Mark D. Ross, a life-long artist/naturalist residing in Alaska’s Interior for more than four decades. Mark shares the ecology of this wildlife refuge and the history of its land. He shares his artwork and discoveries across mediums: in person, print, and radio. His journey has taken him across Alaska and beyond, each step driven by a curiosity for the creatures that inhabit these diverse ecosystems. With a passion for showcasing the wonders of wild places, Mark leaves a legacy that ensures the land and wildlife are appreciated and celebrated for generations to come. See and hear some of Mark’s work at:
Creamer’s Sounds and Sights by Mark Ross | Friends of Creamer’s Field
Mark’s field sketchbook is available for purchase on our website and at the Creamer’s Field Farmhouse Visitor Center.
Listen and follow along with KUAC’s Robert Hannon as he sits down with Mark Ross to discuss his life and memorable journey.
Robert Hannon: Mark Ross is a biologist and educator at the Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge.
Mark Ross: Yeah, some of my earliest recollections. Going out in nature, I grew up in the Mohawk Valley, Mohawk River Valley, upstate New York, very rural, small, a small hamlet of Vernon Center, you know, maybe 500 people. So lots of dairy farms, wood lots, streams, marshes. And we had kind of a small family farm, you could say, you know, we had 20 acres. We cut some hay off of it. There was a marsh at the bottom of it, which was very attractive with a brook running into it and out of it. And so I was, you know, I spent a lot of time alone just exploring that and and organizing little collecting trips with friends and my brother.
Wow, it sounds lovely.
And and all that sort of things.
When you went on the collecting expeditions, what were you looking for?
Well, the big draw of stuff. That’s right at hand. Of course. Reptiles and amphibians, you know. And a marsh, of course, is full of that. I mean, as I, as we’re speaking, I’m in my mind, I can hear the vocalizations. You know, the green frogs, you know, and the Red Wing blackbirds. You know the cookery. You know.
Uh-huh.
And so, it’s very rich with. With bird life. But are those reptiles and amphibians are right there at the hand? You know, snapping turtles, painted turtles?
As you grew older, it seems like you must have retained this passion for the outdoors. Is that true? Did you decide going to college or?
Yeah, that was my. That was my big determining factor for college was to stay in the field of Natural History, no doubt about that.
And where did you go? Where did you decide to study? Was it someplace close to hand that had a good program?
Yeah, fairly close. Yeah, down in the Catskill Mountains. Cobleskill. State University of New York at Cobleskill at the southern foothills of the Catskill Mountains, and they had a they had a wildlife program there, two-year program. I went down there and that was kind of my first taste of spending bit of time and mountains. Catskill Mountains. I had been in the Adirondacks a little bit, you know, that’s Northern New York State, the Catskills of Southern New York State. And because I was going to school so close, I went in there and and there’s a there’s a good array of trails in there and they have a few mountains. They have four or five mountains over 4,000 feet.
So respectable height there.
Yeah. Well, our family had a lot of athletic background. Both my parents were Phys Ed majors at Cortland State and New York and.
Oh, how cool. Did you do a lot of sports?
Well, in high school football and track primarily.
But you kept that passion, so combined with that outdoor interest in the Natural History influence you must.
Ohh yeah, the thing that pulls me out into these wilderness events is getting out into the country because while I have the wildlife biology background so the floor and the fawn will pull me in specially in right around the beginning of June. The month of June. It’s just filled with birdsong when you go out, it’s incredible, and the country is really good for moving through. There’s not that much foliage out yet. You can see great distances through the through the routes you choose and that sort.
Of thing we’ll get to some of those critters here in a minute. But what brought you to Alaska then, Mark?
To do what I’m doing now.
OK.
To be involved in.
So did you hear of a job or were you decide to come up here and then?
Well, I knew I wanted to finish my degree. You know, I wanted to. I wanted to get a bachelors in a in a wildlife degree and University of Alaska was a perfect place. close to wilderness. Small school, a little bit more intimate with the academic stuff. And another factor is I knew I could. I could get employment with the Department of Fishing Game in the summer. Jobs were plentiful. This is the early 80s. Jobs are very plentiful.
So I worked for commercial fisheries, you know, with the Department of Fishing Game for four or five summer seasons. And, you know, pay your way through school. The wages were good and the experience was good. And I was out in the wilderness, and now my time off, I was out there one year, I decided, well, I’m just going to. Walk out of here. I’ll just walk out. That was at in Togia up in Upper Togiak. I just looked at the map and I said, whoa, it’s only like 60 or 70 miles. I’ll just walk back. I’ll just walk back to Lake Aleknagik and make my way back to Dillingham.
How do they go?
And well, they said, well, you gotta fly, you know, they couldn’t let me walk out of there. I had to fly back to Dillingham first and then fly back in. But back then, the flights were pretty cheap. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Flew back in fast in a wedging real cheap. And the weather was very good. And I walked out.
