Arctic weather TODAY Polar Gateways January 2008
by Dave Grant  by Rusty Heurlin - from the C. Brower collection: Inupiat Heritage Center"The ice was here, the ice was there,The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!"(Coleridge - Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner) One of the sorriest shortcomings of America's educational system is graduates' lack of map reading skills. Give me any map (The older the better) and I'm an armchair explorer for the next hour. It's been that way since I was a kid; mentally traveling the ends of the earth, from Zanzibar to Attu Island. Like Mark Twain: "When I am playful, I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales!" I have discovered that most college students, especially coeds, can draw a fairly good map of the resort islands of the Caribbean, but the rest of their world looks like a plate-tectonics portrait from the Permian. Also, it is not unusual for them and geographically-challenged friends to draw a blank about my travel destinations; so I've gotten used to replying: "Off your atlas" - which unfortunately, is usually enough to satisfy their curiosity. (I once teased people with: "I'm headed for the Isles of Langerhans...you know, in Pancreas." But I don't run into many Biology majors these days.) This year I finally reached Barrow, Alaska, one of those far-flung corners I've daydreamed about; courtesy of a cargo plane flown by a one-armed, one-eyed pilot. (Not, really…but it's a great line fed to me years ago by Littoral Society member Ken Gosner while encouraging me to retrace one of his adventures through the Arctic.) It was an interesting trip nonetheless and the most memorable comment by one of the flight crew was "We also transport the Iditarod dogs. They're cute and just pile up in the corner and go to sleep!" Thus assured, I too settled in for the flight over some of the most remarkable scenery in North America.   The Arctic Coastal Plain - Barrow lies at the edge of the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP); west of Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR); and 330-miles north of the Arctic Circle. It is the northernmost point of land in the United States. Beyond that, one must leap-frog over a thousand miles on slush and ice islands for the remaining trek to the North Pole. This is a remarkably flat expanse of Tertiary sediments atop 100-million year-old oceanic crust thrust up from the Arctic Sea. (Most of southern Alaska has its origins in the Pacific Ocean.) Barrow is the world's largest Eskimo village and is home to more than half the 7,000 residents of North Slope Borough. "Bigger than Minnesota" it is the largest municipal government in the world. After flying over it, I am willing to wager that it rivals the number of water bodies that the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" claims on its license plates. The majority of residents are native American Inupiat, and like many indigenous and isolated cultures, their ancient name boasts that they are "the real people" and their ancestors were the first to occupy this harsh region thousands of years ago. Across the ACP are all the thermo-erosional (Freezing-thawing induced) features I've taught about in Earth Science classes, but never seen first hand. Frost heaving creates ponds and there are peri-glacial wind-scoured depressions that probably account for many of the shallow ephemeral wetlands (like "spongs") back home in southern New Jersey. During the Pleistocene, New Jersey was also at the periphery of the continental glaciers. People think of this as a wet region but the moisture is locked up for most of the year in 2000-feet of frozen ground below the surface. The uppermost permafrost warms up for the shortest of summer seasons; just enough to melt and allow the veneer of tundra plants enough time for a burst of growth in the 24-hours of daylight between May 5th and August 18th. Barrow sits on the western coastline at the top of Alaska, bordering the Chukchi Sea. It's shoreline is a series of low eroding bluffs, with bights that are partially enclosed by large spits growing to the northeast. Point Barrow is last and largest of these. Because of fairly stable sea levels for the last few thousand years; spits like it are the most recent depositional structures along coasts. The undulating shore east of Point Barrow borders the Beaufort Sea and is protected by the Plover Islands - a long, thin offshore chain stretching to the southeast and enclosing Elson Lagoon. The cusps on the coast are bisected portions of some of the vast number of tundra ponds on the coastal plain. With an erosion rates of up to 100-feet per year, Arctic shorelines experience the fastest coastal retreat in the world. The beaches I was able to explore on both sides of Barrow are composed of smooth gravel and sand, with large blocks of grounded, shore-fast ice. The winter ice pushes the gravel into steep berms and the beach slope and ice make for slow-going in some spots. The coastline is interesting to a geologist but a bit disappointing to the serious beachcomber.   Crossing the coastline of the Beaufort Sea and preparing to land at Barrow. The Barrow Arch - Tectonic forces have created a bulge of crust beneath the sediments of the coastal plain north of the Brooks Range. Beneath this so-called Barrow Arch, oil and gas accumulated. Used wisely, I was told that the town's wells will supply natural gas to its residents for 150-years. The region also has mineral deposits and may contain 40% of the nation's coal reserves, so development is probably inevitable since those that influence the nation's energy policy seem to view conservation as just a curious pastime for a minority of people. The Eskimos knew of local oil seeps and burned oil shale, but ships came to the far North in the mid-1800's because of diminishing stocks of whales and their oil needed to fuel the nation's lamps and lighthouses. This was the first contact with the outside world for the Inupiat, but after the whaling industry died out in the early 1900's these northern coastal Eskimos were generally left alone. Ironically, after WW II the next major contact involved the U.S. Navy; also worried about shortages of fuel. Searching for future oil sources, it set aside the region as one of several Naval Petroleum Reserves. Frosty skies - As usually happens with me, I jumped at the chance to visit Barrow before gathering any information about the place. I became anxious about the weather information I gathered because it was necessary for me to travel light before heading North. Since I did not have room for heavy clothing, I reasoned that if necessary, I could suit up in all the layers of the light clothes I carried and a water-resistant outer shell; and hopefully that would be sufficient for whatever conditions I encountered. As it turns out, I was fortunate and visited during a week with fairly mild weather. Any other misgivings about the trip vanished with the coastal fog as the pilot, preparing to land, dipped beneath it and circled out over the frozen waters of the Chukchi Sea. With my face pressed to the window to take in as much of the only overview I could expect to get here, I was elated with my first glimpse of Arctic waters. It was no mistake to visit in July, the warmest month of the brief Arctic summer; however the maximum summer temperature is still below 45° F. Even though Barrow is above the Arctic Circle and has 24-hours of daylight for one-quarter of the year; when the sun does show, it warms the spirit more than the skin because of its low angle. There is no moderating effect from the icy sea, and unpredictable wind shifts cause the temperature to change abruptly. There is no relief from the south either since the Brooks Range - the continental divide between the Pacific and Arctic - blocks any warm air from the rest of the state. When packing for the trip I wanted to be prepared for anything, including Alaska's notoriously high priced food, by filling empty space in my back-pack with a stock of energy-rich hiking snacks. I recalled the complaints of Shackleton's crew, stranded in Antarctica and surviving exclusively on a seal and penguin meat diet that left them with little energy and craving carbohydrates. As it turns out, food prices here aren't too exorbitant. Also, there is a convenience store near the beach; along with a few small restaurants: Arctic Pizza, Ken's ("…pretty good greasy place."), and Pepe's North of the Border ("The world's northernmost Mexican restaurant."). So, like most people on vacation, I ended up eating locally and sharing most of my snack bars with hikers and kids. Something I did not expect to find here is the corn-dog - that celebrated snack of the South; and I also noticed that there was always a line of locals at the "slushy" ice-drink machine. To me, this confirms that a high latitude carbo-craving exists…or perhaps like the rest of the country, locals have become prisoners of sugar and modern processed junk food.  