ENDURANCE TEST: After braving treacherous winter weather for days in the Arctic to ge close to a herd of musk oxen, the author takes a photo of a lifetime

摘要

My eye Was glued to my camera's viewfinder as I watched every move of a big musk ox bull that was surrounded by his harem some 15 yards in front of me. I was hunkered down on the ground, resting my telephoto lens on frozen rocks. The bull's eyes studied me in return. Above- them curled powerful horns, bleached and cracked and resembling the branches of a thousand-year-old tree. There was something ancient about these animals-and for good reason. Musk oxen have inhabited parts of the Arctic for thousands of years. Today in North America, they range primarily in Canada, Greenland and Alaska, where the animals were reintroduced several years ago to replace populations that long ago disappeared. Weighing as much as 900 pounds, they are well-adapted to survive in the frigid domain where I was attempting to photograph them.