03/13/2026
Well. I finally learned how to deal with frostbite.
Alaska in winter tastes like salt. Not salt from ocean air or running sweat, but salt from my freezing nose, running down into my mouth for 10 hours a day, sealed under a layer of Vaseline and tape, one hand warmer, a nose mask, a balaclava, and a buff outside in -30 degrees F.
The Vaseline-under-tape was a trick a local Native American woman taught me. She was in our lodge one day, cooking meals for the elders. When told her that I got frostbite on my nose on the first day's 55 mile snowmobile journey down across the frozen Innoko River, this was the trick she recommended.
You look like a fool, and it feels like pulling your face off to take off, but wow, I really couldn't recommend it more. It did the trick.
Overall, my week in the Innoko Valley finding and filming the rare wood bison now living there was something unlike I've ever experienced. Life at -30 is perilous, feels as razor sharp as the sword shadows of spruce in the low sun, but beautiful. People make a home here, wildlife make a home here, and the entire valley slumbers and shakes with the resilience and creativity of a life made on this incredible, wonderful planet.
Happy to be where it's 100F warmer now, and if it's cold i still prefer to be at least 4000m above the sea, but man, was that an experience I'll always cherish. Thanks again to and for the trust and invite, and to for tying us together!
It's a big, beautiful world out there. One worth everything we have to explore, cherish, and love it.
