Alaska

Deep Arctic

Barrow, Alaska. The coolest town in the United States. Literally. Nothing will prepare you for the culture shock that Barrow is - thousands of years of tradition colliding with the modern U.S. government system. As our Alaska Airlines plane circled around for landing, we were all treated to the icy vista of the Arctic Ocean below. In July. As we stepped out of the plane, we were taken aback by a gust of 40-degree air blowing from the tundra. After all, it was 85 degrees in Fairbanks - just 90 minutes ago.

Barrow is not a destination for major tour companies operating in Alaska - it’s mostly for  adventurous souls and small groups/couples traveling on their own.

You might think that this place would at least be somehow similar to the other cities, such as Anchorage or Fairbanks - but it’s not. It looks more like the sci-fi settler colony LV-426 in James Cameron’s “Aliens”.

Harsh, cold, winterized, disorienting. There are no paved roads, since they are all covered in snow and ice for most of the year anyway.  The roads are covered in mud during the summer when it rains, or host tons of dust when it’s dry. Don’t count on strolling around and just happening upon a Starbucks - not that kind of place. Built for survival and not luxury, things are better than in 1972, however. There is a sewer system, running water, cable TV and “internets” - all the conveniences that most people are used to, albeit in the surreal context of the Arctic Ocean.

So how is it seeing the sun not go down at midnight? It’s weird. My hotel room in particular was facing west, which meant  the sun was bursting through the window in the middle of the night. But, what, you say - didn’t the window have blinds? Well, yeah, but it looked like someone had used them for target practice with an AK-47 - the thing was full of holes.

It was a clear and sunny night when I arrived in Barrow. The first thing I did was grab my camera and hit the streets. This town is a photographer’s paradise. Tons of junk everywhere, cast in gentle sunset light.

While the coveted yellow light usually lasts only a few minutes everywhere else on the planet, here in the Arctic Circle it lasts for hours, which makes taking pictures a pure thrill. That, of course, if the night is sunny, which the next one wasn’t.

I woke up to dense fog the next morning, and it refused to go away. But, it was 4th of July, so I had to “document” it. How is it celebrated in the Arctic anyway?

The locals line up the city’s emergency vehicles, as well as many cars supplied by local businesses. The cars put on everything that can make noise or blink, and the column moves through town. Children greet the column with plastic bags, which baffles visitors a bit. The plastic bags are for candy, and it is hurled out of cars and onto the streets. After the whole thing is over, the roads are still covered in candy that nobody wants anymore.

Since my time in Barrow was very limited, I decided to not let the rest of the day go by, so I treked along one of the roads leading out of town, into the arctic tundra. To my surprise, the fog turned out to be a shoreline phenomenon, which dissipated right outside of town. Here in the tundra, it was frigid and clear. Great success!

There are no trees in the tundra, so migrating birds have no choice but to nest on the ground. This makes it a bird-watcher’s heaven. A lot of birds have a special tactic against arctic foxes, where they will fly out of their nests and make it look like they are nesting somewhere else. Foxes usually buy that. Some birds get fairly aggressive and do consecutive air raids right over your head. This is the time to keep your camera ready and in-focus:

“Stay off my property”

One thing that was a bit disappointing about the tundra was the extent of litter over it, right outside of town at least. Perhaps not as obvious during winter, but once the snow melts, it looks more like a landfill. Well, it’s definitely not “pristine”. Not littering is not encouraged, let alone enforced. This upsets the bird-watchers who come here, since shiny carton boxes far away beg for some attention along with the birds. Even the town itself is a place of abandoned junk throughout. No one cares to clean it up, so the city offers free cleanups.

The fog refused to go away on my second day in Barrow as well, so I just ended up walking around town with my camera (still, a lot of fun).

Most houses in Barrow are fairly small light wooden boxes. Some even have sleds underneath, so they can be moved from place to place during winter. The founding permafrost makes construction here extremely difficult. There are only a few buildings in Barrow that stand out because of that: the high school complex is massive, the glass-and-metal Wells Fargo looks like it was airlifted from Seattle and just plonked where it could. Or maybe that’s what happened.  Construction of the Alaska Airlines terminal was an award-winning engineering feat - the building had to be assembled and shipped in pieces. The two-months-a-year construction window didn’t help much either.

A large portion of Barrow’s population depends on subsistence hunting, at sea or inland. It’s common for many households to own a snowmobile and an ATV, which are ideal for winters and summers, respectively.

Hunters generally hop on a snowmobile and depart the settlement in winter, but what happens if the machine stalls, and it’s 20 below with 20-knot winds? Search and rescue is a big part of life here. It’s very easy to get in trouble, especially for visitors who don’t take this harsh place seriously. The local Search & Rescue greets you with their smug slogan: “Search & Rescue - We Don’t Want Your Business.”

Indeed, just eyeballing the rescue missions for the last few months, Barrow graces the list pretty much every month. Not to mention the State of Alaska in general.

A personal locator beacon is a must-have little gadget for anyone on the North Slope - if you get stuck far away from town - a few satellites up above are the only ones listening.

Personal Locator Beacon - “Come with me if you want to live”

As a curious fact: the predecessor to current PLB’s originated here, in Alaska, after a plane carrying two Congressman  crashed on its way to Juneau in 1972. It triggered one of the largest search and rescue operations in history, unsuccessfully. The current generation of PLB’s are a fairly recent invention, and can/should be owned by anyone in the lower 48 who has a thing for wilderness. The system was first tested in Alaska and went into “wide release” in 1990’s for the rest us.

My stay in Barrow was over. As a usual occurrence, our plane was delayed on the way out because of bad weather, but not enough to make me miss my connection to Juneau in Anchorage. As our flight approached Anchorage, the Alaska Airlines 747 descended and corrected its course a bit. And then, in a spectacular fashion, the plane flew right over the highest peak in North America - the summit of Mt. Denali.

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