Schedule outline below - full bios will be available soon!
Throughout the summer, we invite guest speakers to share their expertise in the field and through evening presentations. You may want to time your visit at Camp Denali or North Face Lodge to coincide with one of our Special Emphasis Series sessions. Our regular program of guided hiking occurs simultaneously.
Return to our 2018 Special Emphasis Series schedule.
May 31 - June 2 at North Face Lodge
June 3-6 at Camp Denali
Stan Senner brings a life-long love of birds and long experience in science, conservation and public policy to his work as Vice President for Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society. Although much of his work is in the Pacific Flyway, which spans the region from Alaska south to Chile, Stan supports Audubon’s bird conservation programs throughout the country and Western Hemisphere.
Most of Senner’s professional career has focused on science and public policy related to energy development and its impacts on wildlife and ecosystems. Over the last 45 years he has worked for The Wilderness Society and U.S. House of Representatives during passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. He also served as Executive Director of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, as Alaska's Science Coordinator following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and as Executive Director of Audubon Alaska. Following the BP oil disaster, Senner directed Ocean Conservancy’s restoration science team in the Gulf of Mexico region.
Birds are Senner’s great love, and his particular interest is in migration. He holds a M.S. in biology from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and has published many articles on the ecology and conservation of birds. He first visited Camp Denali in 1975 and is currently based with his wife Pat in Missoula, Montana.
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Field trips will focus on observing and appreciating breeding birds in forest, tundra, and wetland habitats. Guests of all skill levels should find these outings rewarding. Senner will give two evening presentations: one on bird migration and the natural history of Denali’s bird life, and the other on conservation in Alaska and the Pacific Flyway.
June 10-13 at Camp Denali
June 14-16 at Camp Denali
David Sibley, son of ornithologist Fred Sibley, began seriously watching and drawing birds in 1969, at age seven. Since 1980, David has traveled throughout North America in search of birds, both on his own and as a leader of birdwatching tours. This intensive travel and bird study culminated in the publication of his comprehensive guide to bird identification The Sibley Guide to Birds in 2000 and the completely updated second edition in 2014. Other books include a companion volume The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior in 2001; Sibley's Birding Basics – an introduction to bird identification – in 2002; and the Sibley Field Guides to Eastern and Western birds second edition in 2016. In 2009 he completed a fully illustrated guide to the identification of North American Trees – The Sibley Guide to Trees.
David Sibley is the recipient of the Roger Tory Peterson Award for lifetime achievement from the American Birding Association and the Linnaean Society of New York’s Eisenmann Medal. David lives in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he continues to study and draw birds and trees.
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Birding, like any nature study, is all about observation, and real observation involves more than just watching. It means asking questions, making comparisons, finding connections. Art, sketching, writing, photography, and more are all great ways to slow down and make discoveries. David is looking forward to exploring the birds and the environment of Denali, and hopes that all participants, birders and non-birders, will come away with heightened curiosity, and a deeper understanding of the natural world.
In one evening program David will talk about his own development as a naturalist and artist, especially the importance of field sketching as a method of study. David’s second talk is about the psychology of perception and how it can lead, and mislead, our efforts to identify birds.
June 17 - 20 at Camp Denali
June 21 - 23 at North Face Lodge
Sara Tabbert is a printmaker and mixed media artist from Fairbanks, Alaska. She returned to her hometown in 2000 after college and graduate school in the Midwest and since 2010 has been fortunate to be a full-time artist. All her work is tied to the material of wood – she carves and prints wood blocks on paper, or the carved pieces become the art itself. In addition to smaller work, Tabbert’s large-scale commissions can be found in and on public buildings throughout the state. Her efforts have been supported by grants from the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska State Council on the Arts. In addition to residencies in the US, Canada, Argentina, and Italy, she has been a summer and winter artist in residence through the National Park Service in Denali, as well as Zion and Isle Royale National Parks.
Sharing art with young people is one of Sarah Tabbert's priorities and she has worked actively over the past ten years as a teaching artist with schools from the Seward Peninsula to the end of the Aleutians.
Her work will be exhibited in 2019 in a solo show at the Alaska State Museum. Tabbert is also a former staff member at Camp Denali, where many hours mainly in the kitchen helped pay for graduate school and support the early years of making art in Fairbanks.
