Alaska | ostensibly-stan

Utqiagvik, Alaska, also known as Barrow, is 320 miles north of the Artic Circle. For the three days I was there the sun never set.

There are a lot of birds (and mud) there during the summer. Because of the permafrost, establishing a decent landfill is, well, problematic. The sewer lines are heated. Sounds fun, right?

Doesn't seem to be much time spent on anything other than just surviving.

Crazy, crazy place.

Some Shots of the Artic Ocean

I think the mounds of ice are probably caused by the tides coming in and out.

Shots taken while just driving around town. The houses may look abandoned but they're not.

A whale fin partially butchered outside someone's home. Note also the stretched hide leaning against the house.

From the web:

Subsistence hunting occurs throughout Alaska all year long and is central to the customs and traditions of many cultural groups in Alaska. For most rural Alaska Residents, subsistence hunting is critical to their nutrition, food security, ...

Most people use old pallets to provide a mud free entrance to the house.

You know that expanding spray can foam stuff that you can but at home depot? Well, this guy insulated his entire house with it. Bonus points for creativity.

There are essentially no paved road in Barrow save for about a half mile stretch by the airport.

Camps

As you can see there's a long pennisula extending out into the Artic just outside of Utqiagvik (Barrow). You can only take a car about 10% of the way out, after that you need a snowmobile. So at about the 10% point there are alot of abandoned "hunting huts". I was told the polar bear hunting is good out there. A very surreal and oddly comforting place.

I like this shot.

Some bird sightings.

I asked about the random fences in the middle of nowhere and was told that they help minimize the amount of snow that gets blown into town.

Ankorage

You'll only get this picture if you're a "Better Call Saul" fan.

Denali.

Because of weather only 20% of the people who go to Denali Park actually get to see the Denali mountain. I was in the 80%. Denali Park was a dud, if I has to do the trip again, I would skip it.

On the drive up to Fairbanks stopped to check out a section of the Alaskan Pipeline which runs from up near Barrow all the way down to Valdez - 800 miles.