Before this trip, I imagined the Arctic to be endless icy cold hardened land not capable of sustaining any plants. But in fact, during the summer, life is upwelling everywhere. From a distance, tundra appeared to me as dull and lifeless, but in fact, it was full of life. It was spongy to walk upon. My boots sunk in for inches. I felt like I was walking on a mattress or air cushion. Sometimes I stopped and started to examine the plant growth. I could pull apart the top green, leafy layers and find different growth underneath: flowers, mushrooms, lichen, and berries.
I made the same observation on open, seemingly barren, endless gravel bars like Jenny Linn Island. My initial impression was there was nothing there; just a bunch of gravel and some larger rocks, maybe some depressions holding rain water. But as we walked on these landscapes, a different picture emerged. Here are there were small plants, colorful lichen on rocks. With time, we saw small animals and occasionally in the distance, a fox or caribou.
