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So most of us, Matt, Janet and Judy are back in Massachusetts and it's so green! Molly and Amanda are spending a few more days exploring Denali National Park and other parts of southern Alaska and they have promised to return.
Yesterday when we left Barrow it was veiled in heavy mist so we only caught the briefest of glimpses of the town as we took off and then it all disappeared into the gray.
This has been an incredible trip. This blog only captures a tiny amount of what we saw and heard. Barrow and the North Slope Region is unlike anywhere I have been. It is a place of contrast and contradictions, of huge spaces, and tight communities, of subtleties in color and light, of friendliness and warmth,of ice and water, of great history and traditions, of modern technology. We have been drenched in it and its effects will keep us talking and thinking for months to come. All sorts of people have tolerated our questions and shared generously their experiences. We are so grateful to them all. Many thanks to Hal for making it all happen and to you our followers for giving us reason to blog.

Our last day in Barrow

On Wednesday evening we had a wonderful evening at the home of the Glenn family. We heard lots of stories of life in Barrow and sampled mutuk (whale meat) both raw and pickled . Overall opinion pretty favorable although it doesn't have a strong flavor(except for the pickled version which tastes of pickle). The texture is a bit like eating octopus or squid -sort of chewy. The Glenns also took us out to visit their ice cellar and dressed us up in handmade parkas for fun and to brave the cold in the cellar.







The cellar was quite incredible- hand dug in their back yard, it goes down about 20 feet into the permafrost and at the bottom widens to about 10foot square.You climb down a ladder into colder and colder air.The walls are rock hard -of frozen gravel and mud- and of course stay frozen all year round so they can store the huge lumps of whale meat.The cellar is currently empty because Richard Glenn's crew didn't get a whale this spring.
Here are some of the Glenn family plus a frozen fish in the bottom of the ice cellar.













Today we had a tour of the Barrow Utility company and found out all about the water, sewage and electricity. The cool thing was another hole we got to climb down -this time into the Utillidor system which is the system of tunnels through the permafrost that carry the water and sewage pipes underneath the town.The tunnels are lined with wood from the trees that were downed by the Mt St.Helens volcano.




The tunnels have warm air pumped through them to keep them at about 40degrees so the pipes don't freeze and the water is a continuous circulation through the town also to prevent freezing. Barrow sits on a natural gas reservoir so heat and electricity is cheap but they still have power outages from downed lines and in the winter this can cause big problems if the power is out for long since the water pipes will freeze up since they can't be kept warm and the water moving. They have special heating trucks they use in the winter that blast hot air over the pipes they are servicing to prevent them from freezing. Water comes from one of the lagoons in town and is purified with state of the art equipment.Trash goes into a landfill which used to be just on the edge of town but now is further out.

It rained today and everywhere was mud.The roads are just gravel and are continually being smoothed out by graders.
On dry days water trucks come round spraying the surface to keep the dust down.
There are dumpsters all over the place that are painted bright colors. We learned from Joe who joined us for breakfast today and has lived in Barrow since he was a kid that his daughter had organized the program of dumpster murals painting to involve many of the Barrow kids.
Our final meal out was with Anne Jenson and Glenn Sheehan. We went to the Arctic Thai restaurant and had one of the best Thai meals I've tasted-all freshly cooked and served by just one man. Anne and Glenn entertained us with more tales of Barrow and the North slope region particularly about archaeology since they have been involved with most of the digs in the area including the Nuvuk dig we went to on Tuesday.