I always clean out the closet and bring gifts from home when I visit someplace off the beaten path. This time it was our college's logo t-shirts and wooden train whistles, courtesy of our PR department. Upon arriving in the "Last Frontier" I discovered that Barrow is a 3-season town: Spring, Winter and Fall - sleet, snow and sunshine - all in the same day and sometimes within the same hour. I believe my tiny hiker's thermometer read 38° F at one point, but it was raining and hard to confirm it. At most times I could see my breath. I was warned to bring a wide-brimmed hat with mosquito netting and cotton gloves to ward off the hordes of biting insects. In his classic "The Arctic Prairies" Ernest Thompson Seton (Like some Old Testament priest admonishing the congregation to never say the name of G_d) purposely did not mention mosquitoes throughout the book, explaining that to cite them in all his entries would have made "painful and dreary reading." Instead, he reserved a chapter devoted entirely to what he called: hell on earth …a terror to man and beast…pests of the peace…more numerous than… in the worst part of the New Jersey marshes(!). When asked about the weather here, the default answer is "It's an Arctic desert. Less than ten inches of precipitation falls each year." This applies not only to questions about snow ("Very fine because it is so cold"), but also the giant snow fences at the outskirts of town ("And it blows around constantly"), travel ("In winter we can go in any direction."), seasonal activities, building design (Flat roofs) and temperature. After intermittent rain drenched me to the point where I was convinced half of the year's total had fallen, I asked about the forecast, if any…which merely produced a shrug and "It's summer, so it's raining." When pressed about the best weather of the year for visiting, a resident joked (Like boat captains wise-cracking about the fishing) "Yesterday…and tomorrow!" During one of the moments when the sky opened overhead, we experienced what I'd call sun-showers back home in July; except it was frozen precipitation. In Sir John Franklin's journal (Thirty Years in the Arctic Regions) he describes this phenomenon, and what sailors call sun-dogs: "…the sky was clear …but a kind of snow fell at intervals in the forenoon, its particles so minute as to be observed only in the sunshine. Towards noon the snow became more apparent, and the two limbs of a prismatic arch were visible, one on each side of the sun near its place in the heavens, the center being deficient." Frozen sun-showers on July 4th weekend - how cool is that? "Make thou my spirit pure and clear... As are the frosty skies…Or the first snowdrop of the year." With Tennyson to lift my spirits, because the weather again turned rainy, I ventured out on my first beachwalk in the Arctic. In spite of rain showers, Fourth-of-July celebrations were in full swing when I arrived. Fireworks were absent, along with sunset, but predictably; young boys were experimenting with firecrackers on the beach. At the flattest spot near the shore, residents were competing in celebratory games. Most were the old standbys: Egg-toss, tug-of-war (Inupiaq women vs. Tanik men), foot races, face painting, nail pounding (Must bring own hammer), Miss Top of the World (18-24 only). Regrettably, I was too late for Eskimo baseball and rock juggling, and was tempted to ask about it, but didn't want to look dumber than I did already, shivering in three layers of rain-soaked outer clothing - covering another three perspiration-soaked layers. Other competitions were new to me but predictable in this hunting culture: Eskimo dance, Whaling crew races (Traditional skin boats only), and Manaq - tossing a grappling hook to retrieve a duffel-bag "seal" target. Proud of their culture, the locals enjoy games that test proficiencies at hunting skills. I was invited to have my picture taken with one of this year's winners - a bashful Mrs. Brower (a name many residents proudly bear.). Near this spot, Charles Brower (a self-described "king of the Arctic" who wrote about his life in Fifty Years Below Zero) established the first whaling station, and the northern section of Barrow is called Browertown. Hardy handshakes and "Happy Fourth of July" salutations made me feel welcome to observe. I looked for Eskimo stereotypes I had read about. The adults are cheerful and engaging, and the children are shy, but polite. Some look stocky because they have comparatively short limbs, but they are not overweight. Their faces look Asiatic to me, with high checks and round faces; not at all like the tall Icelanders I've met on the opposite side of the Arctic. Certainly this must have interested explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson (Known locally as "Head Measure") who visited in 1906, trying to prove by physical features, that like him, some Eskimos are of Icelandic ancestry. Stefansson's accomplishments, documented in My Life with the Eskimo, are widely recognized. He was the last explorer to discover new lands in the Arctic, and the first to study an isolated group of Victoria Island Inuit bearing Caucasian features. Still using primitive tools, some explorers believed they had Vikings ancestors. I had heard that Eskimos have developed increased blood circulation and enhanced temperature regulation in their hands and feet to maintain warmth; so when shaking hands I imagined that in a way, I was touching times past. Invited to get out of the wind, I noticed that indeed, their hands were warm (I seemed to be the only person in Barrow wearing gloves, and wanting to fit in, had removed mine earlier; after repacking the mosquito netting). Continued research into this vaso-dilation/constriction question is required since I soon realized everyone was taking turns warming hands over an enormous BBQ grill. I was about to try and break the ice (If you'll pardon the pun) by asking if the model was "Texas or whale sized?" when I realized that the builder's nameplate (Oliver Leavitt) had a brace of ornamental whales. Trying to be politically correct, I asked them to clarify some vocabulary for me. They explained that their eastern cousins are called Inuit, but "we are all Eskimos and speak Eskimo." Eskimo has it's origins in the Algonquin language and means "eaters of raw meat." A typographical error I regularly encounter is "Artic." But I soon noticed that the local pronunciation is closer to "Ar-dic" so I've decided to ease up on correcting students' spelling. Arctic is originally from the Latin Arctos and refers to the Great Bear - the Big Dipper, Ursa Major. (From my Oxford Dictionary) "In the latitude in which astronomy was first cultivated, the great bear just swept the sea and did not set, whence the boundary circle (Arctic Circle) of the heavens obtained its name." Since this is the latitude of the Eskimo, I am content to let them spell and pronounce it any way they wish. Warmed up by the fire and some chit-chat, and familiarizing myself with some of the local lingo, I felt comfortable asking about life up here. I received an earful from some of the adults, especially one older gentleman with the habit of repeating things for effect. "We like the cold summers. When the heat comes, so do the biting bugs. They are awful, awful, AWFUL!" I asked about winter and (predictably) he prefaced his response with: "We live in an Ar-dic desert." But added: "Last winter it was minus seventy five, MINUS seventy five! I stayed home from work and told my boss: I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I can't STAND it!" We had a burst of snow flurries and hearing many times that Eskimos have scores of names for snow and ice, I had to ask them what they called it. The reply was: "Snow." (I think stupid was inferred.) The discussion turned from holidays to birthdays since one had just celebrated his that very week. I was startled when they calculated we were all about the same age; so much so that I began to think there must be a youthful portrait of me somewhere in the attic. My acquaintances obviously had lived tough and physically-demanding lives here, although they were still jovial and energetic. It was difficult to ignore the poor condition of the teeth of some - scarce and loose, and I recalled our college classmate and dentist (Alan Anton) telling us that in the 1960's when he was in the Air Force and on duty in Alaska, Eskimos would beg him to pull teeth to ease their pain. Fortunately, modern dentistry has arrived in Barrow. A great ridge of ice is visible from shore and at times through the mist there is the illusion that it is a mountain range on the horizon; at least until you gain perspective by picking out a sleeping seal or hunters in a boat. "The ice stays out longer each year and this makes access and hunting more difficult for us. The seals need it to rest too. It's thinner and softer these days." The