs have been exhibited in more than 50 museums and galleries in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico, and will be shown at the 18th Biennale of Sydney in 2012. Subhankar founded ClimateStoryTellers.org in 2010. He has received many awards including Cultural Freedom Fellowship from Lannan Foundation, Greenleaf Artist Award from UNEP, National Conservation awards from National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club, and was named an Arctic Hero by Alaska Wilderness League in 2010. Subhankar is currently Director's Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for fall 2011, and will be Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fordham University in New York for spring 2012.

To see more work by Banerjee, visit http://www.subhankarbanerjee.org/

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