Kootznoowoo Wilderness, Admiralty Island, Alaska

This year, Wilderness Volunteers is offering its second project in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness in cooperation with the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. This is a beautiful remote wilderness with coastal forests of Sitka spruce and western hemlock situated along the inside passage. Bald eagles by the hundreds are in the treetops along the beaches, harbor seals, Stellar seal lions and humpback whales feed near rafts of sea ducks. The forest floors are thickly covered with mosses and blueberries, but the island is best known for its brown bears.

The PBS series Nature featured a show on these bears this week.

Watch Fortress of the Bears on PBS. See more from Nature.

If you have ever wanted to see bears, this is your opportunity!

Hey...What's Hedwig Doing Here?

A snowy owl in New Jersey

In keeping with the recent raptor theme, here's a neat article on a fascinating development taking place right now in the northern United States. Birders call it the snowy owl irruption.

Translation: a lot of snowy owls.

Unless you've been to the Arctic or have simply been lucky, you likely have only ever seen a snowy owl on the big screen next to Harry Potter. This year, however, folks across the country from Boston to Seattle - even Hawaii- are seeing snowy owls in record numbers. (I recently saw one near a reservoir in northern New Jersey - my second in four years - and needless to say it was truly an incredible sight.) Estimates place the number of snowy owls now wintering in the US at a few thousand - far exceeding the numbers usually found here at this time of year.

Read on to learn what may be behind this influx, where they can be seen, and how many owls it takes to make an "owl jam" in Missouri.

Flight of the Goshawk

Did you ever wonder how large birds are able to fly through trees and miss all those branches? The BBC posted this video of a Goshawk flying through increasingly small spaces in slow motion. Fascinating!

Moose Tracks...(Not the Ones in Your Freezer)

Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, ID (2010)

Ever wonder whose tracks those are on the trail? Or what the difference is between a dog and a wolf track, or a black bear and a grizzly bear print? (Which could be useful...) Check out "Off the Beaten Path", a short article in Audobon's September 2011 issue which profiles top wildlife tracker Mark Elbroch - one of only 16 people in the US with a specialist certification - and offers a view into the fascinating, competitive, and controversial world of wildlife tracking.

Read on to learn more about this growing hobby, the role it plays in conservation efforts, and whether those tracks belong to a Douglass squirrel or a gray one.

Reality TV 2.0

For those of you tuned in to watch the Decorah, Iowa eagles last year, here's another chance to enjoy them.

Reality TV's got nothing on these two.

Quote of the Day

"Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours."- Robert Byrne, American author and billiard instructor

Give the Gift of Adventure!

Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness, White River Nat'l Forest (CO) 2008

It's gift-giving season.

This year, instead of giving something that will be used up or easily forgotten, give a gift that will be anticipated for several months, one that will create memories that will last a lifetime. A gift that will be experienced by engaging all the senses in the natural world. An adventure in a beautiful setting.

Give a Wilderness Volunteers Gift Certificate.

The gift certificate is good for the project of their choice, with 50 to choose from from Minnesota to New Hampshire, West Virginia to Montana, Vermont to Alaska, Hawaii to Arizona. They'll be able to look over the projects, decide which is best for them, and send in their application. Over the next months, they'll get ready for the project by working on being in shape and collecting their gear. When the project starts, they'll meet some great people and work together on a project, share meals and soak up the majesty of America's public lands. They'll return home with pictures and stories to be shared and remembered for a lifetime.

Joseph Campbell, the mythologist and chronicler of how stories bring meaning to life, wrote, "I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” "The Power of Myth", Anchor Press, 1991.

Buy a Wilderness Volunteers Gift Certificate at this link.

Questions? Contact us at info@wildernessvolunteers.org or call (928) 556-0038.

We wish you a wonderful holiday and adventurous New Year!