Alpine tundra

“ The summer alpine tundra provides insects, seeds, leaf crops, lichens, and fungi as wildlife food. For this short season animals are well supplied and may become conspicuous. Birds, with their advantage of flight, can cover vast areas quickly in the search for food. They can also readily change ecozones. A bird flying from alpine tundra down to a forested slope makes a journey between ecozones equivalent to migrating from above the Arctic Circle to northern Maine. Hawks and eagles, in a regular search for pikas or mice, can cover all of the Teton high peaks in 2 hours or less. ”

“ Often the nights brought frost, and sometimes with the rain sleet sifted down as well. But little the dwellers in these Alpine heights care for these things. If the sun but shines it warms the tundra to their root tips and they push their blossoms forth to meet it with all speed. The geum flecked everything with yellow gold. In the crevices of the cliffs it clung where there was little but coarse gravel for its roots, and its radiate-veined, kidney-shaped root leaves flapped in the gales and were tattered in spite of their toughness. ”

“ The sun brings to life a brilliant Alpine flora, and the tundra has a carpet of grass and mosses.
The Siberian shores of the Polar Ocean forming the edge of the tundra are for the most part low and flat, and Cape Chelyuskin, the northern termination of the Taimir Peninsula in 77° 36′ N., is a low promontory.
This Siberian tundra is the coldest region in the world.16 The earth, alternating in many places with strata of solid ice, is hard frozen in perpetuity for a depth of several hundred feet. ”

“ Compared to the lower realms, where both competition and predation are fierce, life here looks secure.
There is a penalty to simplicity. In the lowland, the long food chains and diversity of species, the long growing season, and the abundant food supply give the forest an adjustment mechanism and healing power not found on the critically balanced tundra. The greater the variety in a plant and animal community, the greater the stability. So in the alpine world there exists a paradox: the most durable life forms constitute the most fragile community. ”

“ Above the tree limit and around snowfields and glaciers lies the alpine tundra. This fragile ecosystem challenges plant and animal survival with temperature extremes, high winds, a short growing season, frequent drought, and poor soil. Basic plant survival adaptations include dwarfism, oversize root systems, matting growth, succulent leaves or stems, and warmth-producing red pigments. Some high mountain plants are almost brown, not green, but perfectly alive. Dwarfism and matting keep plants snugged low to the ground where conditions are less severe than just a few centimeters higher. ”

“ Even small watercourses, such as this freshet, abound with plant and invertebrate life.
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Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, towering above the St. Mary Valley, from the trail to Siyeh Pass. The coniferous forest at its base and the alpine tundra plants at its summit are closely juxtaposed in space; but if these two communities grew at the same elevation they would be separated by thousands of kilometers. Hiking from St. Mary Lake up to Siyeh Pass is going, in effect, from Montana to the Arctic Circle; but here the life zones are compressed and sharply divided rather than extended and overlapping. ”

“ Scattered through this earth are abundant remains of arctic lemming, arctic fox, mountain hare, reindeer, glutton, and a number of other forms which are constant summer visitors to the tundras. The banded lemming is the most plentifully represented species, and next to it in abundance comes the alpine hare. In close association with this tundra fauna occur flint implements, and awls, chisels, harpoons, and needles of bone and horn. ”

“ Cold Moist Climate. Period of the middle or 'full Mousterian' industry of the Neanderthal races. Appearance of the tundra life, including well-protected mammals and birds from the arctic region, also descent of the Alpine types to the foot-hills and river borders. First forerunners of the steppe life; the full Eurasiatic forest and [Pg 192] field life widely spread over Europe. Life and industry chiefly in the shelters, grottos, and entrances to the caverns. Reindeer very abundant. ”

“ REINDEER
113The tundra has no more characteristic animal than the reindeer. Over the mossy hillocks and the matted tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or through the rivers and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long winter he is protected by his thick skin against the influence of the cold, and is seldom at starvation point, as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and is by no means particular what he eats; and in the short summer he is in luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we have seen, is not always as bad as it is painted. ”