ice pack is shrinking at an alarming rate, and may disappear by the end of the century. This will have a traumatic effect on the Arctic - shifting ecosystems and excluding seals from safe offshore birthing sites and polar bears from their feeding grounds. (Just in case the big melt-down happens even sooner than is forecasted and before my next visit, my first stop was out on the ice to taste it. I wanted to verify something I have taught to legions of oceanography students; that Arctic sea ice is freshwater and that the brine is forced out over time. The first chunk I tested was as smooth and transparent as a Cape May diamond. It tasted so pure that I began to think that if Barrow were not a "dry" town, residents could borrow ideas from Newfoundlanders in St. Johns and market distilled beverages made from iceberg water. ) I finally let it slip out, but immediately felt foolish asking one question: What about igloos? I think they thought I was joking, but politely replied, "It's an Arctic desert, so we get very little snow here…but come to our spring festival (Piuraagiataqta) in April and you can try making one at our contest." Warily, I asked about whaling. "Have you read Harry Brower's book?" (The title sums it all up - The Whales They Give Themselves: Conversations with Harry Brower, Sr.) "The hunt is supervised by our own Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and we respect our whales. Scientists learn from us. Some whales we have captured still carry stone or ivory spear points in them - thrown by our ancestors. Scientists tell us our whales are the oldest living mammals - perhaps two centuries old!" It appears that this is not an exaggerated claim. Eskimos say a whale lives the life of two-and-a-half men, and this may help explain why some populations of these long-lived creatures have been slow to rebound since the end of commercial whaling. On several occasions people reflected on the size of this season's catch…Our whale was only 27'-5" (I was tempted to be a wise guy and ask: "Fork length or total length?") Like any fisherman bragging-up his catch or child announcing his height, that extra five inches was not insignificant.). Over time, the diminishing size of game mammals and fishes is a clue that the population may be stressed as the largest specimens are cropped, but the main concern here seemed to be more basic…the "other village" took a larger whale. (It's always the other guy, isn't it?) "We celebrate the seasons and the whales with festivals." The Nalukataq festivities are held at the conclusion of a successful spring whaling season when most whales are taken; and this includes the famous blanket toss, from which the ceremony takes its name. I didn't find it as touristy as feared and was informed that it had a practical use in this flat terrain; hunters used it to spot game in the distance. There is always something good to learn from other cultures, and I would have enjoyed being here a century ago to observe one of their most refined traditions. Although conflict between coastal groups over hunting territories was not unknown, quarrels within groups were settled in song duels. During one, quarrelling individuals would alternately sing their grievances before an amused audience of villagers, until one admitted defeat - which finally settled the matter. (Wouldn't that produce some memorable Presidential debates?)
Climate in the Cryosphere - The trackless coastal plain is awe-inspiring. Thousands of water bodies are present; the deeper ones ice-covered and scattered among shallow thaw ponds that are warmed enough by the sun to be ice free during the summer. This is the low Arctic, which supports tundra plants atop deep, unyielding permafrost. Structures must be built on pilings sunk into the frozen earth or they will warm the ground and settle unevenly. A basement is impossible here; the best thing you can have under your house is a solid sheet of ice. Thawing, not freezing is the biggest peril for Barrow residents. (And much of humanity along the world's coasts). The tundra and frozen grounds, which cover 20% of the earth's surface and 80% of Alaska, may sequester up to a third of the world's carbon. Defrosting this cryosphere and releasing carbon dioxide would transform these areas from carbon sinks into carbon sources for the atmosphere. Along with the CO2 discharges, large amounts methane - an even more potent greenhouse gas that has more than doubled during industrial times - could overtax the atmosphere. Unlike tropical regions where perpetual warmth allows decomposers to constantly breakdown anything that falls to the ground, the short growing period here prevents decay of most of the plant material that has accumulated as peat for countless seasons. Releasing it in a geological heartbeat could be disruptive to the stable climate we are accustomed to, especially in the middle and higher latitudes. Currents and Krill - Seal-watching on the beach, I came across a deposable Japanese lighter, along with other flotsam and jetsam. At the albatross colonies on Midway Island (In the Northwest Hawaiian chain) we found great numbers of these lighters and other floating threats to marinelife in the nests and bodies of birds. Drifting north on the Kuroshio Current (The Pacific's equivalent of the Gulf Stream) and mistaken for small squid, they are swallowed by these night-feeding birds that fly hundreds of miles towards Alaskan waters to gather food for their young. Did this odd piece of pollution work its way to Barrow in Pacific water that flows through the Bering Strait; or was it simply discarded by one of the number of tourists visiting here to see the frozen North and "catch a view of the Northern Lights and eat reindeer sausage?" Tracing currents by temperature and salinity, oceanographers have determined that the Atlantic is the source of 80% of the Arctic basin's seawater. Indeed, physical oceanographers consider the Arctic "Ocean" to be a Sea - an arm of the Atlantic, like the Mediterranean and Caribbean basins. At Point Barrow the Pacific and the Atlantic meet and important physical and biological phenomena result from the marriage of these waters. Atlantic water rises to the surface in the Arctic, carrying nutrients and fueling a very productive food web near Point Barrow. This upwelling process may also help maintain ice-free areas where marine mammals congregate and feed. Traditionally high latitude food webs have been depicted as short and simple but new opportunities for research, in response to climate concerns and more accessibility due to the shrinking ice pack, have revealed a more diverse (and threatened) community of plants and animals, even under the ice. At the Inupiat Heritage Center, I was proudly shown a jar of preserved Arctic krill (Meganyctiphanes norvegica). "This is what our whales, fish, seabirds and even walrus eat." As in the Antarctic, a Euphausid shrimp is a keystone species that is direct or indirect food for just about every large creature in the Arctic. Subsistence - Subsistence hunting and fishing seems to be the local hot topic in Alaska and came up repeatedly in the few conversations I had with a taxi driver, bartender and motel clerk while I was on a layover in Fairbanks. (Before I continue, let me say that I found everyone I met in Alaska to be friendly, interesting and very helpful; and I'd probably move there tomorrow if I could.) "Subsistence!? Where do you draw the line? My family has been here for three generations. We are all living off the land here; we're all natives!" Everyone seemed to have a family member with a gold mine that was taken during government "land-grabs" from the Alaska Statehood Act (1958), or oil claims that led to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971) or for parks in 1980. "Do you know we have a socialist government in Alaska.?" Nodding cautiously, and listening politely, I'd chuckle to myself; "Here we go again - The Peoples' Republic of Permafrost"…and the tirade would begin. However, like people everywhere, no one ever complains about the vast open spaces or the oil revenues that all residents share. Conversations tended to drift towards the (government) need to clear the way for subsistence hunting and fishing for all; but invariably would lead to the (government) threats to the Constitution and Bill of Rights (Especially the Second Amendment - "a well-regulated militia and the right to bear arms") and (government) threats to freedom from the Patriot Act, etc. Pro-or-anti government, war or subsistence living; liberal or conservative…I didn't study enough Civics in high school to figure anyone out. It might have been jet-lag or the 22-hours of daylight but my head was starting to spin. An astronomy teacher once tried unsuccessfully to explain to me the theory of a curved universe. She finally gave up and said, "If you could look far enough into space, you could see the back of your head." The small sample of people I