Barely 10 feet above the golden, hay-scented tundra, a yellow-billed loon streaks into view from the east. Ten pounds of flesh and feathers hurtles by at 60 knots, head low and headlong in loon flight, ivory-colored bill aglow in the Arctic sun. I can hear its rapid wing beats slice the morning air as it jets over a pair of loons I’ve been watching. In response, the larger of the two stretches its neck horizontally over the water and issues an urgent yodel, penetrating and surprisingly loud. Defiant and defensive, this is the territorial call given by males declaring their home lake off-limits to other loons in order to protect their family and food resources—the whitefish, char, and blackfish that live beneath them. What may sound to the uninitiated like a mad, otherworldly screech is not. “The loon’s song is the voice of the earth,” an Inupiaq elder once told me. “They speak for this land.” See this article's accompanying photo gallery Daunted, perhaps, the...