Or at least friends of two people in Alaska, though I hope by now you are friends of Alaska also.
After the Evers Christmas (previous blog) Todd, Marcia, Claire, and Sadie along with Elva and I went to Barrow. It is impossible to drive there except for a short time in the spring, more about that later. So we flew. We flew out of Fairbanks Wednesday morning, had a short stop in Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) and then arrived in Barrow shortly before noon. We had a direct flight back to Fairbanks Friday. That amount of time was about right to see everything in Barrow.
We saw the pipeline from the plane close to its beginning. About a month earlier we saw its end at Valdez. This picture also shows the tundra - pools of water and polygonal patches of land.
At or near the first pumping station for the pipeline.
Then on to Barrow. The white is ice on the Arctic Ocean.
Friends from Fairbanks connected us with the Presbyterian preacher in Barrow. He was our tour guide. This is Duke Morrow standing at the back of his church building with the front in the background. He was previously pastor in inner city Detroit. He says pastoring in Barrow is more difficult than the inner city. There are more suicides, murders, family abuse, alcohol abuse, etc. He did an excellent job showing us around Barrow.
Barrow is a town of 4000. There are no paved streets. There was a water truck constantly driving around watering down the dirt roads so there would not be too much dust. The town has one stop light, but Duke said in his 3 1/2 years there he has not seen it working.
We checked out prices - $4.99 per pound for apples and $4.59 for oranges.
Most houses were on stilts.
The high school football team has a blue artificial field.
The town even boasts some palm trees. This is actually baleen (comb-like things inside a whale mouth to strain out the plankton they eat) attached to wood poles. There are no trees in Barrow. The closest trees are about 200 miles south - and they are just shrubs.
About driving to Barrow: This is a snow truck. Once in the spring it makes a trip to Deadhorse and back. The truck is heavy enough and the tracks wide enough that it forms a path. Any one wishing to drive out follows the truck to Deadhorse and anyone wishing to drive into Barrow follows the truck back. I think it makes one trip per year. Otherwise some cars come or go by barge. There is a road from Fairbanks to Deadhorse.
These are pictures of baleen. This section is about four feet wide and the individual strips are about eight feet long. Meat from inside the whale mouth is at the far end.
At the museum - culture center there are native workers who make things from baleen and animal bones. I bought some baleen art and Elva bought a necklace with walrus "ivory."
Have you thought about strolling along the beach in June? This is Claire or Sadie Widmer doing that! Of course, there is ice out on the water. There is a dike to keep the water and ice from pushing into the town in winter and spring. The water is very cold. We stuck our fingers into it but not our toes! (Unless we wore boots.)
Arctic swans a couple miles from town on the tundra.
Whale skull with Claire.
Presbyterian church with the Eskimo name for Barrow.
Whale arch and Todd, Claire, and Sadie.
While we were in Barrow they celebrated a whale festival. Whale meat is for everyone and not just the crew that brings it in. The festival celebrates the food coming to the entire community. At least that is traditionally how it was. Now with grocery stores there is less emphasis on the whale meat. But this is still a very important event for the community. These are some of the children enjoying the celebration.
A big part of the celebration is the blanket toss. The blanket itself is hidden behind the people watching. Three of the four ropes holding the corners of the blanket can be seen.
This is Miranda. She attached herself to us and explained everything that was going on. It was very helpful for us. The people were very friendly.
While we were there the temps were generally in the 30's - gloves and headband. The roads were sloppy and off the roads it was often sloppy - boots. But the reason for these two pictures is burial mounds. Some ancient society buried their dead here. In one picture I am on the mound and the other I am in the low spot between mounds. This is right in Barrow and next to the Arctic Ocean.
One problem in Alaska is knowing what to do with the oil money. The state is divided into boroughs and the natives in each have corporations to manage the money from oil and other sources for their area. Different corporations have different amounts of money to work with and have different philosophies of how it should be used. North Slope Borough is one of the richest. It includes Barrow, Deadhorse, and Prudhoe Bay. Each native there got $63,000 last year just for being there. That leads to laziness and violence. Why work? And then if one has nothing to do, what do they do with all their time? Here in Fairbanks each native received about $700 last year. The elected officials of each corporation have their own ideas of how the money should be invested and distributed.
The state of Alaska also gets oil money. That has lowered taxes. Fairbanks has no sales tax. Alaska has no income tax. Each citizen of Alaska gets somewhere around $1200 each year from oil money. This varies from year to year, it has been as high as $1500 and as low as $900. State polices of how to use and distribute this money is a big issue in Alaska. There is a proposed new law concerning this which will be voted in August. It is hotly debated.
God's blessings to all. In Genesis God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and fill the earth. I can think of no other reason people would want to live in Barrow! But many there want to be no where else. It is good we are not all alike.
Thanks
Elva and Larry
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