Yesterday Molly and Judy went out to the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) with undergraduate science students. To get to the station, we walked about a mile over the tundra on boardwalks. We started the work at a little shack, well equipped with computers, heat and other tools. There are several different studies being conducted so the external devices collecting temperature, wind speed, water level carbon dioxide and methane gas data is collected by the computer throughout the year, and can be sent to any other computer. One of our worker bee hosts, Sarah, needs to make sure the permanent instruments were working properly each day
before she goes out to collect other data.
Out in the field, Molly got to wade into one of the 3 lakes where data is collected to help replace an instrument that measures radiation. Much of the work with instruments has to be done without gloves in the cold weather with wiping wind! When the instrument was put back together, we moved over to another lake for human collected data. We used a steel rod with centimeter marks to measure the water table depth and permafrost. For the permafrost, we just threw the rod into the ground as far as we could. Mostly, it only went about 18cm, or about 8 inches! It was fun to get to take part in the data collection. We also got to talk to another student, Janelle, who uses a pretty cool machine that latches onto the tundra and measures the amount of carbon dioxide.

more on our day as archeologists

Here are a few more pictures to round out Amanda's commentary on our trip to the Nuvuk dig site.
Loading up the fourwheelers in the morning.






Janet and Amanda bundle up












Learning how to dig holes










Fragile existence-a small patch of plants manages to take hold in the gravel. From the archeologists view point this patch suggests organic remains may be underneath so it will become an important dig site by the end of the day.




The convoy sets off home at the end if the day.
















Perry our bear guard. Most of us also got a wild ride around the point on the back of his four wheeler past the place where they bring all the whale bones ( often a favorite spot for the polar bears) as well as Perry's favorite spot to hunt seals and the place where the salmon pass close to the shore so can be caught with a net strung from the shore.

Point Barrow Dig!!

Yesterday we had one of our more exciting days, as we got to join one of the archeological crews at Point Barrow, the very tip of Barrow between the Beaufort and Chukchi  Seas.  The dig began in 1998 when (around) 800 year old human remains were discovered. It was then realized that Point Barrow provided a burial site that contained remains that could be tested and traced to the local community.  The two groups that were at the dig had two different agendas: 1) The archeologists are trying to recover and move the burial remains in town before erosions wipes them all out to sea, and 2) the geneticists want to gather samples from ribs that can allow them to test and trace DNA.  (Did I say this yesterday?  Is anyone actually reading this, or are you just looking at the pictures?  Blink once if you are reading this ; ) ) 

Anyway- getting to the good stuff- we got to bundle up in ski equipment (long underwear, sweaters, fleeces, face masks, gloves, etc) and were also told to grab gigantic red jackets

because apparently the point would be 'colder than we could imagine'.  (Having skied in northern VT, I find this hard to believe).  However, wee got lucky and it wasn't that windy, which minimized the cold. (I still wore long underwear, a fleece shirt, a fleece a jacket, and the big red jacket as well as a face mask/ hat.)  So we all piled on to  4 wheelers, accompanied by two Bear Guards to protect us from polar bears.  After an awesome caravan ride out to the point, we began digging and labeling anything we found. Janet, Judy, Molly and I found a lot of 'faunal remains' (which means non-human remains) mostly seal and caribou bones.  Nothing archeologically significant. But the archeologists uncovered a HUMAN SKULL of a 6-8 year old child underneath some sort of animal pelt. We weren't allowed to take

pictures of any of the human remains but we got to watch them carefully brush things off with little brushes, just like they would on crime tv like "Bones" or maybe Jurassic Park. AWESOME! 

There was also a group of local high school students who work at the dig site during the summer months. We had lunch with them in the tent and chatted about what teenage life is like in Barrow, Alaska.  Pretty similar to the lives of Massachusetts teens actually- similar music, (on their ipods they were listening to Disturbed and Fallout Boy) similar taste in reading, (one of the girls walked me through the whole plot of the 4th Twilight book, Breaking Dawn- they even nicknamed the child skeleton remains after a character from the book) and similar past times. (When asked what the biggest downside of living in Barrow was, one of them answered, 'there is no mall'.)  However, they are lucky to have a whole world of experiences that the environment does not provide for the teens in Massachusetts.  From a young age, most children have their own 4 wheelers that they will use to roam around town and over the beach and tundra landscape. Additionally, most kids get to hunt in some capacity. The kids we talked to had all taken part in a variety of hunts- duck hunts, caribou, seal, and of course the infamous whale. Only men and boys are allowed to participate in whale hunts however, and I also learned that a man can only be a whaling captain if he is married. Super interesting social systems, I could do a lot more research on the gender roles and social constructions of the Inupiat! Fascinating!  
One highlight for me was my ride around the perimeter with one of the Bear Guards as he made his patrol. He pointed out an artic fox that had been hunted for it's tale (sad), a giant pile of whale bones that generally attracts the polar bears (cool!) a few seals bopping around in the water (cute!!!) and a marked grave site from about 200 years ago. 

