Outdoors/Adventure

VIDEO: 'The World Beyond the World' explores remote national park

Using text adapted from Robert Marshall's "Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range" (1929) and images from Expedition Arguk (2013), filmmaker Paxson Woelber's "The World Beyond the World" aims to celebrate that most ancient and sublime of human pleasures: moving through a mysterious, beautiful, and unknown landscape.

In 2013, Expedition Arguk walked and packrafted across 300 miles of wilderness in Alaska's Arctic in order to report on Arctic issues and create public-use media from this far-away but increasingly important region. "The World Beyond the World" was shot during the first third of the trip, which took place entirely in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. Gates of the Arctic is the second-largest U.S. National Park, but its extraordinary remoteness and challenging weather mean that the park sees relatively few visitors. There are no park guidebooks, maintained trails, campgrounds, or roads.

The video was assembled entirely from stills shot with a Nikon D7100 camera, using a Nikon 55-200 VR and a Tokina 11-17 ultrawide lens. Post-production was done in Photoshop and After Effects, with countless hours on a Wacom Intuos4 tablet. You can see the still images from this adventure in an earlier Alaska Dispatch article written by Woelber, and find images on the Expedition Arguk site.

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