Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska

Dear Carol,

You probably saw that the temperature in Deadhorse the day I left Colorado was -35 degrees, with a wind chill of -65 degrees, but by the time I arrived the storm and wind had abated and it was a relatively normal -25 below with a light breeze blowing. Yesterday it even got up to a balmy -10 below. I say “balmy” because that’s what it felt like.

Normally when you go out in this weather you take things very, very seriously and dress accordingly. Our hotel is located on the eastern edge of Deadhorse, perhaps 2 miles from the General Store and other hotels, which are located over by the airport and the hanger where we work. If we were to slide off the icy road, we would have to walk quite some distance for help, and if the wind were blowing you wouldn’t even do that. You would just sit and wait for someone to find you. It is easy to become completely disoriented in this flat, white landscape. It would not take long to freeze to death. We are careful even walking the 100 yards from the hanger to the local hotel to get a cup of coffee. But at -10 below you are a little more casual. You might not even put your hat and gloves on before you open the door to the outside.

I’m here with John, the principle investigator, who is a few years older than me, Claude, a 30-something post-doc who has brought along a couple of his own experiments, and Sarah, an 18-year-old freshman at New England College and an intern on this project. Sarah and I are the go-fers, and she is gung-ho and competent. I’m clumsy and sullen, as you well know.

The Ship’s Crew: Sarah Olivo (otherwise known as The Commandant, or sometimes as "Sweetie"), John Christensen (the principle investigator from Bigelow Labs), Claude Belzile (a post-doc and investigator from Bigelow Labs), and David Fanning (chief gofer and entertainment writer). The rifle is standard equipment on the Arctic ice, but God knows what would have happened had we actually had to shoot the darn thing!

We spent the first couple of days sorting and assembling our gear, which had arrived in 15 large boxes. I had no idea of the sheer volume of “stuff ”you have to bring on a scientific expedition. It looked like one box contained the entire contents of John’s desk back in Maine. Printers, paperclips, white-out, yellow sticky pads of all shapes and sizes. You name it, we have it. Well, we have it if we can find it. Finding it will be something else, again!

After a long day of sorting, John gave Sarah and me the task of putting up the tent out in the hotel parking lot “for practice”. It will be our job to get the tent set up while John and Claude drill the sampling hole in the sea ice, so we need to know how to do it. It was about -25 degrees and we didn’t have any instructions, so we were floundering a little bit with the color-coded poles and fitting the clips over the poles with our gloved hands. But after 10 or 15 minutes we had gotten it mostly up but we were getting a little cold in the brisk wind, so we decided to take it right back down.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw we had drawn some attention. A couple of guys in a truck had stopped to watch what we were doing. Finally, the driver couldn’t stand it anymore so he drove over and got out of the truck as we are trying to collapse the billowing shape.

“Hi,” he said to us. “I couldn’t help noticing you over here. What are you doing?”

“Oh,” I said, “we thought thought it would be a nice night to camp out, but it’s just too damn cold! So we are going back inside.”

He just stared at us. I’m afraid the cold just sucks the sense of humor right out of you. Or maybe he was just shocked to see a young girl (Sarah is only about 5 feet 2 inches tall) in a town full of male oil field workers. Whatever it was, we didn’t get much of a response. He finally got back in his truck and drove off without another word.

Deadhorse is the strangest place in the world. It exists for one and only one purpose: to support the oil companies in extracting oil and shipping it down the Alaska Oil Pipeline to the port at Valdez. Workers typically work 14 day shifts, flying in from wherever they live (mostly Alaska, but a number of them from as far away as Washington, Oregon and Montana), working 12 hours a day for 14 days, then taking 14 days off. Apparently, they make fabulous amounts of money doing this, but the psychological cost seems massive to me. Some people refer to the arrangement as “golden handcuffs”. Ninety-five percent of the people I have seen here are men. There is the occasional woman, typically doing the “women’s work” of cleaning rooms, cooking, receptionist, etc. I have seen one female mechanic, but she is the only female oil worker I have seen in over a week here.

Deadhorse, Alaska Here is a picture of Deadhorse as we approach it from the helicopter. It looks like the world’s largest truck stop on the edge of the most derelict city in America. Our hotel is off in the distance, near the large building in the very center of the picture. Walking distance if it were warmer, but a dangerous distance in this cold.

