Alaska Blog 3

Alaska Blog 3- Due to limited internet and electricity access, these blogs have been written hastily with no editing. Please pardon all typos and grammatical errors.

I woke with a cold, wet, synthetic fabric over my face. The weight of a small but moist snowfall had caused our tent to collapse slightly and now the moisture was dripping in. It was 7am, cold, dark, and snowy. We were just a few dozen feet to the side of the Dalton Highway, the long single-lane stretch of snow-covered dirt that leads from Anchorage into the Arctic Circle and up to Alaska’s north slope. In the day previous we’d covered a few hundred miles, and had taken some beautiful photos of more park and mountain land than I can recall off the top of my head. There was still more to go: wildlife, tundra, an oil pipeline...

We slid out from under the tent, rolled our sleeping bags, dismantled the unstable shelter with chill burnt wet hands then began de-icing the car. Exactly what are mission or destination is or was still evades me. We have a beat up car, not much money and a great deal of the state to cover.

Four hours after waking, we’d progressed across the slick snow-covered road all the way to the town of Deadhorse, an oilworkers’ labor camp with a chowhall, bunks, showers, and a gas station; a structure that, from the inside, looks a great deal like the enlisted men’s quarters of a naval vessel.

We paid an attendant twenty dollars and sat down for chow with the oil workers. What’s next? We’ll find out.