Villagers grazed their animals there or met for a revival. In 2001, a common is something we fight over. It is a battleground of values. The latest and most fragile common in public dispute is the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska. On the coastal plain, the living is easy for the caribou.
Sea winds keep the mosquitoes away, and the tundra provides a salad bar.
Here, crowded onto the narrowest strip of tundra in all of Arctic Alaska, tens of thousands of females give birth. Birthing would not be possible on such a scale anywhere else on their route, due to the difficulty of finding food, the torturous presence of insects and the threat of wolves and bears. The coastal plain is also a den area for the polar bear, a magnificent marine mammal that is increasingly traumatized throughout the circumpolar north. Over 150 species of birds nest here. Year round, the tundra is home to musk oxen and other mammals.