listened to seemed simultaneously so far right or left, that I began to believe that the physicists' theory about the curved universe might be applied to frontier politics as well; and that these folks had somehow come full circle. (I also began to imagine myself living up here during six months of darkness. I'd probably be the first one getting drawn into conspiracy theories; trying to authenticate stories about Bigfoot; and sitting in a cabin writing my manifesto on UFO's and Area-51.) Fortunately the rides or refreshments were short and I was off to the next stage of my journey. Fishing - Once in Barrow, subsistence is not a subject for discussion, but a way of life. Hiking around salt and freshwater ponds, crossing outflow streams, and peering through the ice and along the pebbly sea beaches; you are unlikely to see fishes in town, except on menus and dinner platters. However, the presence of loons and other diving birds confirms that at least small ones are present. Anadromous and coastal species predominate in northern Alaska and Sub-Arctic waters in the Bering Sea. Salmon comprise almost 60% of the commercial catch; herring another third; and halibut about ten percent. Fishes make up about eight percent of the food supply of the coastal Eskimos; and after pestering some locals about peculiar fish names I had come across (Sheefish and devilfish), I collected a score of Eskimo names; all of which are tongue-twisters that left me longing for Latin. The sheefish or inconnu (Stenodus leucicthys) is one of the whitefish; a large anadromous species found from Siberia to Canada. A valued sport and food fish, its northern range helps insulate it from commercial exploitation. Remarkably, a police sketch I made from a local's description of the mysterious kanayuq or "devilfish" was enough for us to identify it as a sculpin. About half the fish on my new list are salmon or their relatives, which are important to people, and of course bears and other wildlife. The slow-growing Arctic char (Iqalukpik) is found farther north than any other freshwater or anadromous fish, and along with the grayling (Sulakpaugaq) is a celebrated sportsman's trophy fish. Some temperate freshwater species that work their way into northern Alaska's lakes and ponds include the familiar and widespread perches and pike. The blackfish or Iluuqiniq (Dallia pectoralis) is a particularly interesting fish. Only a few inches long, this rugged little mudminnow can survive in very cold, oxygen-depleted and stagnant waters. It is rarely gathered for food. Truly marine fish populations in the Arctic Basin are inadequately studied and have not been readily exploitable by commercial fishermen; although some like the herring and capelin, which are crucial to marine mammals like humpback whales, are harvested extensively in the southern parts of their ranges. Since the 1980's, capelin roe from Canada has been marketed to Japan. As the ice pack withdraws, fish and fishermen will follow it north. Hopefully, as conditions change in the Arctic, these important links in the food chain will not be over-fished like so many species to the south. Eskimos and Orcas - The most controversial facet of Eskimo life along the coast is the harvest of marine mammals. Whales and seals make up about 60% of the catch each year, and hunting from small boats remains important to the whole community, especially the adults. But the modern world's conveniences and satellite dishes and MTV are catching up with Barrow. Today, food, materials, vehicles and whole structures like the ("World's most northern and expensive") $70,000,000 high school are brought in by barge during the summer thaw. But a popular local dish among adults is still Muctuck, a local delicacy of whale blubber, skin, and "sometimes seal meat" that I saw fermenting in those ubiquitous white 5-gallon plastic buckets. Residents are not allowed to sell meat, but can share it (Don't ask). Eskimos still use bone and baleen of bowheads for an endless variety of things, especially carvings for tourists, but in the past, long bones like the 15-foot lower jaws became uprights, joists and rafters of the subterranean homes of the earliest residents who called this site Ukpiagvik ("Place to hunt snowy owls"). Bowheads have the longest baleen of any whale, over 12-feet; big enough for things like a make-shift sled, and although it is rigid when intact, peeled into thin strips it can be made into a variety of household utensils, decorations, artworks and commemorative items. Locals fashion baleen into everything from bowls to a whimsical tree on the beach ("It's the northernmost palm tree in the world!") One of the most interesting items I was offered is a wolf "repeller"; a small wedge of baleen on string, that when rapidly swung over the head makes an eerie whoo-whoo sound. (Not unlike our college train whistles, but louder) I was told that the wolf is a competitor and enemy to the Eskimo, and that it is not eaten, used for fur or even dog food; but left where killed after a hunt. Touring the Heritage Center gave me a better appreciation of the bowheads and the Eskimo's subsistence living; and two things occurred to me: These people are more in tune with the environment than I ever will be; and year-round living in the Arctic must have been difficult, if not impossible, until hunters mastered the harvest of whales. (The whales provide more than food, but also large and small construction materials, and a thread to bind the hunting community together.) In Sanderson's A History of Whaling, one particular quote encourages me to think my latter assumption is reasonable. "Our association with whales is extraordinary in that we have almost nothing in common apart from certain anatomical generalities and in some cases a liking for herrings, yet it began in the mists of prehistory and has continued unabated through the ages. The common denominator is the sea… To follow the whale is to follow the whole course of one of the most important and significant aspects of our own history. It is virtually the story of the conquests of our planet" Whaling remains a competitive undertaking within and between villages, but the catch is shared within the community. Tradition required that the spirit of the whale (Mihiqaq) should be respected and taboos were observed before and during the hunt to insure good luck, including: - Women were not to sew - so that the harpoon lines would not have any chance of becoming tangled. - Knives were not permitted - so the whale lines would not be cut accidentally. - Certain furs and meats were not consumed - so as not to offend the whale. - The captain of the boat was to wear an amulet (Which to me appears to be a seal-like stone design.) Hunters still wear a cross-shaped amulet and when I asked about any prohibitions or special preparations was told: "Before the hunt, we go to church and pray…After the whale is struck, we also pray while it dies." After seeing the small umiaks - the traditional hand-made walrus-skin boats; I could see why.   Skull of a bowhead at the high school "Home of the Whalers." Walrus image from a past hunt.(IHC) The bowhead is not as aggressive as other whales, but is perfectly adapted to survive in this frozen sea and so is not entirely defenseless. The massive head makes up one-third of the body length, allowing one to break through several feet of ice when an opening to the surface is needed; and when threatened by natural or human enemies, bowheads can escape by disappearing under the ice pack. However, as Bullen reveals in The Cruise of the Cachalot (an authoritative, first-hand account of whaling in the late 1800's) they are fairly slow moving. Relatively docile too, they are perfect prey for aboriginal hunters and commercial whalers. (Especially when compared to the belligerent cachalot [sperm whales] his ship had previously battled). "Strange as it may appear, the Mysticetus' best point of view is… in his wake, as we say…It is therefore part of the code to approach him from right ahead, in which direction he cannot see at all…(As the whale) became aware of our presence….but before he had made up his mind what to do we were upon him, with our harpoons buried in his back…(and) the whole affair was so tame that it was impossible to get up any fighting enthusiasm over it." Bowheads were dubbed the "right" whale because with the highest blubber content of any whale - as high as 45% - they floated when killed. Sadly, although the market for whale oil was disappearing, the baleen was still prized. "There was a marked difference between the quality of the lard enveloping this whale and those we had hitherto dealt with. It was nearly double the thickness. The upper jaw was removed for its long pieces of whalebone or baleen - that valuable substance which alone makes it worth while nowadays to go after the Mysticetus, the price obtained for the oil being so low as to make it not worth while to fit out ships to go in