“ Towards the Pole this desert gradually loses itself in fields of ice; towards the south in dwarfed woods, becoming itself a field of snow and ice when the long winter sets in, while stunted trees struggle for existence only in the deepest valleys or on the sunniest slopes. This region is the tundra. Our language possesses no synonym for the word tundra. Our fatherland possesses no such track of country, for the tundra is neither heath nor moor, neither marsh nor fen, neither highlands nor sand-dunes, neither moss nor morass, though in many places it may resemble one or other of these. ”

“ Much grander, though still gloomy and monotonous, is the spectacle presented by the high tundra. Here the mountains—for such they are—have all the charms of height. They almost always rise precipitously, and the chains they form have much-broken lines, and in all suitable places the snowy sheets which cover them become glaciers. Tundra in the strict sense is only to be found where the water does not find rapid outlet; the whole remaining country seems so different from the low grounds that only the essentially similar vegetation proclaims it tundra. ”

“ For the most part, the pictures are small canvases, depicting glaciers, icebergs, snowdrifts, coast scenes, and the tundra in its ever-varying color-aspects, winter and midsummer, spring and autumn, with its Samoyeds, their tents, boats, sledges, reindeer, dogs, and foxes. Every imaginable atmospheric effect is given, from the wonderful glow of the midnight sun, to raw, hanging fog that can be well-nigh felt. ”

“ Numerous shells of crustacea found here, belonging to species which still live in the Polar Sea, show that at least the upper earthy layer of the tundra was deposited in a sea resembling that which now washes the north coast of Siberia. [211]
The tundra itself is in summer completely free of snow, but at a limited depth from the surface the ground is continually frozen. At some places the earthy strata alternate with strata of pure, clear ice. ”

“ Driving southwest, the three boys began the long trek across the tundra, hoping they might soon sight the abandoned igloos indicated on the map as the next landmark.
But two hours of steady mushing failed to raise anything resembling a habitation. The tundra still stretched monotonously ahead of them, the countless acres of snow glaring in their eyes as it reflected the sun’s rays. ”

“ Along the Arctic seaboard, homogeneous from Behring Strait nearly to the North Cape, we have the frozen tundra region, with a characteristic tundra culture; pushed now far north since Europe mellowed into a habitable world, but formerly widespread about the skirts of the shrinking ice-sheet. Here we hunt large animals and sea-shore beasts, and trap small-deer very ingeniously; we fish in the large northward-flowing rivers ”

“ In the extreme northern part of Canada and Alaska, where the ground is constantly frozen, thawing only on the surface in the summer, and forming the well known tundra, the prevailing plant life consists of reindeer moss, with a few dwarf Arctic willows. But in the short, hot summers of this region even the tundra is gay with bright-colored blossoms. ”

“ Where these go, how they end, none can say, but certain it is that the tundra behind them is as if dead, that a number of years pass ere the few who have remained behind, and have managed to survive, slowly multiply, and visibly re-people their native fields. ”

“ The tundra is generally a slightly rolling plain sloping towards the rivers, intercepted by deep river valleys with precipitous sides. The ground is frozen for several hundreds of feet below the surface, and for eight months, from October to May, the tundra is a sheet of snow 6 feet thick. In the summer a wild-looking country appears, full of small lakes, swamps, and streams, swarming with mosquitos and frequented by myriads of birds. ”

“ I do not allude to the ptarmigan of our mountains, which is here also restricted to the glacier region, but to the much more abundant willow-grouse. Wherever the dwarf-birch thrives it is to be found, and it is always visible, but especially when the silence of night has fallen upon the tundra, even though the sun be shining overhead. It never entirely forsakes its haunts, but, at the most, descends from the heights to the low grounds in winter. It is lively and nimble, pert and self-possessed, jealous and quarrelsome towards its rivals, affectionate and devoted towards its mate and young. ”

