JULY 19-25: PALMER-BARROW-ANCHORAGE, ALASKA

DAY 51, JULY 19:  I spent most of the day preparing for the trip tomorrow before going into Anchorage for a visit with Betty Novotney.  It was good to see her again!  She treated her daughter, Betty Springen,

Betty Novotney

Two Bettys and a Carol

and me to dinner at The Bridge, on Fish Creek.  I got my “king crab” fix—and was it ever good.  Thank you, Betty!


DAY 52. JULY 20:  I drove in to Anchorage and picked up my friend Betty Springen who was going on my next adventure with me.  This time it is a trip north of the Arctic Circle to Barrow, Alaska—a village I have wanted to see since I was in about the 5^th grade.  We flew up on Alaska Airlines, with an interim stop at Prudhoe Bay before getting to Barrow.  I didn’t get my road trip to Prudhoe Bay as planned this year; however, I at least got to see some of the “lay of the land” as we landed and took off.  There are definitely a lot of oil field-related facilities around the airport!  I was also quite surprised at all the potholes with water in them around the area.  They were everywhere! 

Landing at Deadhorse aka Prudhoe Bay

Potholes around Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope

The flight on to Barrow was short and, with the breaks in the clouds, I was able to look out over the Arctic Ocean where I saw floating ice here and there. 

Ice floes in the Arctic Ocean

The terrain around Barrow was quite similar to Prudhoe Bay with LOTS of small potholes in the tundra.

The flight was on a Boeing 737-400 “combi” aircraft.  I had never been on one of these before and the company’s literature onboard indicated they have 4.  (The word on the street is that they will be phased out in the fairly near future.)  Cargo is carried in large containers placed in the forward part of the aircraft where normally the first 15 or 16 rows would be.  It is also carried in the belly like in a normal passenger aircraft.  Passengers sit behind a bulkhead and enter the aircraft through the rear exit—which means you don’t use a jetway and you are subjected to the elements while walking on the ramp between the terminal and the aircraft.  That could be pretty chilly up on the North Slope in the winter!  All in all, this whole operation took me back 40+ years the way it was operated.  Schedules didn’t mean a thing today.  When the aircraft was loaded, it departed; the clock didn’t mean anything as near as I could tell.  We departed Anchorage about 15 minutes early and arrived in Barrow early—even with the fuel stop at Deadhorse (aka Prudhoe Bay).

My first sight of Barrow, AK!

The terminal at Barrow was an old well-used building that made you feel like you had gone back well-over 40 years in time!  Apparently the airline owns it—at least their name was on it.  Security (TSA) is right next to the gate agent and the space is really tight.  It was all very interesting to say the least.

We made it! 

Betty and I walked the 1 ½ blocks to our hotel which is the Airport Inn.  It is owned by a couple who live on the premises and who turned out to be very accommodating and were full of suggestions to make our visit more enjoyable.  We both enjoyed talking with them a lot.  Since we needed to stretch our legs a bit, we took a chilly .9 mi/1.4 km walk against the wind to get dinner.  The wind chill temperature was 25F/-4C!  The sun doesn’t set here until sometime in early August, so we will have sunshine all night long.



Welcome to the Arctic!!!

DAY 53, JULY 21:  We took a private 2 ½ hour tour of the area this morning with a gentleman who had moved to Barrow 45 years ago.  He said his first job was for the Borough (county) emptying “honey buckets” in town.  From that job he progressed into other borough-related jobs before retiring and starting his tour guide business.  His was an interesting tour during which we learned a lot about the infrastructure within the town and how things are built to withstand the severe weather conditions up there.  He provided us insight from a man who moved into the community from the “Lower 48” and who had managed to remain there all these years.  When he arrived in Barrow in 1972, the population was about 2400; now it is about 4400, of which 60% are Eskimo and the remainder came from all over the world.  There are quite a few Filipinos, Koreans, and Chinese, as well as people from other Asian countries, in addition to Hispanics, etc., making up the remaining 40%.  He said the area has lost 150 to 200 feet (46-61 meters) of shoreline since he moved there.  Permafrost starts about 12 inches (.3 meter) below ground level and buildings are built on pilings driven 8 feet (2.4 m) into the permafrost to give them a good foundation.  The town’s water system is buried 10’ down, is insulated with styrofoam, and is heated.  Not all homes were tapped into the water system, in particular those older ones that were not built on pilings and, thus, were at the mercy of permafrost melting.  Some were canted at various angles as a result.  These homes had honey buckets outside waiting to be emptied or that had been emptied. 

Here is what happens when you build right on
 top of permafrost (5 people live in this home)

The village

Seal meat drying

We stopped at the end of the “road” system and dipped our feet in a lagoon that comes off the Beaufort Sea which is part of the Arctic Ocean.  Our guide checked the area out to the end of Point Barrow and found there was no one out there, so he declared at 10:02 a.m. that we were the northernmost people on land in the U.S.!  The natives charge $1500 for an annual permit for him to go out to the end of the point, which he refuses to pay, so we did not get to the actual point of land.  (It would have required use of an ATV to get out there.)

Yes, the back of my boots were in the water!

 Gasoline prices are set once a year when the barges deliver it the end of August or first week in September.  The price this year is $5.90 per gallon.