Most of the workers live at “camps” that have now been placed (with the 9/11 security restrictions) off-limits to everyone but those who live there. I’m told those camps are quite nice, with recreational facilities and movie theaters, etc. The camp where we are staying houses more of the oil service workers. The freight carriers, the welding shop guys, the guys who work at the hardware store. We have a small gym area (which I have never seen anyone use) and a big screen TV in a common room, along with a pool table. Although the TV is on constantly (with cable from Los Angeles, it looks like) almost no one sits in one of the three lounge chairs to watch it.

The kitchen is open 24 hours a day, and you can always wander back there for something to eat or drink. There is a large rotating case of fruit (which I don’t think anyone but me opens), a similar case filled with homemade desserts, a popcorn machine, and the usual soft drinks, coffee, etc. Food is all you can eat and is included on your hotel tab at a flat rate whether you eat it or not. Everyone eats it. I would guess 80% of the folks at this hotel are overweight to one degree or another. Eating and working are about the only things in town to do.

The Desert Display Case The price of the hotel room includes an All-You-Can-Eat policy in the cafeteria. The desert case is a favorite of the guests, whereas the fruit display has apparently never been opened. Every effort is made to get good food up here. Wednesdays are prime-rib nights, Fridays are steak nights. Every night you have a choice of two or three entrees. You can find late night snacks of all sorts down here, as well as fountain drinks, coffee, tea, etc.

The North Slope of Alaska is completely alcohol-free, and there is little or no tolerance for people who smuggle in alcohol or drugs. I’m told some of this goes on (who could doubt it, given the living conditions?), but I’ve seen no evidence of it myself. No one even jokes about it.

There is very little comraderie in the dining area. People eat in small groups which are always the same, day after day, or they come into the kitchen and package up their meal in styrofoam containers to take back to their room, where they can watch TV and eat alone. There are no recreation centers or churches or social halls of any sort in Deadhorse. There is just the place where you work, and the place where you live. Nothing else. I would not recommend this place as a tourist destination.

I’ve been here nearly a week now. Long enough I no longer remember what day it is, or even look at my watch all that often. I had three goals for coming here: (1) Completely change my routine, (2) come back with a different perspective, and (3) see a polar bear. I haven’t seen a polar bear yet, but lots of tracks, and I continue to be hopeful. But my routine has been completely disrupted, and my perception has been changed so radically that I now consider -10 below zero as a “warm day. ”

I haven’t seen a newspaper since I left Colorado, and I unplugged the television in my room when I got here. (I did cheat and watch the Duke-UConn game on the big screen TV down in the common area last night, the first night we have had off since I arrived.) We have been working 14-16 hour days. First, we were trying to get our equipment organized and stored away in boxes for transport to the field (60 - 125 miles out in the Arctic Ocean). The past few days we have been trying to figure out why the equipment won’t work in the field. (Well, it works fine at room temperature, but everything, including people, slow down and stop working in the cold!)

And it is cold. It was -25 degrees when I arrived, and got all the way up to the balmy -10 I mentioned earlier. Most of the time it is somewhere around -20 below, which is completely manageable as long as the wind isn’t blowing. But, of course, the wind is always blowing here, but so far not too hard. Wind chill was -65 the week before I arrived. I think the other day on the ice we probably had a wind chill of 35-40 below, but, thankfully, we have a tent on the ice and it is not so bad once you get that up. (Which is what I guess passes for “fun” up here, since it is always threatening to blow away with you attached to it.)

Temperature in Deadhorse The time and temperature sign in Deadhorse on a typical day here. This is, of course, in Fahrenheit degrees. In any case, “pretty darn cold.” Nose hairs freeze immediately at this temperature!

It takes us an hour or so to drill a hole and get the instruments in the water and lowered to 500 meters. Then we haul it back up and break camp for another location. Each station takes about two hours, plus or minus. Usually plus, because something isn’t working right, or you drop the pliers down the ice hole (whoops!). Today we learned (after 15 minutes or so) what happens when you fill the air-intake of the portable generator up with snow. (It don’t run so good!)

But we are getting faster and more efficient as we learn our jobs. We are getting real good at putting up that damn tent!

Our Portable Laboratory Our sampling sites are from 60 to 125 miles off-shore. We land, drill a hole through the ice, put up the tent to keep warm, and then lower our instruments through the hole. Each site takes an hour or two, depending upon how many problems you have to solve. Equipment does not always function according to specs at these temperatures. To say nothing of cold scientists.