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Sara will talk about the relationships between artists and public lands, and share her experiences working in various parks as an artist in residence. She will also talk about working with schools in the vast variety of communities across Alaska, as well as how all these activities and experiences have influenced her work.
July 1 - 4 at Camp Denali
July 5 - 7 at North Face Lodge
Dr. Mara Kimmel has had a long career in Alaskan public policy focused on issues of rights and justice. She is currently Deputy Director of Strategy, Scholarship and Engagement at the Anchorage Museum. Mara was appointed by the Governor of the State of Alaska to serve on the state’s Climate Leadership Team. She has been on faculty at the Seattle University School of Law Anchorage campus, the department of Political Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and served as the Walter J. Hickel Professor of Strategic Development and Entrepreneurship at Alaska Pacific University.
Mara is currently First Lady of the Municipality of Anchorage where she is involved with several city initiatives focused on equity, resilience and combating human trafficking. Mara has practiced law in Alaska since 1996, and co-founded the Alaska Institute for Justice-- Alaska’s only non-profit agency providing low-cost immigration legal services, language access services and research and policy analysis on issues impacting human rights in Alaska. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Mara worked with Alaska Native tribes on environmental governance issues.
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Culture and diversity are visceral in America’s Arctic state. We are home to peoples who have inhabited these lands for over 10,000 years and to people who have come to the state seeking refuge from contemporary wars fought halfway around the world. Alaska’s largest city is one of the nation’s most diverse, with over 100 languages spoken in the Anchorage school district. Rural, roadless communities dot the vast landscape connected only by snowmachine, boat or airplane. The rich cultures and lifeways of indigenous and immigrant communities define the past and future of the 49th state.
Mara’s evening discussions will describe how here on the northern edge, Alaska is on the cutting edge of innovation and inclusion. She will take you through the history of U.S. and state laws and policies that shape Alaskan lives, landscapes and future possibilities. Mara will introduce the history of indigenous land claims, the carving up of Alaska’s lands, the importance of natural resources, and the role and importance of foreign-born Alaskans to the future of our state. The discussions will examine how ancient knowledge and worldviews combine with contemporary migration to seed innovation in building resilient communities in times of enormous economic and environmental transformation.
July 15 - 18 at Camp Denali
July 19 - 21 at North Face Lodge
Dr. Patrick Druckenmiller is Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Director of the University of Alaska Museum. His research focuses on Mesozoic marine reptiles and dinosaurs, particularly those from high latitudes. Dr. Druckenmiller is currently involved in several field-based research projects in the far north; he collects and studies marine reptiles from Svalbard, Norway, and he leads expeditions to numerous dinosaur sites across Alaska, including Denali National Park and Preserve. He also oversees the largest collection of Alaskan fossils, ranging from Ice Age mammals to polar dinosaurs.
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Dr. Druckenmiller’s first presentation will introduce the unexpectedly rich and varied record of Alaskan dinosaurs and other animals from the Mesozoic Era, or Age of Dinosaurs. From this huge geographic region - extending from Southeast Alaska to the North Slope - he will put Alaskan dinosaurs into a broader context by providing an overview of the questions concerning the fossils found in the state, recent discoveries that help answer those questions, how we study these remains, and what its like doing fieldwork in remote corners of Alaska.
In his second presentation, Druckenmiller will focus more specifically on dinosaurs and ancient landscapes in Denali National Park and Preserve, based on his own field-based research. He will discuss some of the park’s amazing geological history, long before Denali itself was born. He will also describe the ancient vegetation found here 70 million years ago, the amazing variety of fossilized tracks from the park and the methods we use to collect these data. Collectively, he will discuss how we combine these types of information to reconstruct an ancient Denali ecosystem - an Alaska you’ve never before seen.