The afternoon tour, which we had booked before going up there, was the better-known tour and was hosted by two native women, one of which drove and participated in the narration.  Because it was a company (Tundra Tours) that provided this tour, it was more scripted; however, our questions were all answered.  The emphasis was on the culture and living within the community, as well as showing us the normal tourist highlights of the area.  I thoroughly enjoyed both tours as the guides came from different perspectives in some areas of their lives up there.  There were areas of differences not unlike what we hear in the Lower 48 between the Native Americans and the “white man”.  All in all, though, the community recognizes its problems, such as drugs and alcohol, and seems to be desirous of trying to deal with the problems.  Speaking of alcohol, a bottle can cost $100 because of all the associated permits, fees, and transportation costs.  Children start pre-school at age 3 when English and their native language is taught.  Kindergarten is mandatory.  Barrow doesn’t get much snow so the schools do not have “snow days”.  They have “wind days” when schools are cancelled because of winds above 50 mph (80km).  The main industry is tourism and we tourists were taken to the local heritage center to watch some native dancing. 

 

Whaling is done in the spring and the fall—the whole village turns out to help with the butchering when a whale is brought in. 

Everyone talked about the high prices of everything that is brought in.  But, they also talked about how much money they make.  I checked online and found that the estimated median household income in 2015 was $77,793.  Estimated per capita income in 2015 was $28,129.  We were told on the tour that the native population, including children, receives dividend checks from the native corporation which, I am sure, results in the rather high per capita income.  The population has decreased about 4% since 2000 according to figures I found online.



A few prices

 

A group of shanties out on the spit north of the main village were used as places for villagers to go camping and hunting.  Only natives are allowed to own places there and the exterior furnishings were pretty interesting.

Camping and hunting buidings just north
 of the village

One of the hunting/camping "villas" 

(Note the swing has a plastic crate

tied to the bottom of the ropes.) Our

morning guide said he has seen the

 owner sit on the  blue couch and

shoot ducks from there.

A bowhead garden by a hunting/camping cabin

A DEW (Distant Early Warning) line base, located north of town, is still manned by about 20 military personnel; however, the adjacent U.S. Navy airfield has been turned over to the native corporation and is now used for housing, offices, scientific offices, and a college among other things.

Dewline Base

There is a football field in Barrow that has blue and gold Astroturf which was bankrolled by a Florida woman, to the tune of over $1 million, who decided it was needed.  Four games a year are played on the field.  Go figure…  My thinking is that money could have been better spent!  (End of my commentary on this subject—and I like to watch football.)

An ancient (2000 year old) earthen village is in Barrow where tundra-covered mounds show the location of the village’s ancestors’ semi-underground sod dwellings.  A sunken underground tunnel-like entrance was engineered to keep the cold air out and the long jawbones of a bowhead whale supported the roof.  Several whale bones still protrude above the surface of mounds.  Between the sloughing away of the cliff side and the archeological studies of the area, a great deal of information has been compiled about how the ancestral people lived, what they ate, etc.

Earthen mounds

Whale bone protruding from a mound

Another whalebone (Chukchi Sea in
background)

Of course, we could not go all the way to Barrow without finding a geocache.  Actually, we found two; one was a traditional cache in the skull of a bowhead whale (the bowhead whale’s skull is 1/3 the size of the full whale) and the other was a virtual cache by a monument memorializing Wiley Post’s and Will Rogers’ airplane crash about 16 miles southeast of town.

Bowhead whale skull

Bowhead whale skull

Monument for Wiley Post and Will Rogers

We were able to catch an early evening flight back to Anchorage ending this adventurous side-trip.  One more item on my bucket list checked off.  Was it worth the time to put the trip together on short notice and pay the money?  You bet!  I learned a lot and experienced a part of the U.S. that I never thought I would make it to.  I can now say I have been from Key West, FL to Barrow, AK and to the southern-most point in the U.S. on the Big Island of Hawaii, to the eastern-most point in the U.S. at Acadia National Park in Maine, and to the western-most end of the road in North America at Anchor Point, AK.  What fun it is to think back and remember the experiences and things I have learned from all these neat places!
 

DAY 54, JULY 22:  The sun sets at 11:01 p.m.in Anchorage today—the last time the sun sets after 11 p.m. for 305 days!  I spent the day re-organizing from the Barrow trip and working on the blog.

DAY 55, JULY 23:  I met Betty Springen and her Mother, Betty Novotney, in Palmer this morning and got my mail from Betty S. after which I took a drive to the end of the Knik River Road.  I was hoping to get some good views of the Knik Glacier in the Chugach Mountain Range but was not close enough to it for a good view or to get good pictures.  Tom Gummer had flown me over the glacier before landing in the lake at the mouth of the glacier 10 years ago.  That was a very beautiful and memorable flight!  The afternoon was spent going through mail and preparing for tomorrow’s move.  It was a warm (80F/27C) humid afternoon today and the lake was full of swimmers and boaters.

 

Wildlife count:  1 cow moose

DAY 56, JULY 24:  After driving into Palmer to dump the RV’s holding tanks and to refuel, I headed towards Anchorage where I parked in Betty Springen’s driveway.  She was out of town so I joined Tom Gummer for a late lunch.

Road Report:  Roads between the Wasilla and Palmer areas and Anchorage are in good condition.  Extensive rebuilding of the on/off ramps at Muldoon Road is in progress; however, traffic is moving well during non-rush hours.

DAY 57, JULY 25:  It has been a cloudy, drizzly, lazy kind of day in Anchorage—a good day to do laundry and work on the blog.  My friend, Betty Springen, took the stitches out from above my right eye.  She was much gentler than the doctors who have removed stitches for me in the past.  YEA!!!  We went to see her Mother this evening and had some good pizza there.  It has been quite a few weeks since I have had pizza, so it tasted very good.