Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse/Polar Bear Club

I was all geared up to jump in the Arctic Ocean this morning just so I could say I did it, and to get my “Polar Bear Club” membership certificate. Don’t ask me why like everybody else has. I don’t know, it just seemed like one of those “bucket list” things that if I didn’t do it when the opportunity presented itself, I’d kick myself forever. Sheilagh & Mike brought their bathing suits all the way from Scotland so they could share in this momentous occasion, and Ian had assured me he wanted to jump in the frigid water, too. Well, last night I started losing members of the Polar Bear Club Wannabes. First, Sheilagh said she wasn’t too sure if she really wanted to do it because she doesn’t like the cold. She lives in Scotland, for Pete’s sake! Anyone who knows me knows I hate to be cold as much as anyone, but hey, how often to we get to jump in the Arctic Ocean?? Then, Mike was laughing about it, asking if we really were going to do it. Of course, I reassured him. I wouldn’t let him miss this opportunity if my life depended on it. Well, maybe if my life depended upon it, but it didn’t. Then, this morning, guess who wakes up with a “sinus cold” and thinks maybe he shouldn’t go in the cold water? Yeah, Ian. “Maybe I’ll just put my feet in,” he said feigning to be very miserable. He probably really was miserable, but I just couldn’t seem to muster up much sympathy. My support system had dwindled away. Tough luck, I thought, I’ll do it by myself and forever be the one who faced the nearly impossible and did it. It would be my triumphant moment. Anyone who wanted to could give me a fake Olympic medal for my accomplishment. OK, I had my mind up. I’d do it! After all, the sun was shining, there was no fog, so all the forces were with me. We’d made it all the way up to a place that can’t make up its mind to be called Deadhorse or Prudhoe Bay. When it was a town, it was known as Deadhorse. Once we put an oil field up there, we changed its name to Prudhoe Bay. Why do we always have to change names of places we take over? There must have been a perfectly good reason it was called Deadhorse from the very beginning of time. Plus, it’s perfect for jokes or misunderstandings. Such as when Sheilagh told her dad via international phone service that she was going to Deadhorse, he asked where was she going to see the dead horse. Prudhoe Bay? Nothing to construe with that name. But, I digress.

After I knocked on Sheilagh & Mike’s door for breakfast, she informed me as we were walking to the cafeteria that she had her bathing suit on under her clothes and she would go in the water if I did. I told her she didn’t have to. I knew she’d still be my friend. I’d forgive her this shortcoming. I wouldn’t take it personal. But no, she had told her mother on the phone this morning that if I went in the frigid water, she would too, even though her mother was concerned about her health, her heart, her body thermostat. Ahhh, that’s what friends are for. They’ll do anything for you!

We had breakfast in the cafeteria used by the employees of the various companies working on the pipeline. It was a very well stocked buffet, and as always, there was a small room full of snacks, soft drinks, coffee & tea which is open 24/7 to service the shift workers. We had been told to help ourselves to that stash any time, so it was nice to get our Diet Cokes, a banana, or whatever whenever without paying again. After filling on pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fresh cut-up pineapple, cantelope, and watermelon, we headed to the “Tour Room,” to meet Grant, our tour guide. He is a native Alaskan from a village near Nome, in northwest Alaska, with no roads leading to it. He works, like everyone here, two weeks on, two weeks off. He is employed as one of the two security guards (policemen) at Prudhoe Bay. Since no alcohol or drugs are allowed here, there isn’t much call for a police force, so Grant also takes the tourists on their Arctic tours. He put a DVD in the machine, turned on the TV, turned out the lights, and we (there were two other couples on the tour, one from Missouri, and I don’t know where the other couple was from) watched a 10 minute film on how the pipeline was built and how it is kept running by the various companies here. He then lifted his clipboard, flipped over the top sheet and held up a picture of a polar bear in the water, surrounded by yellow blow-up boundary markers. Grant proceeded to say this picture was taken yesterday in the area that we would have taken our plunge, and as a consequence, no one would be allowed in the water today. “Nooooooooo,” I cried, looking at Sheilagh, then Ian and Mike, none of whom were noticeably upset with this news. In fact, no one said anything but me. Was I the only brave soul in the lot??? Had they not noticed the picture was wrinkled, causing me to believe Grant’s story was a sham. The picture was probably an old one, but used when he just didn’t want to be bothered with people jumping in the cold water, then complaining how cold they are. (Later during the tour, Grant mentioned that the lowest paid person at Prudhoe Bay gets $55,000 per year, so for whatever he gets paid, I really think he should have humored us and let us get ourselves freezing wet if that’s what we wanted to do!)

