I was in Barrow, AK this August, and caught the 2nd game of the season. Here's a video of the game, and the new turf donated this year by
Cathy Parker.
Lots of yummy tutu soup and eskimo donuts. mmmmmmm.
Not much has changed since last time we were up, but there are a couple
new things in town.
Polar Bear PC opened up on the
first of June. This is located on Boxer street in the "UIC Business
Park", which is just a collection of various buildings over on the
Browerville side of Barrow owned by the local native corporation (UIC).
This is the first Internet center in Barrow, and features a entire slew of
computers filling the entire space. Rates are at $5 per half hour.
Proprietor Mike Stotts got a pretty amazing deal on a T1 through ASTAC.
Keep in mind that Barrow is served only by satellite, so T1s in Barrow are
(nearly) impossible to obtain, even if you could actually afford one.
Naturally, latencies can be a bit high, but it makes up for it in speed.
He has big plans for this place.
If you are in the mood for coffee while you surf, take caution. "Coffee
Shop", next door, sells latte's for over $6 for a 16 ounce and the service
was a little bit questionable. Not the best or cheapest place in town!
Take the extra walk down the block to Stuaqpak (AC Value Center) for some
much better java.
Still no sign of CDMA or GSM .... its still AMPS/TDMA. ACS and ASTAC both
have cell towers in good operation up here, but apparently SprintPCS was a
little too cheap to extend the ACS roaming agreement to include the Barrow
market. I have been living off some AT&T calling card instead -- just so
i don't rack up everyone's bills. I saw some guys in town before i left
with some Erricson gear....looked like cell hardware. Maybe someone is
doing some upgrades.
Also: Barrow public transit will be no more in a short couple of weeks.
GCI bought out Barrow cable (which was owned by the biggest ANC of them
all, ASRC) promising "high speed cable internet". And locally/natively
owned telephone co-op ASTAC, threatened by GCI's internet offering plans,
now offers DSL service in Barrow! I was also told that no one has planned
to bring fiber into Barrow yet, and the nearest fiber optic line is on the
pipeline...so maybe someday.
Everyone back at home has been asking me what I have been up to lately in
Alaska. Well, here is one particular day's journal entry:
All the tourists in town have taken up all the rental cars. I keep
calling every morning, and none are available. So I got to take out my
wife's cousin's vehicle for half a day. I went for a drive with a couple
in-laws.....now where to go? Naturally, someone wanted to go to shooting
station (furthest east part of town) and one wanted to go to fresh water
lake (furthest west part of town). I think we were all half way joking,
because there is nowhere to really drive around here. For those who don't
know, this place is only a couple miles across.
Then, just before we left, someone thought it might be a good idea to wash
the car. In Barrow, all the roads are dirt/gravel, and it can get a
little bit on the dusty side. Naturally, it does not take long for your
car to get very dirty once the snow melts (which was a couple weeks ago).
After grabbing a water bucket, some rags, and some dish soap, we were off
to fresh water lake. The drive did not take long...first you go from the
Browerville side to Barrow side. Second, go past the airport....tried not
to drive up on the tarmac though like i did last time...third, out past
the satellite array, past the graveyard, and then you are at freshwater
lake. The road ends here in a little bit of a coul-de-sac, except no
houses or anything. A sign post sits in front of the lake completely shot
up beyond recognition...i wont even pretend to guess what it said.
We pull up, and sure enough, some car had this camera with a freaking lens
about a mile long, sticking out the window. Numbers on the car
door....brand new, overdressed yuppie REI arctic gear....yea, one of those
crazy bird tourist people again. These guys will go out to fresh water
lake and sit there for hours taking pictures of these damn birds.
click..click..click..wait......click click click. She's taking pictures
of two stupid birds sitting in some mud puddle, littered with old soda
cans and boxes, about a couple feet off the gravel road. I wonder if
she'll frame it...?
Out pops a bunch of eskimos and some white guy out of the dirty vehicle.
Its time to wash the car! My daughter Jasmine, sits in the drivers seat,
and whales on the horn. BEEP BEEP! We walk over to a slowly thawing
tundra pond full of fresh water, fill up the bucket, and drop in some dish
soap. Everyone starts scrubbing away, singing an improvised "Eskimo
carwash!" song we came up with on our way there. Water is splashing
everywhere, soap bubbles flying, everyone is yelling.
Needless to say, the stupid birds got scared shitless and flew away. No
more birds to take pictures of..but that doesn't matter, because our
little friend in the other vehicle was watching us in horror. I looked
over a couple more times, and they seemed to have gotten a bit of a kick
out of our little performance.
After we finished rinsing off the SUV with fresh, cool tundra water, we
began to realize how freaking cold our hands got, taking in account the
wicked wind chill. Just before we left, i had to take a couple more
pictures of our great work on the vehicle. Just then I noticed a dead
wolf laying behind a snow drift. I don't know why, i didnt see any blood
or signs of struggle, it looks like it just died. It had a very nice coat
of fur on it and i wanted to retrieve it, but it was sitting on some thin
ice over the lake, and it probably wasnt worth falling in for. We left
after that. Yea...would have been nice if this story ended with a hungry
polar bear, but there really wasn't one in sight.