OK. Of there. Wow. Well, usually when I think people planning a 60- or 70-mile trip, it’s months of planning and meticulous putting together of what you.
Well, I’m going solo and going very light and I feel, you know, I have the experience to know the limits, where the edges when I was twenty, I did 1,600 miles of the Appalachian Trail and that was prior to coming to Alaska. So that gave me a little bit of a feel for how light I could go and distances. And I did it in the fall and early.
Mm-hmm.
Winter too. So that was a good experience and I did it alone.
And not talking. Those are respectable temperatures that drop down there, right?
Ohh yeah, the reason. The reason I did 1,500 miles. I got tired of the ice and snow in southern Virginia at 4,000, above 4,000 feet. It was continuous. Like ice storms and snow for the period I was there and there was nobody out there.
OK, so you came up to Alaska and finish your degree here at the university and worked for Fish and Game. Everybody who has seen you at Creamer’s Field talks about how effective you are as a communicator. Where did that passion to tell people about nature come from?
Once again, some of my earliest recollections are as a kid, doing little like vignettes of nature interpretation with friends. That didn’t work out too good.
Why was that?
I remember well, we’re out. Like on this little nature hike. I considered it and we were looking at things. And I remember, you know, a chipmunk showed up at the edge of a Little Rock outcropping, and I’m talking about and he picks up the stone and throws it at the chipmunk, you know, and what a young boy would do. And then I was my older sister. Three years older, I was probably 8 or 9 and my older sister, three years older and her friend that was a little bit older. I got really excited about this turtle behavior I was observing, you know. “So, come on. I’m gonna take you down here, and we’re gonna watch these turtles, you know. And they just, perhaps I wasn’t the greatest communicator at that time. They just kind of jumped up and scared the turtles. And so that was the end of.
That experience, but well, I think it takes a special person to be aware of and just witness what nature is up to. And it’s interesting, even in our conversation just now, Mark, you’re always talking about the sounds as well as the sights. Are you clued in audio only to nature?
Oh yes, absolutely. Now, as I sit here, I’ve got tinnitus. It’s pretty strong. I mean, I can hear this active on in the background, but from all my years of careful listening, I think I’ve developed a pad neural pathway that that kind of overcome that. And I’m just aware. I don’t think I’ve lost any of my high frequency. I still pick it up now at the farmhouse, I’ve got 3 microphones outside the farmhouse, which brings sound into the building, and I’ve been there over 20 years now, so that’s a lot of active listening also.
When you get a class and a group of students, Mark and you take them out into the Creamer’s Field, what do you want them to pick up? Mostly, what do you try to convey? What’s the most important thing?
The best thing that can be conveyed is an excitement and appreciation of the wildlife that’s out there. And I’ve been there long enough, I can anticipate what’s out there. You know, some people see it as, you know, once again, “magical”. But it’s from experience. It’s from experience. I know where I know what the cues are from sounds in nature. I know what the cues are about the weather and that sort of thing, so I can share that with the groups that are.
With me, we often during the migratory periods when so many waterfowl pass through the Fairbanks area. It’s a huge influx of people to view those. But you see this area now for 20 years, year-round and there must be wonderful things to observe, would that be?
Right. Well, there’s a lot more of the refuge than those 300 acres of agricultural fields. You know that most people are familiar with. There’s another 1,700 acres of boreal forest and tussock shrub. A lot of discontinuous permafrost and black spruce forests and bogs. And fens that are very interested for, for instance, I’m often the instructor of record of the sharing nature class, where teachers come out and earn professional development credit. Well, we did an enrichment for that and explored off beyond into the mushing trails because it’s been very dry. And we came to a this extensive either a fen or a bog which was surrounded by black spruce actually with some mixed birch, and it was long. It was like 100 yards long of a bog with a clear water surface maybe 5 yards wide. And I noticed some splashing and I looked. And I thought ohh it, I thought it was dragonflies, you know, tipping their abdomen to it was quiet out there, maybe, you know, depositing eggs. But then one of the students that were with me said there’s a fish right here. And so we looked down and in the matted grass was the head and front part of an Alaska Blackfish, which is a very unique creature. One of only two species on the planet that can come to the surface and gulp atmospheric oxygen.
No kidding.
Yeah. Dalia. Dalia Pectoralis. They’ve got really, really a large one is only about 8-inches long, but they got these huge pectoral fins. And they cannot. They disturb the water in the winter and they can keep little ice pockets open, sometimes associated with the muskrat’s muskrat push-ups and muskrat openings as kind of a symbiosis of anyways. So, there’s one of these there. And then I associate it with all these Blackfish are coming up to the surface and. Possibly gulping air, so you know we stood and watched for 10 minutes or so, but we didn’t see any activity, but I attributed it to those Blackfish, and that’s how they got in there anyway. So that’s a unique thing to share and you never know when you might bump into one of the few Tennessee Warblers, which is a rare kind of accidental species of war. One of the two or three times I’ve heard and seen Tennessee Warblers was a mile or so deep into the refuge also.
