Tom Walker, a writer and photographer of Alaska wildlife and Denali pioneer history.
In the nearly 60 years that Tom Walker has resided in Alaska, he has worked as a conservation officer, wilderness guide, wildlife technician, log home builder, documentary film advisor, photographer, book author, independent park historian, and adjunct professor of journalism at the Homer Branch, University of Alaska, Anchorage.
Tom Walker is currently a full-time freelance writer and photographer and regarded as one of Alaska’s premier nature photographers. His publication credits include Alaska Magazine, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Newsweek, Audubon, Sierra, Natural History, National Wildlife, Ranger Rick Magazine, Wilderness, numerous national, local, and international publications.
Walker’s books include: BUILDING THE ALASKA LOG HOME, SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA, DENALI JOURNAL, WILD CRITTERS, RIVER OF BEARS (re-named WAY OF THE GRIZZLY), ALASKA’S WILDLIFE, PORTRAIT OF ALASKA’S WILDLIFE, ALASKA’S MAMMALS, ALASKA’S BEARS, and CARIBOU: WANDERER OF THE TUNDRA, which won a 2000 Benjamin Franklin Book Award in the category of Nature and Environment. The Seventymile Kid: The First Ascent of Mount McKinley, won the 2013 Alaska Historian of the Year award; WIILD SHOTS: A Photographer’s Life in Alaska; THE WANDERER; An Alaska Wolf’s Final Journey (2023). W
Walker has also co-authored three books for Insight Guides – ALASKA, RAINFORESTS, and WHALES. And two guidebooks: ALASKA’S BEST PLACES and the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC GUIDE TO AMERICA’S OUTDOORS: ALASKA. His work has been anthologized in OUT AMONG THE WOLVES and THE LAST NEW LAND.
In 2001 he traveled to Gothenburg, Sweden where he presented a program on Alaska for the VARGARDA FOTOKLUBB. In 2004 he gave a presentation at the North American Nature Photographers Association’s Annual Summit in Portland, Oregon on the use of photography for conservation education. He remains active in local and national conservation issues. In 2002, Alaska’s Governor appointed him to the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Alaska Interagency Kodiak Brown Bear Management Team and helped draft the first comprehensive brown bear management plan for the Kodiak Archipelago. That same year his photographs appeared at the Canadian Embassy as part of a traveling photo display entitled “Saving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.” In 2006 Walker won the Alaska Conservation Foundation’s Daniel Houseberg “Lifetime Achievement Award” for still photography. In 2013, the Alaska Historical Society awarded Walker the title “Historian of the Year” for The Seventymile Kid, his biography of Harry Karstens, the first superintendent of Denali (then McKinley) National Park. Walker also travelled on the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy, WAG-B20, as a correspondent for Ken Burns’ Thin Ice documentary transmitted to schools around the world.