Off to the shooting station we went....we trailed this slow dump truck
full of soil most of the way over to the Browerville side. I took another
road and cut it off..and got onto this nice, fast 45 MPH speed limit road.
Yea, it was on loose gravel with tons of bumps, but oh well.
Finally got out of town, to a place I havent really been since last year.
Shooting station is in the direction of Point Barrow, that really long,
skinny arm thing you see on the map that leads out to the sea, which also
is the highest point of the USA/Alaska. Lots of whale bones are usually
found on the sea side of the road. Passed some people ice fishing, and
some people out by the NARL station and the DEW station. Finally, reached
the shooting station. This is a given because right near the end is a set
of fake palm trees made out of whale bone, baleen, and real coconuts. I
think there was one new tree here, but i'll have to check last year's
photos. We took pictures of everyone next to the trees, and headed further
out to Point Barrow.
Point Barrow is really weird because its a flat strip of land, maybe a
couple times wider than the road you are driving on. Errosion barriers
are constructed, but its a pretty flat geographic structure. We were
going to drive up to the polar bear sign, but there was a road closed sign
before that, along with an erosion barrier blocking general vehicle
access.
This is probably a good thing because driving all the way to the end of
the point can disturb the bears and bring them back into Barrow or the
dump. This can be bad. They also bring lots of waste meat, bones, etc.
out to point barrow to keep the bears way out of town -- or perhaps to
keep the bears in place for tourists going on the polar bear tour ;)
After turning around, i saw another road heading towards Barrow. This was
the gasline road and I turned on it. I'm very curious because nobody has
taken me out there before. I pass the last turn to take alternate routes
into Barrow, and I start to worry my passengers.
We keep going, and found a lot of (nice) houses off the pipeline road.
After a couple of miles, i pass the same lattitude of the Satellite dishes
and keep going. People start to get even more worried, like they were not
supposed to be out this far. The road was still in good condition, and i
saw buildings in the distance.
Eventually, i had to turn around at one of the pump stations. I didnt
want to upset anyone, and I probably should not be driving aimlessly out
on the tundra. We went back and randomly drove around until about 5pm
that time. I asked someone later that night, turns out its a public road,
and the sucker goes out for 12 (!) miles to a natural gas well. (Speaking
of gas, gasoline is $3.50/gal here)
After snaking around some outskirts of town, we finally get back to
Browerville. Nothing to do...lets go to Stuaqpak and BUY something! We
can't really go about 10 feet out of the parking lot without running into
someone we know. Everyone knows each other around here, and I do see a
lot of my wife's family in the store. Her cousin makes me a mocha.
It sometimes is fun to go to the store and gock at the prices, but it gets
old really fast when you take out your wallet. This is fine, considering
the alternative of not having the item. $9.99 for orange juice, with a AC
sticker under it saying "Save $1.59 over national brand". Or how about
$1.69 for a small container of yogart? There are reasons for this, but
its kind of interesting to see.
I think the biggest shock for me is finding an item out of stock. Well,
shit. That sucks. No more CDR's in Barrow. They are ALL GONE. Who
knows when the next shipment comes in. Nevermind that they were $59.95
for a pack of 50. The shelf is still empty as of today...wonder when I can
upload my pictures?
Oh well....thats what your neighbors are for. I should have bummed a CDR
off Mike today.
Nalukataq was a blast, as always. Lots of food...lots of people....tons
of family. Kids run everywhere, which is good because I can let my baby
loose and let her play on her own. They all dig on the dirt, play with
the blanket, etc. and cause lots of general trouble.
I have been trying so hard to get my daughter to eat real food. Its
always "uh-nuh" this, "dado" that, her words for "milk" and "popcicle".
She eats spuratically, but not really enough to sustain herself. So its
milk, mainly.
She won't eat any Western/American fare, but she will stuff her mouth full
of maktak (half blubber/skin cut of whale; raw), miqiuq (firmented whale
meat in whale blood; raw), quaq (raw whale meat), eskimo doughnuts (fried
bread doughnut with no frosting/etc), eskimo icecream (whipped animal
fats, meat chunks, berries), whale tounge, etc. like its freaking candy.
Good thing I have a big stock full of this stuff.
Me? Well, I decided to eat as much native food as I can while I am up
here since there is a plentiful supply around this time of year. I think
I have grown a new taste towards eskimo food....its now just delicious as
opposed to interesting and new.
I am really eating maktak, miqiuq, quaq, etc. like its candy. The one I
really like right now is Miqiuq. It tastes like roast beef, soaked in a
sparkling red wine...and it does amazing stuff to the tip of your tounge.
It tingles like champaign, but I can't quite explain the sensation. I am
also told its extremely good this year...
What happened when I went from vegetarian fare to a diet that would make
Dr. Atkin's proud? Nothing.
