15 July 2008 Community Overview #2

Another lab day today, we were sifting through batches of sand, gravel, and soil collected from a site in 2006, that is no longer there. The coastal erosion has washed the area, about 150 meters from where we are working now, out into ocean. Our work is critical, the major part of our work for the rest of the week is out in the field, perched on a bluff that will probably not be here next summer!! Great objects have already been found in this location, a digging we will go.

I also helped put together a shopping list for 5 underwater archaeologists who are going to a site 60+ miles away to camp for two weeks. They will be investigating an area where 31 New England whaling boats were trapped in the ice, crushed, and sank around 1875!! I told them I had my bath suit, but they just wanted me to help get the menu and shopping list together. Oh well!!

Continuing with the overview of the community, today’s work focuses on the community of Barrow. Native people, Inupiats, have lived in the area for over a thousand of years. I will give a detailed history after I visit the Heritage Center this weekend. I hope this journal gives you an idea of what Barrow looks like now. There are numerous comparisons to be made to your hometown, remember to be sensitive to the fact that these people have adapted well to living in a place just the way others have adapted to living in their areas. Each town or city is different, one is not any better or worse than another. (That’s called cultural sensitivity – accepting another person’s culture without passing judgment.)

First and foremost to have a town you must have people, you seen some of the images of Barrow and BASC. Here’s a fairly nice home in the area.

A Good Looking, Fairly New Home

There are no real "mansions” here. Most homes are pretty simple and fairly small. The kids have great places to learn, I will go take a picture of one of the schools and add it tomorrow. There are playground structures, here’s a picture of one out here by Hut #268.

There are probably three different palyground structures for the kids to use. This is the one closest to us. I have not tried out the slide or the swings yet!!

The kids have a lot of privileges that kids in the Lower 48 might not have. One is that the kids all ride 4wheelers both on the road, on the beach, and in the yard. Another great place for the kids is the football field. You can learn more about Barrow Football at [http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=tundra] A fine story of students learning, playing, and celebrating.

The football team and the field are both modern legends. The students and the administration wanted a way to increase student pride and involvement. Football was a likely choice, and a team was formed. A few problems though; no grass and no other teams around. Solutions: A kind person from FL helped raise the $$$ for the football field and a opposing teams are flown in for the games. I hope to catch the opening game. Hope I can get a ticket!!

Of course, Barrow has police, a fire department, and a pizza place. The pizza place is below, look for the police and fire shots in the Photo Gallery.

Haven't checked out Arctic Pizza yet. One of these Fridays, we will go out for Pizza Night.

As soon as you get off the plane, you notice that there is a lot of busted up, miscellaneous stuff around. It would be easy to be critical but, remember cultural sensitivity, and the fact that there are only 2 ways for stuff to get in or out of here, by plane or by boat. The plane usually comes twice a day, the boat comes once a year. So, if you want a new washing machine and you don’t want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to have it flown up, you have to place an order and it will be put on the barge that should come in sometime in the next few weeks. That’s a tough way to shop!!

Here’s the grocery store. I was being silly and took some pictures of a few common items in the store, more are in the photo gallery. As you look at these prices, think about how much extra it cost to get the item here. That makes it a little easier to understand why very few things leave.

Stauqpak's parking lot is a busy place. Lots of different vehicles!! Insde you can find everything from meats to snowmachines!! An oversized version of Lisai's and Singleton's. Must Be Some Well Paid Cows!! Wow, Time to Crank Up the Bread Machine

It is pretty amazing to be here. The first few days I was a little concerned; cloudy, gray, cold, windy. Now that I have been here; living, working, meeting great people, and learning about a beautiful new part of the world, I am excited to explore more, and share more about this great place. Here’s a late night Barrow photo. Simply amazing!! I hope you enjoy looking over my shoulder as I go!!

I was up way past my normal bedtime working on stuff for PolarTREC. I figured this was probably as close to the "Midnight Sun" that I was going to get. Pretty amazing!!