The Quiet World_ Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960 - Douglas Brinkley [13]
“In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world,” Muir wrote, with timeless Alaska in mind, “the great fresh unlighted, unredeemed wilderness. The galling harness of civilization drops off, and the wounds heal ere we are aware.”69
Chapter One - Odyssey of the Snowy Owl
I
Young Theodore Roosevelt could barely believe his good fortune. Taking a long break from studying for his Harvard University entrance exams in Manhattan, he headed to Long Island for an outdoor ramble in the calming woods. A dedicated birder, the seventeen-year-old Roosevelt was hoping to add a couple of new species to his growing North American list. Suddenly, Roosevelt heard a faint barking hoot and looked up. Blessed with a marvelous aural ability, as if in compensation for poor eyesight, Roosevelt stopped dead in his tracks. There in front of him in the sylvan stillness was an inscrutable migrant from somewhere around the Arctic Circle, the imaginary line that runs around the globe at a latitude 66° 33' 43" north.1 It was a snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). Bright white in plumage, with velvety, fine-textured downy feathers, this huge owl had a flat humanlike face with piercing yellow eyes that glowed like railroad lanterns. The bird’s insulating white plumage protected it from ambient temperatures of minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. The protective coloration of the snowy owl, much like that of the polar bear, arctic fox, or Dall sheep, was a marvel: evolutionary adaptation principles on gallant display. To Roosevelt’s amazement this circumpolar Odyssean from the dim blue north was overwintering in—of all places!—Oyster Bay, New York. Instead of preying on lemmings or voles around Arctic Alaska, it was gulping down small rodents in the frozen fields of Nassau County.2
One by one, and with an ornithologist’s care, Roosevelt checked off the owl’s otherwordly anatomical features, marveling at its biological ingenuity. He was awed by the purity of its evolutionary composition. Even the owl’s talons were camouflaged with white feathers and had extra-thick pads designed to endure subzero weather. They were strong enough to carry off an arctic vole or medium-size goose. Although freeze-tolerant snowy owls had reportedly been encountered as far south as the Rio Grande valley of Texas, it was a genuine aberration for Roosevelt to stumble randomly upon one in Greater New York City. For a few moments Roosevelt must have held his breath, determined not to break the tranquillity, mesmerized by this living testimony of migration. Then, without further hesitation, he raised his shotgun and killed the snowy owl. Proudly carrying the carcass back to his parents’ house in Manhattan, the future president of the United States performed taxidermy on the adult male bird, using arsenic to preserve the skin, as was typical during the Victorian era.
The snowy owl—the official bird of Quebec—is still among the most coveted, by bird lovers, photographers, ornithologist-collectors, of the world’s 200 owl species. It is often regarded as a talisman from the aquamarine ice lands of the North Country—along with the white morph gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) and ivory gulls (Pagophila eburnea). Human fascination with snowy owls is as old as recorded history. Paleolithic hieroglyphics of these owls were etched on stone walls in ancient France. In recent years the author J. K. Rowling used the snowy owl as a symbol of eternal wisdom in her Harry Potter books. When Roosevelt entered Harvard in September 1876, his stuffed owl was a prized possession in his apartment on Winthrop Street in Cambridge, encased by a bell jar on the mantel. Oddly, the bird’s plumage became whiter as it aged.
After his encounter with the snowy owl, Roosevelt maintained a deep-seated fascination with all Arctic Circle creatures—even the Alaskan beetle (Upis ceramboides), which can live at temperatures as low as minus ninety degrees Fahrenheit; and the wood frog (Rana sylvatica),