Barrow: Part Two

A lot of cities have campaigns for public beautification through local art. Some cities allow murals painted on the side of blank or bleak walls. In Fairbanks, artists recently "Painted the Pipes," decorating  steam vents rising from our sidewalks with elaborate designs and depictions of interior life.  In Barrow, at some point in common era, they painted the dumpsters. 

Oh the irony...

On my last day I got a ride to the top of North America and walked 6.5 miles back to the apartment where I was staying. Barrow sits on the shores of the Arctic Ocean about 9 miles from the northern most tip of Alaska. Land's end is blunt but extends another 4 miles into the sea by way of a narrow spit of rock and soil. Deciding where oceans and seas meet is like splitting hairs, but the spit of land north of Barrow is a landmark starting an arbitrary line between the Beaufort Sea (to the east) and the Chukchi Sea (to the west). At the terminus of terra firma, the end of the spit, nearly 3 miles from where I was dropped off, the land turns 90 degrees then becomes a series of shallow bars and islands. This shallow disturbance in the ocean has created a large body of water called Elson Lagoon. Here the water was calm enough and the weather was cold enough that the sea had frozen already.

 Frozen sea.

 Surviving the winter is optional.

Driftwood, which must have been washed hundreds of miles as the north slope is entirely treeless, often appeared to me as whale bones because of its weathered, ivory appearance.  

 Frozen sea.

 Standing atop a small pushed up dune on the four mile spit 

leaving the mainland pointing north east into the Arctic Ocean. 

On the right is a frozen lagoon of the Beaufort Sea. 

On the left, waves still roll in of the Chukchi Sea. 

 I rapped upon this frozen stump for many minutes contemplating whether it was the trunk of a tree or the spinal column and vertebrate of a bowhead whale. 

I never discovered it's secret, but when I left a seagull returned and enjoyed its leeward shelter.

 Past tides and older ocean swells of the season have started to freeze higher on the shore.

Fish camps and hunting camps are quite common in most native communities. Seasonal exodus from the main village for the purpose of setting up camp closer to food sources is practiced from the Kuskokwim Delta to the slopes of the Brooks Range and as I observed, even on the arctic plain here on the ocean's shores.

This place was unlike any I've seen. It looked more like a shantytown constructed with plywood and pallets than the temporary camps I've seen before. It's hard to imagine these structures surviving one winter storm, much less seasons of assault from the nearby ocean. Yet the camp had personality. As if it was usually inhabited with happy people then vacated quickly when the fishing was done, like they just went home but would return promptly the next year. There were rudimentary playgrounds of swing sets constructed to occupy children too young to bare the weight and responsibility of chores at hand. Tables and chairs were left propped in positions imaginable for midnight car games and story telling. I yearned for some of the stories this land withheld. I wanted to put my ear to the decrepit walls of the camp and listen for the generations of yarn and legend breathed here. But there was only the persistent wind prevailing as always from the north east and the crunch of my sneakers breaking the hard glaze atop the snowy surface everywhere.

 Polished driftwood and baleen looks like palms trees. 

I love Alaskan Native's sense of humor. 

Just south of the fish camp, but still several miles north of town lies a large complex of buildings. There is a variety of activities going on out here, but the only ones I heard about are classes at the campus for Illisagvik College and several facilities for Umiaq, a scientific and professional services wing of Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation (UIC), one of the local native corporations. Rumored to be hanging out in the camp is the National Science Foundation occupying several new trailers seen in the distance, a long range radar site run by the Navy or Air Force or black ops, and an unnamed oil corporation like BP or Shell with a few dozen connex containers and trailers stacked and vacated for the winter season. I didn't want to ask too many questions or explore too hard. Alaska has a habit of collecting an assortment of activities that leave behind disused buildings in the oddest of remote places.

And there is an airfield, the tarmac plowed only by the wind and

 two large hangers looming like condemned cathedrals.

In the camp I was surprised to find the Barrow High School football field. I knew Barrow had an esteemed football team, but it didn't strike me walking around town that I hadn't spotted the field. This field is roughly 5-6 miles from the heart of downtown, you obviously have to drive out there for practice and games. The Arctic Ocean lies less than 35 yards from the north west sideline. The field is dedicated to a woman from Florida named Cathy Parker, not a native of Barrow. It was constructed in 2007 (but there's a lot more to the story: Yahoo Sports, ESPN, College Football Blog, The Florida Times).

 The complex also contained dozens of derelict buildings 

maybe once part of a military compound or abandoned scientific labs.

I imagine this is where the tourists pause for photographs.

I found the whale skulls much more photogenic than my own beach selfie.

 Nearing town, a seagull frozen to the sand. 

Should you go to Barrow? Yes. Will it cost you a lot, that depends, but probably. Will you be sorry you spent several days in a desolate land of extremes at the end of the world? No. Would I go back? Yes. Will I go back? Probably. I want to experience summer here and I want to experience the ice pack buckling from the ocean current bulging beneath. I want to learn all the names for ice in Inupiaq. I want to see a D7 dozer dragging a bowhead up the beach from the ocean and I want to eat the heart of a whale.