Alaska

Day 3

We were a couple of sleepy heads in the morning, having slept late the previous night. It was already really bright as I openned the window shades. Once I saw where the sun was, and had risen from, I knew my answer to the question in the previous post.

This is one of the places where if the teachers teach "Sun rises in the east and sets in the west" kids would be baffled. Sun rises in the north east and sets in the northwest, I guess, in Summer. To give a background, We know the earth is tilted on its axis. As it revolves around the sun, in Summer, the earth's north pole is tilted towards the sun. In winters, the earths north pole is facing away from the sun. If the tilt were not there, there wont be any seasons, just like it is in the equator, like in India. Because of the tilt, there is a certain part of earth near the north pole, which always faces the sun. Even when the earth makes a full rotation, this place never away from the sun. As we go down from the north pole, the Arctic Circle separates that area and the area where the sun does set. But the sun is hidden for a short while, because the circumference of the earth as we go towards either poles is smaller.

I am terrible in explaining things. Here is a wonderful website which shows what I am trying to say. The red circle on top is the Arctic Circle. So as we go more north, across the arctic circle, the sun would make a neat circle right in front of our eyes, as it sets and rises again. The concept of day and night, which we folks closer to the Equator, take for granted is so differnt in these places.


The picture above is from the web.*

We had to be at the airport at 9AM. We got ready and had the Hotel Breakfast. The airport was 15minutes away. Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska, next to Anchorage. Still it was small. We went to the Northern Alaska Tour Company. There were already a group of oldies. We were going to travel with them. It looked like they all wanted to fullfill their dream of crossing the Arctic Circle before they died, or something. Yes, we were going to cross the Arctic Circle. This was my birthday gift from DH.

We were travelling onboard a twin engine plane for the first time. It was so small.


The pilot, he was our host too, he took our bags and jackets, and put them in a compartment in one side of the wings and locked it. There were eight seats in all, four rows, and one seat next to the pilot. All the flight controls were directly visible to every person onboard. The pilot took off, it was pretty smooth. It was very noisy, as all small planes are. And it was very bumpy, as all small planes are too. We gained altitude pretty fast. The landscape of beautiful Alaska stretched out for us. No snow. Just green mountains, with meandering rivers in the middle. For now. We saw Dalton Highway, winding along in the middle of nowhere. When we decided to cross the Arctic Circle, one of the many plans was to drive on Dalton Highway, that way you can actually physically stand on the Arctic Circle. But we had a lot of driving to do already, so we dropped it. We saw the Trans Alaskan Pipeline zigzagging along, in the middle of nowhere too. We also saw the Yukon river, flowing through the wilderness.







To give some history, Dalton Highway was constructed to transport machinery from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay, where Oil is drilled. The Highway is just gravel road, unpaved. Trans Alaskan Pipeline is one of man made wonders, winding along cold tundra, about 800 miles long I think. transporting gallons of oil everyday from the drill site.

I rarely have motion sickness. But this time, both me and DH had trouble because of the very bumpy ride. I surely would have thrown up if we had landed just a minute later. It was a 90 min flight to Coldfoot, which is 55 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The vegetation slowly changed. No trees, only small shrubs, and plants. Lot of Fireweed, giving a reddish pinkish color to the ground. The pilot told us exactly when we crossed the Arctic Circle. By the time we landed on Coldfoot, We reached the part of Alaska where, it was too cold most of the time even for trees to grow. BUT, it was 70 degrees when we stepped out of the plane. :--) There was a van waiting to take us to a small restaurant, where everything was exorbitantly priced. We had our lunch waiting for us. Coldfoot has a population of 14. Yes 14! And one of us was our van driver. There was nothing in that place really. Saw this sign board, 240 miles, all the way to DeadHorse in Prudhoe Bay, no services on the way.





I shyly asked an old lady who talked nicely to us, if she had any medication for motion sickness. She gave us Ginger Candy. Ah! Namma Inji mittai. I have never had motion sickness, so never realized how charmingly the candy works. She asked us to suck on it slowly. The next leg was a longer one, almost two hours to Barrow, we had to make sure we were alright.

Barrow is the northernmost settlement in Northern US. It is one of the fifteen or so cities touching the Arctic Ocean. We saved out lunch till the end of the flight, while sucking on ginger candy. The landscape was beautiful, as we flew over the Brooks Range. We seemed to be close to the land because of the tall mountains over which we were flying. We kept clicking pictures like crazy. The others in our plane also did the same.









The mountains were barren. I guess most of the time they are covered with snow. No trees whatsoever. Real Tundra! An hour later, the mountains ended, it was barren flat land thereafter. It was really like flying over nowhere. There is no road connecting Barrow to civilization. Only means to reach Barrow is by flight. Makes one wonder who would want to live there.



There were numerous lakes. It was from all the snow melting from Brooks range. We finally saw some patches of snow on land. I thought we would never see any. In Summer this place didnt seem to reveal what bitter winter it suffers every year. The sun was shining really bright. I guess we are closer to the Sun across the arctic circle in summer, than in any part of the earth. It was irritatingly sunny, I had to wear my sunglasses.



Finally, we saw the land end. The Arctic Ocean. It was like the beginning of any other ocean or sea, but to think it was part of the mass of water, often covered in ice, around the North Pole, it was a huge deal. There was no sea ice for as far as we could see though. It was a bummer.

When we landed and went out, it was cold. It was 45F, one of the warmer days in Barrow. We hurriedly wore our jackets and set off to see the northern most point in continental US.

* With due credit to the author of the picture taken from here.