search of it alone." Orcas also take advantage of bowheads that cannot escape under the ice, and Bullen's graphic description of an attack is the oldest documentation I have found of their gruesome and most notorious behavior. "The 'killer,' or Orca gladiator, is a true whale, but like the cachalot, has teeth. He differs from that great cetacean, though, in a most important particular; i.e. by having a complete set in both upper and lower jaws, like any carnivore. For a carnivore indeed is he, the very wolf of the ocean, and enjoying, by reason of his extraordinary agility as well as comparative worthlessness commercially, complete immunity from attack by man. A large bowhead rose near the ship…being harassed in some way by enemies…Three 'killers' were attacking him at once, like wolves worrying a bull, except that his motions were far less lively than those of any bull would have been…Again and again the aggressor leaped into the air, falling each time on the whale's back, as if to beat him into submission. The sea around us foamed and boiled like a caldron…Then the three joined their forces, and succeeded in dragging open his cavernous mouth, into which they freely entered, devouring his tongue…their sole object…for as soon as they had finished their barbarous feast they departed, leaving him helpless and dying to fall an easy prey to our returning boats." The Friendly Arctic - Stefansson called this great northern expanse the "friendly Arctic" because of the abundance of game; and what it lacks in diversity, it makes up in abundance. I was assured that everything here is harvested in moderation, but I still have mixed feeling about some of the take. Land mammals make up a third of the harvest of coastal inhabitants, and in Barrow the predominant skeletons in holding boxes around town are caribou. As is the custom of hunters everywhere, antlers of those and an occasional moose are displayed prominently on houses. More are kept secure on the flat roofs of many homes. It is said that no animal in Alaska is as restless as the caribou, and I've decided that no hunter is as patient as an Eskimo. Any time of the day that I was near the shore there was a hunter lying motionless on the beach waiting to spot a seal; so I can only imagine what a caribou hunt is like - except last winter. Always curious about local lore and people-and-animal interactions, I asked about caribou and got another earful. "We hunt them in the winter and when we see ravens, we know they are near. Last winter they came right through town!" (I pictured a scene of town elders one day telling their grandchildren about roaring snowmobiles, barking dogs and stampeding hooves in the Winter of 2005 - "The Year of the Caribou.")    Eskimo sewing kit. Polar bear "string tie." Seal skin mitten and boot. To see what else is harvested here it is only necessary to visit the market where residents display and sell home-made objects. Most items are fairly intricate bowls and crafts that are representations of utilitarian articles that once were in use. These are all weaved from slender strips of baleen, and offered along with etchings on flat sections of baleen. Many of the pieces are quite impressive. There are also ear-rings, necklaces and other ornaments festooned with the fur, fangs and feathers of birds, bear, walrus, moose, porcupine, wolverine, and fox. Being good traders, they politely reminded me that everything was for sale - not for photographs; but after I spread around a few t-shirts and train whistles to their kids, things warmed up a bit. Arguably, the most endearing predator is the Arctic fox; making a living stealing bird eggs in the spring, but most often shadowing polar bears to scavenge their kills. I was disappointed to learn that around the polar fringe, my favorite creature is the most heavily hunted animal. Fortunately, being short-lived to begin with, it is very prolific and its population is stable, except where larger red foxes are encroaching northward with the warming trend. Everyone knows that the fox's benefactor Nanook is the king of the north, but a doubtful throne is ice on a summer sea. Although polar bears have had a good run for the last 100,000 years, they too are threatened by a major warming trend in the Arctic. Polar bears are thought to be the "newest" mammal; separating from their grizzly cousins, packing on a few hundred extra pounds, and moving out onto their frozen kingdom during the Ice Age. I like to describe them as the newest marine mammal too. Their great size, partially webbed toes, extraordinary swimming and seal-hunting abilities, and extended time at sea (particularly the males) fills a niche that distant ancestors of other marine mammals, like seals and whales, probably experimented with as they reinvaded the sea tens of millions of years ago. Polar bears have been seen swimming over 50-miles at sea, but there is a limit to how far even they can swim and the distance across open water to the ice pack widens each year. Grizzly bears already occupy the home turf and high ground at the shoreline, and are the best "fit" there; so this makes the answer to the classic kids' question - "Who would win in a fight?" obvious if Darwinian rules hold true. The specialized lifestyle of the polar bear means its back is already to the wall as it loses its unique habitat. In temperate areas of North America we can mitigate climate shifts (warmer or colder) by preserving parks and refuges, and providing plant and wildlife corridors that extend north-to-south between them. Unfortunately, the polar bear has nowhere to go and may disappear with the ice. Birding Barrow - Birds make up about three percent of the harvest along the coast and these are shot from seasonal hunting stations out on Point Barrow and elsewhere. I found butchered remains of black brant and mergansers at the sites nearest town. Eggs (Mannik) of eider, geese, gulls and terns are collected at more distant nesting sites. Visitors to the point and out on the few short dead-end roads around Barrow include tourists searching out the "ends of the earth" or birdwatchers and naturalists trying to spot those few northern or Asiatic species that they are unlikely to see at home. I hoped to get close to many of these birds, but jaegers and short-eared owls were anything but tame and spotted only at a great distance; and I was disappointed to miss close-up views of the town's most famous resident, the snowy owl. "When there are many lemmings, we see owls perching on all the poles outside town." Although I did see my first lemming, obviously it was not enough to summon a parliament of owls. Target species for birders that that week included: species that migrate through New Jersey (phalaropes, white-rumped sandpipers, Sabine's gulls and golden plovers); winter visitors (redpolls, tundra swans, common eiders); rare vagrants (king and Steller's eiders, Pacific and yellow-billed loons) and of course the ubiquitous sanderlings. Most of these birds stay in the Northern Hemisphere but others, like the Arctic tern, are the greatest wanderers on earth - the global wings John Hay praises; crossing the Equator and wintering in South America or the Antarctic. There are banner birds in town too. Perched on rooftops are snow buntings and Lapland longspurs. Snow buntings are particularly noteworthy to me because they are a precursor of winter weather back home. Nicknamed snowflakes because of the way they flutter down to the ground to feed on seeds, they are the palest winter land bird we see in New Jersey, and a striking white and black resident here at the breeding ground. It is a treat to see the "house sparrow of the Arctic" at its summer home, and a great surprise to learn its clear and musical turee-turee-turee. The longspur is even more common around town and its tee-tooree, tee-tooree is just as melodious. Ernest Thompson describes snowflakes the best: "…this is the familiar little white bird of winter. As soon as the chill season comes on in icy rigors, the merry Snowflakes appear in great flocks…In midwinter…when the thermometer showed thirty degrees below zero, and the chill of the blizzard was blowing on the plains, I have seen this brave little bird gleefully chasing his fellows, and pouring out as he flew his sweet, voluble song with as much spirit as ever a Skylark has in the sunniest days of June." And of the longspur: "High in the air they fly in long straggling flocks, all singing together; a thousand voices, a tornado of whistling…When in the fields they have a curious habit of squatting just behind some clod, and, as their colors are nearly matched to the soil, they are not easily observed, nor will they move until you are within a few feet; they then run a few feet and squat again." A bird I had hoped to spot was the rare, rosy-colored Ross' gull from Siberia. Years ago I read somewhere that they are a common sight passing Point Barrow but apparently the birds are misinformed and instead I had to be content picking out white glaucous gulls against the foggy background. (The standing joke among birders is "Don't try to pet any thousand-pound white dogs you see out there on the ice.")   