Daniel Ksepka, the curator of a new display at the Bruce Museum, said he focused on Alaska because it is “on the front line” of global warming.
Daniel Ksepka, the curator of science at the Bruce Museum here, visited Fairbanks, Alaska, in May 2022 for a research project on fossil birds. But Ksepka, a paleontologist by training, found himself more drawn to the city’s drunken forest — an unusual landscape of tilting trees — instead.
“The trees were leaning in seemingly random directions because the permafrost underneath the soil was thawing from increasingly warmer temperatures,” he said. “They were slumping as a result of not having a firm base. It almost felt like being in a bomb crater.”
Ksepka said that the setting illustrated the dramatic impact of global warming and profoundly affected him. “I couldn’t get the sight out of my head,” he said. “Back home, I started looking into other the ways that climate change is shaping the Alaskan landscape through the de-stabilization of permafrost, changing vegetation patterns and loss of ice.”
That trip and the drunken forest are the impetus for the Bruce’s exhibition “On Thin Ice: Alaska’s Warming Wilderness,” curated by Ksepka. It opened March 6 and will be on view until Oct. 19.
“It made a lot of sense to me to focus specifically on Alaska because it is on the front line in terms of climate change,” Ksepka said, in interviews by phone and video. “Research has documented that air temperatures in Alaska are rising twice as fast as in other parts of the United States.”
According to Ksepka, what happens in Alaska will affect everyone no matter where they live because its “permafrost stores unimaginably large amounts of carbon.”
Taxidermy animals in the exhibit — 17 in all — represent the wildlife that inhabits Alaska’s wilderness and are the star attraction of “On Thin Ice.” “I wanted to show some of the animals threatened by global warming because they rely on these habitats to survive,” Ksepka said. “They also bring in an emotional component to the damage it causes.”
A combination of pieces from the Bruce’s permanent collection and loans from the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in Saint Johnsbury, Vt., the animals include a brown muskox, a gnarly-looking creature covered in shaggy hair that resembles a bison, and a snow fox, a mammal with short ears that changes its fur color from white to a grayish-brown, depending on the time of year.
The most majestic animal may be Charlie, a polar bear donated to the Bruce by SeaWorld in 2019 after his death. Weighing 948 pounds, Charlie is emblematic of the Arctic, Ksepka said. “When you think of Alaska or any other Arctic environment, polar bears come to mind,” he said.
On a recent weekday afternoon, a small crowd, including school groups, families with young children and couples, studied the parade of wildlife and paused to snap pictures of their favorites. Charlie drew the most “oohs and aahs.”
Roberta Tunick, a retired publisher who lives in Greenwich and is a museum regular, was among the attendees and brought her three young grandchildren along. She said that she wanted to educate them about the environment in an engaging way. “They’re fascinated by the animals and asking me questions about them,” she said. “I’m reading a lot about climate change, and this exhibit brings it to life.”
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Image: Charlie, a polar bear donated by SeaWorld, is one of the 17 taxidermy animals featured in the exhibit “On Thin Ice: Alaska’s Warming Wilderness” at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. Photo Credit: Patrick Sikes Photography