Finally, after about 8 hours at the site and bathroom breaks in a tent on a small bucket filled with Pine Sol, we headed back into town to pepare for our community talk at the library. 

Most of our audience was from BASC but they had lots of great questions and gave us a lot of good ideas for how to help teenagers think about climate change.  Over all, a busy and invigorating day!!!!  

Another Day in Barrow

Today, Day 3 in Barrow, we went to the Barrow Heritage Center where we saw a special exhibit about whaling. Something which stood out the most to me was that the Inupiat believe that the spirit of the whale chooses to give itself to the hunters based on how well the people will treat the whale,  treat their space, homes, and each other. As stated to the left, "While men may hunt the physical whale, the spirit of the whale gives itself to the women. The women maintain the sanctity of the home, feed the needy, and care for others. The spirit of the whale tells other whales of the kind of treatment it received and convinces themselves to the men the following year."  To the right you can see the Inupiat core values listed. As we have learned, each native Alaskan culture seems to have core values (similar to the 10 common principles) which they aim to follow. Respect and attention to nature is one that I have heard mentioned a few times up here by natives, particularly how it is their responsibility to notice climate change.

We also got to check out the science lab and talk to a few of the archeological anthropologists who we will be accompanying on a dig tomorrow. Their work is 

to date and test the remains at a sinking burial

ground to trace DNA connections between local Inupiat and their ancestors. There is a lot more that they are doing but you will have to talk to the science teachers for further explanation on that! Or tune in tomorrow and we will fill you in on our participation in the dig!

Finally, we got to stand on some sea ice which made the whole trip look really authentic and made Molly really happy! (Below- obviously)

Here is a teaser for tomorrow: This is Molly trying on her full facial covering for the ride out to the windy dig site on 4-wheelers.  Another important logistic for getting to the site is planning for enough Bear Guards so no one gets attacked by a polar bear. I think even polar bears would be afraid of this get-up. 

4th of July in Barrow

We all piled into dusty trucks (everything is covered with dust here) to take the 2 mile bumpy ride into town from the research station/college where we are staying to see some of the July 4th celebrations, starting with the parade.





This comprised an assortment of trucks, buses, ambulances, fire engine, snowmobiles, horns and sirens blaring, most decked out with balloons and decorations and all showering the bystanders with candy,(Amanda's idea of heaven). All the kids and many adults in the crowd had bags and were picking up whatever fell close to their feet and getting some pretty big bag fulls. The parade wove its way from the center of town out to the beach front where tents and awnings made an events arena. Lots of hot food available including caribou stew which was very welcome because the arctic wind was very biting. Events proceeded at a very leisurly pace with plenty of opportunity for chatting and hanging out.The umiat boat race was postponed for yet another day because the wind was too strong but we did get to see the beautiful baby contest. This was more a contest of which family could make the more stunning outfut for the baby and often the mother too. They were quite amazing, made from different furs and fabrics decorated with embrodery and clearly taking many, many hours to make.


































These were heirloom works of art but many of the local people wear handmade parkas that are stunning too. The womens are big enough so they can fit a baby inside on their backs.


























Whale bones and the wood frame of an Umiat(the seal skin whaling boat) in the foreground, the Artic Ocean and sea ice in the distance.








The Arctic Ocean,sea ice in the distance.