Snow buntings - the Arctic house sparrow. The Belly Botanist - Plants make up only about one percent of the harvest in the northern areas, and collecting is done inland from the coast. Because the frozen ground precludes trees and taller plants from setting deep roots (And remember, this is an "Arctic desert") blue, salmon, crow and cran-berries are the few plants gathered and available for only a very short time at the end of the summer. Crowding what appears to be a featureless stretch to the horizon is a remarkable botanical mix. Although the dwarf willows may be the best known group in this lunatic fringe of the plant world, there are many other species in the Arctic; but the farther north you travel from the tree line, and the closer to the cold sea, the more impoverished the plant community becomes. There is "wet" and "dry" tundra, which is determined by slight differences in drainage and elevation, as well as true "Polar" desert in the farthest north (high Arctic) where the weather is so severe that only lichen survives on rocks. Desolate spots like this are not found in Barrow today, but in the last few decades researchers are concerned by a decline in wet areas around Barrow and an expansion of dry ones. This is one of many clues that a warming trend in the environment is occurring. Tundra is from the Finnish and in Scandinavia refers to areas with dwarf trees, but in North America it defines treeless areas around the Arctic Circle. This is a fitting place for the so-called "belly botanist" since plants are at most, knee-high. Arctic cotton (Eriophorum), something New England bog enthusiasts would quickly recognize as cottongrass, is quite common. I have never visited a spot in the world that is without some sort of sedge (Carex) and they are widespread in Alaska too; even in the tundra. There are also plentiful lichens, grasses and wildflowers. The best known lichen is the reindeer "moss" (Cladonia). Some of the grasses, like fescue and Poa are recognizable because they are related to lawn grasses back home. The tundra is also noted for its carpet of wildflowers, like the rugged little Arctic poppy.   For my entertainment, the open tundra near town presented me with Baird's sandpipers, interspersed with longspurs (that as promised by Thompson, were squatting until the last minute and almost getting underfoot.). Baird's is just one of a number of that clan of "peep" sandpipers that I am rarely able to separate with confidence when we see them in New Jersey during the autumn passage. In fact, Baird's is probably the most difficult to identify, and among the rarest on the Atlantic coast in the fall. Most migrate through the western states, many skirting at high altitude, the great Pacific mountain ranges leading all the way to their winter homes among the mountains and marshes of South America. Their namesake, Spencer Fullerton Baird is described as "extraordinary…a particularly American genius." A contemporary of Audubon, he influenced the U.S. Army to persuade doctors assigned to western frontier posts to send wildlife specimens back East. The Secretary of the Smithsonian in 1878, he also established the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, and the research laboratory at Woods Hole.  Like all birds, Baird's, even though drab and tundra-brown in color, is a delight to meet and quite a performer on its nesting ground. Many shore birds slink away from danger in furtive abandonment of the nest, which may also include a broken-wing act or rodent-run to sidetrack predators. In a protection strategy that Thomas Jefferson would have admired; in whichever direction I ventured, more birds would rise to the common defense; gently fluttering and gliding past me, moth-like and at eye level. Birds with young that are precocial (walk shortly after hatching) are most courageous with such distraction displays when the hatchlings are only a day or two old, so I knew to step carefully on the soft mat of stunted shrubbery. Although John Hay tells me the sandpiper's Eskimo name nuvuksruk means: sounds like a man with a bad cold, I found their gentle kreep…kreep a pleasant diversion. The birds were good company in this silent, soggy terrain. Closely circling me, it would have been easier to catch one with a large butterfly net instead of my camera. (Where's Don Reipe when you need him?)  On the eastern side of Point Barrow, bordering Elson lagoon, I explored a great swath of grassy shoreline that resembles tidal marshes back home. Grasses are a challenge to identify, being classified by their seed stalks. The few stunted ones that had set seed looked familiar. (I've heard that a middle-aged Charles Darwin once remarked "…Oh my, I have finally identified a grass.") To my surprise, the ankle-high meadow grass is Sea Lyme (Elymus), a plant that I first encountered when working summers in Downeast Maine, where it grows as a sturdy and waist-high dune plant. It thrives here too; packed densely like typical marsh grasses, even though the presence of debris indicates the shore is regularly inundated by lagoon waters and winter ice.   Tourists pose with the (baleen) "Northernmost palm trees" in the world and a ground cover of sandworts at Point Barrow spit. On Point Barrow, the northernmost plant I found is sandwort (Arenaria) hugging the gravelly beach. Later, perusing my Atlas, it dawned on me that not only are Point Barrow and South Cape, Hawaii (Ka Lae) straddling nearly the same meridian of longitude; but that after visiting both spots, I can declare that I've seen the northernmost and southernmost individual plants in the United States. Each a rugged pioneer, pressed to the ground, surviving at windswept points; separated by 3,500 miles, 52-degrees of Latitude and perhaps 150-degrees of temperature. Remarkably, these two environmental extremes are linked by some of the most vulnerable creatures on earth; shorebirds that somehow have the stamina to fly to wintering grounds in Hawaii and beyond. Contact - Coastal sites like Barrow may have been occupied for over 3,000 years. But the map-maker's name honors the English geographer Sir John Barrow (1764-1848). Thomas Elson and William Smythe were the first Europeans to make contact with the Inupiat and named Point Barrow after Sir John. Historian Daniel Boorstin, citing Barrow's work Travels in China (1804) describes him as a "self-made man who became one of the great explorers of his age." No armchair traveler, Barrow founded the Royal Geographical Society, was the chronicler of the Mutiny on the Bounty, Ambassador to China and governor of the Cape of Good Hope colony. Not a stranger to the Arctic either, he was a Greenland whaler before joining the Royal Navy. Obsessed with finding the Northwest Passage, he organized and sent off nine Royal Navy expeditions to search for it; including the final, ill-fated Franklin Expedition of the Erebus and Terror. Subsequent searches for Franklin and his crew in the 1850's resulted in a tremendous gain in knowledge of the northern coast; and many geographical landmarks were named by or after the searchers. These rescue attempts heralded more extensive contact with the Inupiat, including: the arrival of whalers; the processing station and family dynasty established by Charles Brower in 1884; and epidemics. These northern coastal Eskimos were the last native populations to make contact with Americans and Europeans; who introduced guns and alcohol in exchange for furs, walrus ivory and baleen. Size: 10-1/2 - Obsessed with seeing as much as possible of the western entrance to the Northwest Passage, I took every opportunity to strike out in different directions around Barrow. This time of year when the ice is out, you can "pay somebody eighty bucks for a jeep ride to the point and have them tell you the white dot in the mist is a bear or snowy owl" or you can explore on your own. Patiently waiting for my ride back to town but growing bored watching an even more patient and motionless seal hunter lying farther down the beach, I tested myself to see how good a voyager I might have been centuries ago. Without compass or sextant, the Inupiat would rely on subtle landmarks that I couldn't recognize out here, plus a sense of direction that I lack; so it's safe to assume I wouldn't have had a long and fruitful life as an Eskimo. Without stars to see, I couldn't count seven-fists from the horizon to Polaris and estimate my latitude here (~70º). Fortunately I did get breaks in the clouds and a chance to "shoot" the sun at midday, and I had tools that were unavailable to earlier visitors. Since I'm six-feet tall and my "Size:10-1/2" shoes are 12-inches long, I was able to accurately pace off my shadow at Noon. Using all the available technology (the hands of my old watch to determine South, seal bones to mark off distance and draw in the sand.) I could establish the elevation of the sun to determine latitude - as long as my memory of high school geometry was correct. Truth be told, I had to wait until returning home to my Bowditch (The American Practical Navigator) and Almanac to verify the exact declination of the sun on July 6th (22º 45'N), but I was comfortable that it had retreated about one degree from its Summer Solstice peak. My crude (and probably coincidental) calculations on the beach were not within the sailor's target of the breadth of a hair on a sextant vernier (1.25-miles), but still within about one degree (60-miles) of Barrow's actual location - 71º North. Perhaps I would have had a bit more success as a British sailor (If I could tolerate [to paraphrase Churchill] the "…rum and the lash.")