In 2001, I did a story on a patient, tenacious, gregarious ornithologist named George Divoky, who had spent 28 years and counting, living on a forbidding stretch of ice north of Alaska, 3 months a year, studying his specialty, arctic seabirds. Inadvertently, what he also did was amass one of the world's largest experiential accounts of global warming. A lot of theoreticians who project climate change use algorithms, and scientifically based modeling to project the loss of the ice pack. By contrast, George has lived it, all these years, sleeping on the ice, living in solitary, difficult conditions, and making painstaking notes in old school, battered, salt stained notebooks. When I visited him, it was basically the two of us, stranded on the ice for nearly ten days, eating Dinty Moore beef stew and living in pup tents. You get to know each other in these conditions. George and I became friends and remain so to this day.
His study is now at 45 years in duration, and I went back up to Cooper Island this past July of 2019, with a film crew, to document his ongoing research, which is an astonishing and important act of perseverance. I photographed George standing once again in the very same place I photographed him all those years ago. Back in 2001, he was standing on ice. Now, in 2019, he is knee deep in water. To quote George, "The Arctic is melting."
Thank you, first of all, to George, for his ongoing, selfless work. And thank you to Nikon USA for their kind support. Thank you to an amazing crew! Lynn DelMastro was the executive producer and pulled the pieces together. Jon Brundage was our DOP and ran first camera. Mike Cali, our studio crew chief, ran second camera. Ryan Brooks of Flying Giant Productions did double duty as audio supervisor and drone pilot. Brett Satterlund shot the Seattle footage in George's home. Andrew Tomasino shot and edited the BTS footage. And our editor Tim Sevigny pulled it all together in his wonderful edit. #disappearingarcticseaice #globalwarming #cooperisland