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Caribou swimming at Gates of the Arctic. NPS photo by Matt Cameron.

Most, if not all of us, have bucket lists. Places we want to visit…but don’t always get the opportunity.
 
This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. One of the destinations on my bucket list is Gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Noatak River that runs through it. A week or two floating the river sounds pretty ideal to me.
 
While it’s debatable whether I’ll cross that off my bucket list remains to be seen, today’s guest has floated the river more than once and backpacked all over Gates of the Arctic. And Jon Waterman returned from those trips with incredible stories of the places he saw, the people he met, and the wildlife that came in range of his eyes.
 
But over the course of several decades Jon also has witnessed the impact of climate change to the region, and it hasn’t been good. It’s the main thread of a story he lays out in his latest book, Into the Thaw.

0:02 National Parks Traveler introduction
0:12 Episode Intro with Kurt Repanshek
0:54 Whispering Winds - Grant Geissman - Sounds of the Caribbean
1:13 Smokies Life
1:35 Friends of Acadia
2:06 Episode 304 - Into the Thaw
16:00 Wonder Lake - Various Artists - The Spirit of Alaska
16:17 Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
16:42 NPT Essential Coverage
17:52 Episode 304 - Into the Thaw Continues
40:27 Kenai Fjords - Various Artists - The Spirit of Alaska
40:53 Episode Closing
41:15 Orange Tree Productions
41:48 Splitbeard Productions
41:59 National Parks Traveler footer

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