...or maybe if I were a Viking… Vikings released a raven to direct them to the nearest landfall east-or-west of their location, but who remembers to pack one these days? So, lacking a bird, sextant and ship's clock set to Greenwich; determining longitude was out of the question; except that I had access to knowledge the Norsemen could never imagine - a time-zone map in a motel phone book. Since longitude is a measure of time, and the earth turns 1/24th of its circumference every hour (15º) and Barrow is about 10.5 time zones West of Greenwich; I estimated our longitude was about 157º W. (It's actually about 156º) I still needed to gauge the magnetic deviation of the North Pole with my pocket compass. The mysterious lodestone was the technological innovation that enabled Vikings to navigate in the misty northern seas when they could not see Polaris or estimate latitude by the length of the shadow on the rowing bench. Using my midday shadow as a line-of-sight pointing to True North, I set my compass on top of the sand line to measure the direction of the needle. The Barrow spit, like my compass needle, swings about two points east towards the Magnetic Pole - across Canada's northernmost islands and towards Greenland. Later, I verified on a chart that the value of the deviation is over 21º - enough to spoil any sailor's day. Fortunately I was already on land. Politics on the permafrost - On the obligatory tour of town in a tired, but serviceable school bus, visitors are taken by the town's schools (Home of the Whalers), Will Rogers and Wiley Post crash-site memorial (He died with a smile on his face.), "The world's northernmost stoplight" and Piuraanvik ("Place to play") recreation center. Adjacent to it is town hall. When a few of us grew tired of watching kids playing basketball "above the Arctic Circle" and wandered next door in search of mementos, the Mayor was gracious enough to greet us. I've learned that the good guest (or at least a smart one) never discusses politics until after dinner; but in an awkward moment, a visitor asked if he was "Red state or Blue?" Recalling conversations in Fairbanks, I winced, but his quick and witty response greatly impressed me…"I like Ike!" As Army brats during the Eisenhower years (when Alaska achieved statehood), the Grant kids were regularly reminded by numerous keepsakes and photos, that our grandfather was the General's classmate at West Point and that our father served with him in WW II; so my reaction to this come-back was Pavlovian. In an instant, the Mayor won my vote. We exchanged handshakes, town pins and of course, college whistles. The pins feature the date of incorporation (1958) and images of a whale, walrus, caribou and bear. I held my breath, anticipating the next question. "What does polar bear taste like?" This savvy politician didn't miss a beat…"Chicken!" It was time to go back to exploring on my own.  Bully of the town - Since I had a few hours before going to the airfield, and sunset was still 55-days away, I decided to take one final walk on the beach. Tired, I took a short-cut through the cemetery between "downtown" Barrow and its northern "suburb" of Browertown. Even in the summer it is impossible to dig down more than two feet through the permafrost, so burial plots must be built up into mounds and covered with tundra sod. Some are sectioned off with whale bones. Seeing me examining tombstones, a passerby stopped and engaged me by sharing facts about the deceased. "That is my grandmother's grave. She was married to a Brower. There was a flu epidemic in the 1880's and 150-people died. If you want to look good for centuries, get buried here. Unless the ground thaws, we look the same forever." …(Eskimo humor?)… In such a small town where everyone knows each other and many are "family" there is notable respect for the gravesites of residents, including those of centuries-old inhabitants. The largest concentration of people and vehicles in Barrow was a funeral procession. With the back of a pick-up truck serving as a hearse and over a hundred mourners following, it quietly passed by on the way to a different burial ground outside of town. A particularly prominent and well-decorated tombstone caught my eye. "That's my relative." (Another passerby)
So with guidance from Browers and Biblical passages to invigorate me, I marched off to the beach. A teacher once remarked that my epitaph should read: He liked trees. And students and dogs found him entertaining. Except for ankle-high willows, there are no trees within hundreds of miles, and I had already saturated the town's kids with Brookdale College train whistles; so this left only dogs to charm. I expected to find the standard, fluffy sled-dog design up here, but Barrow has a large and diverse assortment of hounds. It seems half the houses have one kept outside; each looking wilder than its neighbor. Fortunately, all are securely chained in their yards, out of reach of each other, the road…and me. Their bite looks much worse than their bark. Earlier, I asked a local what wisecracks are made behind the backs of tourists and non-natives. She made me promise never to speak the word, but joked (I think) "All white guys look the same" then flattered me (I think) with: "Is he single and is he staying?" Walking through town and coming into the focus of a dog, or as it picked up my scent (Perhaps all white guys smell the same too?) each raised up in succession, sized me up, growled; then as we made eye contact, let loose with threat barks. I pitied their situation, presumably chained to a snowmobile or porch much of the time. It looked like a grim existence since none appeared to be an indoor pet. After traveling to less-developed countries, I've learned never to ask people what their yard-dogs are used for; but these looked like working dogs that meant business, and turned loose might be a threat to people (Most notably, me), or a public nuisance, roving around town and wolfing down curing meat and skins.
I regretted passing on that wolf repeller; and quickly decided that if this pack were ever unleashed upon the town, my last labor on this adventure would be to scramble onto the nearest roof and let the biggest of the bullies sort things out; even if it meant missing my flight home. I'll put my money on a formidable short-haired beast I named Cerberus (The mythical hound guarding Hades). Barrow beach walks: Past, present and future - All coastal towns have a benchmark storm and the greatest tempest "in living memory" stuck October 3, 1963. Curiously, in the last half-century, Barrow has experienced storm patterns similar to the hurricane patterns along the East Coast. Regular gales in the 1950's, then a calmer period through the late 1980's, and recently, more frequent storms. There is also more damage to the town because of new construction near the water; and since the ice stays out longer, less protection for the shoreline. Here at the base of the spit, source material is removed from the bluffs and transported to the distal end by the waves and longshore drift. Short of building groins, the town seems to be trying most of the quick-fix approaches that other places use to reduce coastal erosion: pushing up protective berms, pounding in steel revetments, and placing gabions and even sand-bags in front of structures. None seem to do be doing the trick and all take a beating when the winter ice pushes against the shore. There is a remarkable sight on the bluff at the southern edge of town. Hanging from the lip are driftwood logs and bones of great whales; supports of the partially underground homes and burial mounds of the earliest inhabitants of Ukpiagvik that are still frozen in the permafrost and tundra soil. Here, the famous "frozen family" was unearthed after a big storm. Ice along the shoreline dampens the effect of waves and protects it, but sometimes the whole ocean of ice shifts and nothing can stop it. The inhabitants were crushed when an Ivu - a giant block of shorefast ice - was pushed up by the sea and collapsed on top of their lodge. Steve Langdon describes the wealth of knowledge