Katie Orlinsky. Caribou at Anaktuvuk Pass.

Caribou just outside the Nunamiut community of Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska in April of 2021.

“Anaktuvuk” means “the place of many caribou droppings” and Anaktuvuk Pass is located right along the traditional migration routes for the Western Arctic and Teshekpuk caribou herds in the heart of Alaska’s Brooks Range (within the boundaries of what later became Gates of the Arctic National Park.)

It is the home of the inland Inupiat people known as the Nunamiut, who have depended on caribou not only as their main staple food source, but also culturally and spiritually, for millennia. The community was only founded in 1957 when the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced the Nunamiut to settle into a single village site. Before that they were nomadic with their homes and way of life revolving around the caribou migration.

Photographer Katie Orlinsky has spent over a decade covering news stories and feature assignments around the world. Her work explores a variety of subjects from conflict and social issues to unique subcultures, wildlife, and sports, and has been featured in National Geographic magazine, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Smithsonian among others. Since 2014, she has been working on a long-term photographic project documenting the human stories of climate change across the Arctic.

Follow Katie on Instagram @katieorlinsky.