WEAVER FAMILY: Up Close and Personal With The Arctic Ocean!

June 25 (Dead Horse, AK)

Dead Horse is right on the Arctic Ocean and there are huge oil fields here, and this hotel is where some of the local workers stay. Roger talked to someone that said there are 5000-6000 people working in the oil fields up here (they don’t all stay here!), and there are huge dorms on some of the large outstations. We decided to stay here another day and we took a side trip to the east (instead of west to Barrow), to Demarcation Bay, which is right at the Canada/Alaska border and is about an hour and a half flight from here. On the way there we landed at an airstrip where there is an early warning system that was put there during the cold war. It was right at the Arctic Ocean so we walked from the airstrip to the ocean and stuck our hands in – it was cold! We messed around there a bit, picked up a few neat pieces of driftwood and rocks from the Arctic Ocean. We were hoping to see polar bears when we were flying, and we were not disappointed! We saw two, at different places. The first one we really spooked with the plane and he was running all over. We made several fairly low passes hoping to get some decent pictures, but it was still pretty far away. The second one looked maybe a bit bigger, and he rose up on his hind legs at one point which was pretty cool to see. We also saw HUGE herds of caribou at various places – thousands and thousands of caribou. We were flying fairly low, and it was all tundra. The coastline is very beautiful and there is still quite a bit of ice out there. The water was very blue and clear. Honestly, I never thought I’d see the Arctic Ocean!

We got back then in time for supper here. It is cafeteria style, and all you can eat. Certain times there is hot food, but all the time there is plenty of other food to eat there. The guys that work here work long, hard hours, but they feed them well. It’s mostly men, with just a few women. There is a no drinking/drugs rule, and it’s surprisingly pretty quiet around here. They’re probably too tired to do much other than go to bed after a day in the oil fields. The food was really pretty amazing – very good and a huge selection. It is hard to believe one can eat like this on the North Slope – Roger even had chocolate covered strawberries this evening. JOLENE