gleaned by scientists who studied this centuries-old archaeological treasure trove and occupants. Empty stomachs and full bladders indicate the disaster occurred in the early morning. The older women (aged 42 and 24, and thought to be mother-daughter) had growth lines on their leg bones that indicate food shortages every three-to-five years. "The older woman suffered from a heart infection, arteriosclerosis and experienced pneumonia. Many of her teeth were gone and those which remained showed heavy evidence of wear. Both women suffered osteoporosis …probably due to a lack of Vitamin-D in the diet…(and) suffered from severely blackened lungs due to the soot given off from the seal oil lamp. This was probably exacerbated by sleeping by the lamp and tending it through the night." After examinations, the five were interred on the southern edge of town. Their tombstone is one of the largest stone monuments in Barrow. The bluff continues to erode about ten-feet a year from storms and ice movements, and a great assortment of mammal bones is scattered on the beach. It has been a long time since I taught human anatomy, but some of them looked suspicious. Most are discolored and rusty in appearance from water leaching through the tundra soils at the crest; but otherwise they are in excellent shape. Years ago on Cape Cod, when asked to move the jaw-bone of a whale, I discovered that the bones of marine mammals are light compared to terrestrial animals, and this is because the animals are supported by the water and not constantly fighting gravity. You probably don't want to hear this, but skulls tend to be thinner too, and this is why hunters club seals for a quick kill. As I discovered after my beachwalk, marine mammal skeletons also disarticulate easily, complicating the job of paleontologists, but making butchering easier for hunters. The erosional scarp at the base of the bluff consists of many layers of foot-thick sand interspersed with inches-thick deposits of smooth pebbles. The orderly alignment is a clue that these are shallow-water coastal deposits from the Pleistocene. The bluff appears to be rebounding after the retreat of the heavy glacial ice sheets. This same material, washed by waves and ice, is being resorted to become today's beach.   The beachfront at barrow and layering on the eroding coastal bluffs at the south end of town. Climbing up the bluff and through a dog-free yard, I came across a fresh seal carcass next to a front porch and was caught photographing it by the lady of the house. Embarrassed, I apologized, and dug into my backpack to offer her one of the last wooden train whistles. She thanked me, but added; "I have three children." (I encountered this polite request several times. The typical Barrow family is raising three or four kids in a home that is no larger than the multiple-bay garages in all the new waterfront mansions back home.) The deal consummated, I turned to depart, when she asked: "Will you help me with my seal?" Who can resist an offer like that? (What's the old saying? "When in Nome…") The seal du jour was a spotted and I was not surprised by the catch since these are the only ones I could identify out on the ice. Found all the way to China, the spotted (Phoca largha) is closely related to the harbor seal that is so common in New England. Like them, adults are four-to-five feet long and can weigh 200-pounds. Spotted seals are more abundant in the Bering Sea, but after birthing in the spring, the population follows the harp seals and the retreating ice pack north in the summer. Although I only saw a few from the beach in town (Eyed patiently by about the same number of hunters in small boats) they were much more abundant resting on the ice off Point Barrow. Large scale commercial hunting has decreased since the 1980's with the enforcement of economic exclusion zones in Russia and the U.S.; although some "ice seals" are taken by the Japanese in years that the ice moves far enough south. Russian hunters and subsistence gatherers in Alaska each take several thousand seals every year, but the world population of about 330,000 is considered stable. However, like many Arctic species, seals could be threatened by oil exploitation and competition from fishermen as both industries move farther north, also following the retreating ice pack. In Barrow, harvested seals and whales are laid out on sheets of plastic to be prepared. Unless one is interested in anatomy and physiology, most of us would not find it appealing work. Chiropractors need not apply for work in "seal city." The backbone is loosely articulated to allow flexibility in movement, but most of the heaviest bones in the body are the lumbar vertebrae, which anchor the powerful swimming muscles. A seal's flippers and sinuous movements are perfect for swimming, but of little use on land; which increases their vulnerability to hunters and bears. They also are defenseless if stranded out of the water by freeze-ups and sudden ice movements. Seals have less fat and more hair than cetaceans because they are a transition stage from land to sea. They represent the second mammalian invasion of the oceans during the Miocene and are an example of what 15-million years of evolutionary change can produce (My apologies to the Kansas School Board). Still tied to the land for rest and reproduction, Pinnipeds managed to occupy most coastal areas, and like whales - which have a 30-million head-start on them, exploit a rich niche left rather vacant after the demise of sea-going reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous. Before humans came along, seals were destined to be the dominant fishermen in the sea. Compared to their terrestrial cousins, marine mammals can stay underwater for an eternity by using several adaptations, but larger lung capacity is not one of them. This would introduce buoyancy and gas bubble problems that plague SCUBA divers. Instead, a marine mammal relies on more thorough ventilation of its lungs, a higher volume of blood, and the oxygen-binding protein myoglobin in its tissues. Like hemoglobin in red blood cells, myoglobin also stores oxygen. It turns dark when exposed to the air and this helped me realize that the peculiar thick dark slabs that I saw around town earlier are not insulation or old tires, but whale meat and blubber. Seal skin and thick fur are valuable raw materials for Eskimo boats and clothing for the same reasons that the seal needs them - strength, flexibility and insulation. Excess fat also helps seals store water, and because mammals lack salt excreting glands that are found in fish and birds, retaining water is a problem for sea-going mammals. Seals manage it with efficient kidneys, by taking in little seawater with their food, and by relying on the extraction of body fluids of their prey for water. My hands-on class in marine mammal anatomy over, it was time to clean up and pack for the flights home. Back-tracking through town the dogs did not seem any friendlier and I still didn't see any tails a-waggin' so I wasn't about to try to make friends letting them lick the essence of largha off my hands. Cleaned and warmed up, my return trip to New Jersey was uneventful, except suffering a tourist's case of the affliction they call Alaska time, I missed the (12:55 AM) second segment of my flights by 24-hours and had to make-do at the Fairbanks airport. ("Don't worry; it happens up here all the time!")   Spring harvest of a whale (IHC) Homeward bound - A week later, driving home from work, a dozen shorebirds took flight over the bayside marshes at Sandy Hook, heading south and parallel to my car. As is my habit, I checked the speedometer and clocked them at 35-mph (Not remarkable for birds that have migration speeds of up to 50-mph). The Bird of Light details the four-day flights of a ruddy turnstone from Alaska to a Pacific island (2750-miles) and a semi-palmated sandpiper from Massachusetts to Guyana (2800-miles), reminding us that Herculean efforts like this are "not exceptional but routine" for some birds. Continuing on and doing some grocery-store math, I came up with the following: From Barrow, it would take those birds 100-hours of flight time to cover the 3,500-miles to New Jersey. Using a standard engineering factor of 2.1 that I employ to estimate the completion of any of my own undertakings (And since even shorebirds need to rest, recharge, and avoid predators); I calculated that it was quite possible that birds from Barrow could be passing through here only a week after launching themselves from the Arctic shores I had just visited. Just in time to stock up on the last horseshoe crab hatchlings of the season, and to greet me upon my homecoming to Sandy Hook.   Click here and these images for more Alaska pictures. Arctic weather TODAY Polar Gateways January 2008 To continue on to Arctic Canada and Greenland, click the images below.    Southern Greenland |
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