After Grant gave his little spiel which I really wasn’t listening to any more, as I was quite upset with him at this point, we went back to our rooms to take off our bathing suits, and then met him at the van in front of the hotel. He drove us around the site, which resembled a huge construction site. It wasn’t what I was expecting an oil field to look like. I thought it would be covered with oil wells like you see in Texas, then lots of the steel casing of the pipeline laying everywhere, guiding that precious oil to the start of its trip south. Rather, each of the larger companies there (Halliburton being one) has its own small shop for repairing its own vehicles and its own portable, slapped together buildings on blocks for their employees to live in. There were three hotels, two for employees of the smaller companies to live in, and one for employees and tourists. There are no restaurants at Prudhoe Bay, but each of the three hotels takes turns cooking for the day. Luckily, the one we stayed at (The Caribou Inn) provided the buffet dinner last night and buffet breakfast this mornin). Each hotel has a small gift shop selling t-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps, coffee mugs, etc., advertising itself. A fairly large medical facility stood by itself, again made from the steel sided modular forms. Grant pointed out large rectangular shapes painted blue, saying those were the casings around each oil well, protecting them from the weather. He said that all the drilling is done during the winter when the ground is hard, rather than in summer when the ground is soft and soggy. Even though it’s harder work, it’s safer as the frozen ground won’t cave in. Grant said on a good day in winter, it’s about -40 degrees; on a bad day it’s around -80 degrees. In the only general store on site, Sheilagh and I examined the Arctic clothing and boots for sale. The boots alone must weigh 20 pounds! The jackets, pants, coveralls were a good quarter to half inch thick, with fur around the hoods. There were all sorts of winter underwear and very thick, wool socks. I’ll tell ya, I did not find any of that inviting! Grant took us by the storage area for their gigantic vehicles used to make the ice roads in the winter. They look like large tractors with about 16 huge, thick wheels which are only inflated to 4 to 6 pounds. The vehicles spray water outward as they slowly make their way over the frozen tundra or lakes. After this is repeated back and forth over the same area several times, wala, you have an ice road!

Grant told us that oil takes only a day to get from Prudhoe Bay all the way down to Valdez, at the opposite end of Alaska, that it comes out of the ground at about 180 degrees, except in winter when it comes out around 240 degrees, they keep the oil flowing 24/7 so the pipeline doesn’t corrode inside, the terrain of the land was the deciding factor of whether the pipeline was laid out in a straight line, or zigzag. (Ian thinks Grant is wrong on that, thinking that they used the zigzag formation when they wanted to slow down the flow a bit.)(Actually, they both were wrong, as we found out later on an information board that the zig-zag is in place for future expansion or shrinkage if and when needed.

Twice we were graced by the presence of an Arctic fox running along side the road. It was quite small, about the size of a large cat, with reddish hair and a white tip on its tail. Grant said by winter the fox’s hair will have turned all white. The fox reminded me of Heather, our first Sheltie, as people used to say she looked like a fox. She wasn’t a top-of-the-line quality Sheltie, but she passed for a pretty good fox.

We finally made our way to the water, which Grant said to the right was Beufort Bay and straight out was the Arctic Ocean. I wanted to correct his pronunciation of Beaufort, as he said it like Bo (long o) -fort, whereas Carolyn, my friend in Wilmington, NC, pronounces it Beu (like in Beautiful) -fort. I really had to bit my tongue, as it would not have been polite to correct him, but I still had not forgiven him for tricking us with his old picture of a white bear in a body of water. (It was probably a picture he cut out of a magazine on the best zoos of the world.) Anyway, a right proud southerner would know how to pronounce Beaufort before a native Alaskan, don’t you think? I do.

Grant gave us 15 minutes to go touch the water with our fingers (he even said we couldn’t take our shoes off!! Something about being able to run faster back to the van if we saw the bear. Yeah, right.) So, Sheilagh, Mike, Ian, and I took several pictures of us all touching the water, smiling in wonderment that we actually were this far north. I must admit that it still was exciting, knowing we were doing something few people get to do in a lifetime, and even Grant couldn’t take that away from us! I picked up a few pieces of driftwood to keep – I just waited for Grant to say something to me, like it’s against the law, those three pieces of driftwood support the entire ecological system in the Arctic and if removed, Al Gore will be proven right. I considered asking Grant if it’s OK to take the driftwood, but then remembered that old line passed down from some old sage long ago, “It’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.” So, my grandkids will have a piece of the Arctic, hopefully to serve as encouragement to some day make their way to Alaska. Maybe by then, Grant will have retired and gone back to his village and the security guard on duty will be of the mind that if you can’t see ‘em (polar bears), join ‘em!

Well, we made it as far north as we could, so after Grant returned us to the hotel, we made sure we got our Member of the Polar Bear Dippers Club (as opposed to the Polar Bear Club, which we really should have been able to get into), packed up our unused bathing suits and other stuff, settled up with the office, loaded up the truck, and headed south, retracing our steps of yesterday. Tonight we are in Coldfoot, half way between Deadhorse (where Prudhoe Bay is) and Fairbanks. In the morning we’ll make it the rest of the way back to Fairbanks and get ready to head to Denali on Saturday. We have reservations for a tour on Sunday. Hopefully, we’ll have a cooperative guide who will allow us to experience Denali, not stifle our experience. During out trip today, we four marveled at the fact that we all have been to the four far corners of the United States. Next summer we hope to go as far north as we can in Scotland – hopefully Grant won’t be around, keeping us from rounding up the sheep.