“ In falling down the face of the ice-wall it is well shaken and rolled before it again comes to rest on terraced or gently sloping portions of the wall. The original vegetation of the tundra is thus destroyed, and tall grasses spring up on the fresh mellow ground as it accumulates from time to time, growing lush and rank, though in many places that we noted these new soil-beds are not more than a foot in depth, and lie on the solid ice. ”

“ In exposed situations, especially in the higher latitudes, the tundra does really merit its American name of Barren Ground, being little else than gravel beds interspersed with bare patches of peat or clay, and with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the monotony. In Siberia, at least, this is very exceptional. By far the greater part of the tundra, both east and west of the Ural Mountains, is a gently undulating plain, full of lakes, rivers, swamps, and bogs. The lakes are diversified with patches of green water plants, amongst which ducks and swans float and dive ”

“ In winter the tundra is, of course, one vast frozen sheet. In the brief summer it is swampy, steaming, and swarming with mosquitoes. Treeless and sterile, the tundra is the home of strange uncouth tribes, but it is a valuable training ground for hardy hunters. To the minds of most people the tundra is Siberia. This mischievous fallacy is difficult to dispel. In a few years the Siberian railway will have completely dissipated it. Much more valuable is the far wider zone called the taiga, the most wonderful belt of forest on the surface of the earth. ”

“ It occasionally wanders south to the sixtieth parallel, but that is only in treeless regions, for it everywhere avoids the forest, seeming to prefer the barest and most sterile lands. Another common denizen of the tundras is the arctic or mountain hare. This is the same species so commonly met with above the limits of the forests in the mountains of temperate Europe. A closely allied form (polar hare) frequents the barrens of North America. The reindeer must also be included in the tundra fauna, although in winter it ranges far into the forest zone. ”

“ Where it abuts upon the sea the tundra stands from eight to twenty feet above it, at places descending to even lower levels. The sea face is almost everywhere an abrupt one, showing undercutting by high water, and it is continued by a broad, rapidly sloping sand and shingle beach, which packs firmly, and almost immediately beneath the surface exhibits a distinctly stratified construction—the alternate layers of fine, flat gravel, coarse, clayey sand, and finer “ruby” (fragmented garnet) sand sloping like the surface, although generally with a milder pitch, to the sea. ”

“ The air on the Tundra, and, indeed, in all the Arctic region has a curious way of deceiving the traveler. It makes things look like something else. Take a day when the sunshine lights up the scene and the grey, lichen-covered mounds take wonderful colors in the distance from the blue sky and the haze. Though lakes of water appear to grow and fill the far-off hollows, Mekolka knows they are not lakes, but little snowdrifts. It is the mirage that plays these little tricks. ”

“ C. Organic Basins.—In the vast tundras that skirt the Arctic Ocean in both the old and the new world, a great number of frozen ponds and lakes are met with, surrounded by banks of vegetation. Snow-banks are generally accumulated every season at the same spots. During summer the growth of the tundra vegetation is very rapid, and the snow-drifts that last longest are surrounded by luxuriant vegetation. When such accumulations of snow finally melt, the vegetation on the place they occupied is much less than along their borders. ”

“ After a few days this winter, as much dreaded by us as by the migratory birds, yet longed for by the human inhabitants of the tundra, sets in on the inhospitable land, to maintain its supremacy longer, much longer than spring, summer, and autumn together. For days and weeks in succession snow falls, sometimes coming down lightly in sharp-cornered crystals, or sometimes in large flakes, driven by a raging storm. Hills and valleys, rivers and lakes are gradually shrouded in the same winter dress. ”

“ The year is well advanced before the tundra begins to be visibly peopled. Of the species which never leave it one sees very little in winter. The fish which ascend its rivers from the sea are concealed by the ice; the mammals and birds which winter in it are hidden by the snow, under which they live, or whose colour they wear. Not until the snow begins to melt on the southern slopes does the animal life begin to stir. Hesitatingly the summer visitors make their appearance. The wolf follows the wild reindeer, the army of summer birds follows the drifting ice blocks on the streams. ”