We saw lots and lots of polar bear tracks on our first reconnaissance flight several days ago. But none the past few days. But the ice is packed pretty solid. We haven’t seen any open water leads, so the area is probably not very productive for polar bears at the moment, since they hunt seals in the open water or after they have hauled up onto the ice. We are having a bit of a warming trend this week, so maybe the ice will change for us. I really want to see a bear. Not up close and personal, of course, but maybe from the helicopter.

The helicopter is fun, the first time you ride in it. Then you realize the person who designed the seats and put the engine a foot away from the back of your head was some kind of sadist. And the flight attendants are ugly as sin. (I’m joking. When your two tons of gear are piled in the same telephone booth sized space as you are, there is no room for flight attendants.) You are extremely grateful helicopters have a short flying range, believe me.

Deadhorse itself will never be mistaken for a tourist destination. (Although I did have myself photographed in front of the of Prudoe Bay general store holding the Denver Post Travel section in hopes that I will get my picture in the paper and encourage some other poor sucker to come up here!) There is absolutely nothing to do up here, except work. So that’s what everyone does. Twelve hour days are the norm, I think. People work two weeks here and then go back to wherever they live (could be “anywhere ”as long as its not here) for two weeks. The food is great and there is a lot of it. You are free to eat as much as you like and visit the kitchen whenever you like for snacks, sandwiches, fruit, cookies, etc. Most of the oil workers tend to go with the polar bear look and wear the husky Cargalls.

Deadhorse, Alaska: Tourist Mecca I thought I would take a picture of myself in front of the Deadhorse General Store with a page from the local paper at home. Pictures like this are published in the paper to give other readers ideas for good places to go. I’d feel better about being here if I could entice some other poor fool to come, too.

(I heard a Deadhorse joke today. They say they recruit people to work up here by telling them there is a naked woman behind every tree. It’s only after the poor recruit arrives that he realizes there are no trees here. There are only a few women (that I have seen) and none of them naked (thank God!).

There is no alcohol in the North Slope of Alaska, so it really isn’t all that exciting a place. Alaskan’s love their guns. The Legislature is trying to pass a law that says you don’t have to get a permit to carry concealed weapons in the state. They figure everyone will be safer if every man, woman, and child carries a loaded weapon and knows how to use it. I figure letting people have a little beer now and again would go a long way to eliminating some of the Californians that are over-populating the state.

The best thing about Deadhorse is the local hardware store. It’s open 24-hours a day, and may be one of the best hardware stores in the world. There is nothing you can’t find there! (One thing about oil workers: they understand tools!) Of course it is housed in a beat-up old double-wide trailer like every other building in town (including the several hotels). If it can’t be packed up on an 18-wheeler and hauled into town on the Dalton Highway, it isn’t going to get here. The place has the distinct look of an all-night truck stop in the seeder section of any large city. All that is missing is the train tracks.

Hardware Store The world’s best hardware store. If they don’t have it here, you don’t need it. (Or, at least, you sure as hell aren’t going to get it anytime soon!) The store is open 24-hours a day and is a social gathering place for some of the best tool-users in the world.

Since 9/11 Deadhorse has been infused with the standard Govenment paranoia. I stopped the truck yesterday to snap a picture of what passes for “scenery” around here (broken down machinery stacked in a yard) and a truck immediately pulled up next to me, wanting to know “what I was taking pictures of?”. “Just the tourist attractions,” I told the nice man. It took him about two beats more than it should have to realize I was making a joke. I think he was afraid these pictures will end up in the hands of the Sierra Club. (God help you if you mention “environmentalist” up here with without preferencing it with something like SOB first.)

I’ve seen only one animal up here so far. Four ravens. I think they subsist on the garbage cans around town. (I do think I saw some Caribou on the flight into town.) But the fecundity is not many weeks off, to judge from the map of the area. I wish I were going to be here to see it. (I did see the Brooks Range off in the distance today, when it cleared. About 80 miles or so, I guess.) We saw Arctic fox tracks at the sampling location yesterday.

Guess that’s about it. It’s already 10 PM and we are going to try to do 4 stations tomorrow. But the forecast is for warming temperatures (maybe up to 20 above by the end of the week) and light winds, so who knows. This might be the week I get a look at that polar bear. All I know is you won’t see him at all if you stay in Fort Collins all your life.

Love,

Dave

 

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