July 22 - 25 at Camp Denali
July 26 - 28 at North Face Lodge
Gwen is the founder and Director of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, an applied energy research program based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks that focuses on community-scale fossil and renewable/alternative energy technologies. Specific areas of emphasis include power systems integration for microgrids, hydrokinetic energy, low temperature geothermal, and diesel efficiency. Prior to joining the University of Alaska, Gwen worked in the private sector as a design engineer and project manager, including the design and construction of the only operating geothermal power plant in Alaska at Chena Hot Springs. This project received several awards including a R&D 100 award (R&D Magazine) and Project of the Year in the Renewable Energy Category (Power Engineering Magazine). Gwen has been inducted into the Alaska Innovator’s Hall of Fame, and was selected as a member of Alaska’s Top Forty Under 40. In 2015-16, she served as a Fulbright Scholar as part of the Arctic Fulbright Initiative.
Gwen lives in an off-grid home with her family and 35 dogs, using a combination of solar, wind, battery storage, diesel generation, and wood heat. She has competed in the Yukon Quest and Iditarod sleddog races.
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Holdmann’s evening lectures will weave together stories about energy production and use in society, with stories of Alaska ingenuity and leadership in designing the energy systems of the future. She will include personal tales of living beyond the edge of the grid in a trapper's cabin with her team of sled dogs, as well as training and racing in the Iditarod Sleddog race and Yukon Quest.
July 29 - August 1 at Camp Denali
August 2 - 4 at North Face Lodge
August 19 - 22 at Camp Denali
August 23 - 25 at North Face Lodge
Traveling to Alaska since 1990, acclaimed artist Jim Wilson has been painting and drawing wild nature for 40 years. His work has appeared in magazines and museums, is included in private and corporate collections, and is shown in galleries across the United States and Canada, as well as at his studio in Virginia. Jim directs a portion of proceeds from fine art reproductions to conservation and humanitarian organizations around the world.
Jim seeks to understand, celebrate and share the natural world with others through his paintings. Participants on his hikes will have the opportunity to learn how to develop visual interpretations from the field by combining journal notes with sketching, painting and photography.
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Jim’s evening programs will examine the creative process of celebrating nature in art, including a presentation of his work.
August 26 - 29 at Camp Denali
August 30 - September 1 at Camp Denali
David W. Shaw is a Fairbanks, Alaska based writer and photographer specializing in conservation imagery, science writing, and educating others about the art of photography. He has both undergraduate and master’s degrees in wildlife biology and applies this background to create in-depth stories of the natural world.
He has written over 100 articles for publications across the world. His images and writing about science and natural history have appeared in magazines like Sierra, Living Bird, UnDark, Defenders, Ensia, Resurgence and Ecologist, Birds and Blooms, Birdwatcher’s Digest, Birdwatching, Alaska, and others. While his instructional photography articles have been published in Shutterbug, Photographic, Photo Technique, Professional Photographer, Amateur Photographer and others.
Dave is also an instructor at the Digital Photography School and Expert Photography. He leads small-group, active-learning photography workshops, and natural history tours in Alaska and abroad.
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Evening programs will discuss how to create compelling images of Alaska’s landscapes and wildlife. Moving quickly beyond classic composition and camera settings, Dave will emphasize a creative and thoughtful approach to outdoor photography, focusing on how to tell the stories of the places, wildlife, and people we encounter.
* Please note that an additional program fee of $300 for the four-night stay is charged to each Autumn Nature Photography Workshop participant. The workshop is limited to 10 participants.
September 2-5 at Camp Denali
September 6-8 at Camp Denali
Dr. Neal Brown worked for NASA in the 1960s, where his interest in auroral phenomena was first sparked. At the time, the aurora was linked to understanding the earth’s atmospheric makeup, a key factor in spacecraft travel. Brown went on to direct the University of Alaska’s Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, one of the nation’s busiest space research facilities and the world’s only university-owned rocket range. In 1995, he retired from his faculty position in the Physics Department and Geophysical Institute at the University. Neal was brought back to be Director of the NASA-sponsored Alaska Space Grant Program, a position he served in from 2002 through 2008. Brown is a consummate teacher and has been featured on PBS, the Discovery Channel, and Good Morning America. 2019 marks his 33rd year as a Special Emphasis Series speaker at Camp Denali.
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Brown’s evening lectures will explore the aurora, its myths and science, sun dogs, noctilucent clouds, and other atmospheric phenomena. Hands-on instructional aids and displays will illustrate many of the discussed scientific concepts. By early September, clear nights are finally dark enough to view the aurora. Join Neal in his enthusiasm for the north country’s mystical night skies!
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