The reason why I’m fascinated is that you’re clued in so closely to the sounds and cries and whatnot is you’re also an artist. And where did you pick up that facility, Mark?
Once again, it’s one of my earliest recollections as drawing I had a neighbor, Peter Burke. He was three years older than me, and when I was either in kindergarten or before kindergarten, I admired his drawing. And but I’ve always, you know, my interest in wildlife and looking at the artwork, Louis Fuertes famous ornithologist, naturalist, biologist, artist, the Birds of North America, the Great big coffee table book, that was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. And it’s full of Louis Fuertes paintings, which are all full of life. They’re not field guides; they’re depictions of the wildlife showing behavior and that sort of thing. And so that was very exciting. I had a good motivation to draw when I was young, so.
And you pursued it. Did you take classes or is it are you self-taught?
I don’t like to use the word self-taught because I’ve studied who I consider the masters. I just love to peruse and study masterful drawings, and when it comes to wildlife, I’ve studied Bob Hines. Twentieth-century wildlife illustrators Louis Fuertes, Bob Hines, Ned Smith. There’s many others now with the Internet for the last 10 years or more. It’s very easy to access libraries that are full of all their stuff, like Cornell has a vast collection of Louis Fuertes drawing. Things I should mention. Bill Berry. OK, of course. I got two or three of Bill Berry’s books because they get so beat up just from study. Study. Study. Yeah. With Bill Brody. I took an independent study in drawing when I was here. And the main work was to illustrate a field guide for a small educational facility that was going to be developed.
Oh wow, huge. Mm-hmm. What I admire about your work though, is you capture the spirit of your subject, but you don’t anthropomorphize.
It’s my background in wildlife and biology and anatomy, I understand how things are put together, so I feel I can. I can depict movement fairly. Currently.
Yeah, because I would think proportion making sure that you know the head, the limbs, the wings are all in right proportion.
Sure. Right. Yeah, yeah, I guess you could say I am representational. I try to draw what is there. Yeah, proportions very important. Have someone appreciate the creature. Photographs are ubiquitous and just so plentiful. Not that I copy them, but I know the anatomy well enough.
Yeah.
I understand the animal well enough that I. You know I can use a photograph. To understand how this thing, how this creature is going to look as it moves.
Do you think drawing an animal gives you any more insight or intimacy with that animal? You know, do you have to study it in some way more intuitively because you’re putting it with your hand on the page?
Yeah, by drawing something you absolutely learn. Learn much, much more about form and function, but as far as the spirit of the creature, you got to get out there and get close to him. Yeah. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever. I’ve ever felt anything. Well, as I’m drawing. I always feel like I’m not creating a picture of, I’m creating the creature. I’m creating the animal. In fact, that’s probably. That is why I began drawing to possess something. Well, when you’re a little kid you, there’s something that you want. And so I would I would draw it to possess it. You know. So in a way that’s, that’s the big learning part of it. But to really know the creature intimately, you’ve got to go out there with it.
Well, you think of those Paleolithic cave drawings and in just a few deft lines these artists have really captured what an oxen?
Or well, you can tell the proximity that they had, especially the, not sure which caves, but the lion’s. The depiction of lion heads. You can see the acumen because when you look at the eye and the depiction of the pupil, this was someone who maybe was within arm’s length, life or death. And that is just burned into that person’s memory and I can see that, by the way, he’s depicted the eye boom. He it was a super intimate moment.
And that’s what you try to achieve with your work, yes?
Yeah.
We just touched briefly early on about the Wilderness Classic.
Well, there’s two. Wilderness once again, air quotes wilderness races. You know, they’re kind of anti-races really. But wilderness class has been going on since ’82. Alaska Cross in 207.
OK, doing those is important because you get back out in the land and test yourself in some ways, would you say?
Yeah. So I’d say you’re right, because I have never gone with a partner. I’ve always gone solo. Which is getting rare these days. Yeah. To get out there and to be intimate.
Yeah. What kind of skills do you have to bring to bear when you do these long-distance wilderness events?
Do you how experience is the most important thing? Hundreds and hundreds of hours of experience in understanding this boreal environment, being able to look out over a landscape and interpreting land forms flora in order to determine a specific route. I mean, you could a person can open a map and with fairly good judgment and a bit of experience you can map out a route. But once you’re there, there’s these little micro adjustments you make during the route because of the land forms and the flora.
Mark, I wanna thank you for coming in and talking with me. Wildlife biologist and education specialist Mark, thanks for coming.
All right, thanks.
I’m Robert Hannon.
Information and photos compiled by Melanie Graeff, the Programs & Events Coordinator with the Friends of Creamer’s Field.
