Alaska is a land of migration – yesterday, I saw a flock of Aleutian terns – they are assembling for Indonesia.  And a lone arctic tern, on a telephone pole.  He will find his way soon to Antarctica, completing his annual 24,000 mile migration.  The longest migration of any animal on Earth is an eternal quest for summer.

For as much as science can tell us about the ways of the world, it is amazing how some of these most spectacular migrations are still filled with mystery.  Sometimes, the animal travelers will show up in one part of the world.  Then they disappear, only to appear halfway around the world sometime later in the year.  For some species, which route they took – how they got there – and how they survived, still eludes us.  I like knowing that science is still so an unwritten book, in many cases, I like knowing that in my lifetime I will see some more pages written.

Birds and their migrations may be incredible, but I am interested in how the first humans crossed into the Americas.  This Peninsula, which points towards Siberia, was part of a great land mass, a thousand miles from north to south.  During the ice age, water receded and Beringia rose from the shallow Bering Sea.