Barrow, Alaska

The following is an account of my visit to Liz Imbo Walsh in October 1998, when she was running the WIC program for the North Slope Borough of Alaska. In cleaning out my files I found it and laughed out loud. It should be noted I have not returned to Alaska since this visit, and Liz now lives in Palmer, AK where there ARE trees...

I began my first full day in the Arctic with a walk- the cold air nipped at my cheeks and even my fur lined gloves couldn’t fully block the cold. After my arrival yesterday, I abandoned my “winter” coat and political correctness and adopted my friend’s spare fur-lined parka. The cold in Alaska in October was already beyond my understanding.


The darkness was unsettling too. At nine thirty in the morning there was still only a hint of dawn. Coming here was a mistake… My first ten minutes in Barrow had shown this was not for me:

“Okay folks, when you get to the bottom of the staircase, link arms and head directly to the terminal”

WHAT?!?

Apparently there were winds blowing at over 50 miles per hour and the flight attendants feared we would be blown away.

Had the airport not closed the moment our plane landed, I would have stayed on board and gone straight back to Anchorage. While still not truly civilization, at least it pretended to be part of the world. Barrow was wilderness- barren, cold, dark… tundra and permafrost… Good heavens! What was I thinking? At 320 miles (515 km) above the Arctic Circle, the roads don’t go anywhere and there are no trees. How could I have believed I could live in a place without any trees??

I came to look at a job here. Public Health Nursing. Even got my Alaska Nursing license. I figured I’d done the Peace Corps, I could do anything…

Wrong Again!!!

In the Peace Corps, I had a tropical climate. And daylight. And trees.

My friend, Liz, who in all other respects appears to be sane, invited me to consider an employment opportunity here. And the pay was awesome… She even used her miles so I could fly there at no cost.

There is a reason they say money isn’t everything-until this point in my life I was not clear on the true nature of this fact.

Only nine days to go.

We went to the “grocery store” which was like a super-sized Sam’s Club warehouse, only everything was priced way beyond reason. Six dollars for a sad looking cantaloupe? I mean, who can buy things at these prices? And meat- outrageous prices and no selection. Seriously three packets in the whole frozen case...

“Where’s all the meat? Is this it?” I asked.

“Well most people hunt caribou for the meat they need…”

Only eight days to go.

Dinner out at a “Mexican” restaurant, which really resembled every house in Barrow, was pleasant enough, good food, but expensive (a running theme). Then I found out there is no beer.

NO BEER!

Not just in this place- the WHOLE North Slope- no business can serve/sell beer and alcohol. If you want to have alcohol for personal consumption, you have to ship it in by plane from Anchorage…

Only seven days to go.

I go to dinner at the house of Liz’s friends. They have a “honey pot” instead of a flush toilet- a common feature of homes here. Many people here have honey pots, I was told. Think of it as an indoor porta-potty. It is left outside when it needs to be emptied… Oh, good God!!

Only six days to go.

I went to work with the nurses, who wanted to really show me what the job entailed. I wanted to really see if I could do this work. After a phone experience with an very negative individual ( a universal occurrence that happens in all lines of work as far as I am concerned) we discussed travelling to the small native villages on bush planes. I had travelled in a Cessna, I didn’t mind small planes. And then they brought up how you might, occasionally, get stuck out in the field if the weather closed in.

“So how long might that last?”

“Anywhere from a day to a week…”

Only five days to go.

A look at schools… Montessori was crazy expensive (I got my BSN for less money) but seriously, would I send my daughter anywhere else? A look at the available housing… and keep in mind I was paying New York City rent at the time: “YOU WANT HOW MUCH FOR THIS DUMP?!?! It doesn’t even have a toilet?!?!”

Only four days to go.

Did you know that as a non-Native American, you can only kill a polar bear if it is actively in the process of killing you? That people track them out at the dump and as the bears walk through town? Because they come here and walk through town… so people broadcast locations of the bears via CB radio.

MUST GO HOME!

Only three days to go.

Did I mention I have yet to see the Northern Lights and am feeling totally ripped off? Because that hazy green flash in the sky like 20 miles away better not be all there is to see…

Have I mentioned how bloody cold it is here? Even indoors I am cold.

At least I got to see the Arctic Ocean in all it’s frozen glory- it is really something to see. A local artist has cards of scenes from Barrow. They look deceptively appealing, but then they were taken in DAYLIGHT!

Only two days to go.

I began to believe that perhaps Dante was right. The bottom layer of hell is a frozen pit. AND I AM IN IT!

I go home tomorrow!!

I survived and flew back to Anchorage through Fairbanks, proving you can last anywhere for ten days. Needless to say, I did not take the job. And Alaska is now off my places-to-see list. At least the part that doesn’t have trees.