This summer, specialists from the Central Yukon Field Office geared up in mid-July for a six-day float trip conducting inventory on lands along the South Fork Koyukuk River in the remote backcountry of Interior Alaska.

Staff directionally felled encroaching conifers into a creek near Lander, Wyoming, to mimic natural log jams and provide structure to the stream channel. This will improve the habitat for fish, beaver and other wildlife.

Nearly a year ago, personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and BLM New Mexico worked together to save endangered Koster’s springsnails when a creek at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge ran dry near the end of a hot summer.

Departing from a cold, snow covered remote airstrip along the Dalton Highway by small, fixed wing aircraft, we were headed to the BLM Arctic District’s Umiat Field Camp on the southeast edge of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.