Day 23- Utqiagvik

July 4

Our host's relative owns a tour company so I gave them a call last night to book a tour of the town as well as a drive up the point.  Unfortunately they were closed for the 4th.  We could have taken a trip last night but the truck was broken.  However our host used her connections to arrange a private charter with the taxi company. She said talk to Victor.  

When we got picked up to be taken back to the house after our dip last night I asked the driver who was Victor and how to get ahold of him.  He acted surprised and said I'm Victor, how do you know my name.  I explained that we were staying with Arlene.  It was a pretty funny moment.  We arranged for him to pick us up at 9 am.

Amazingly we all got up and were ready to go by 9.  Victor was outside waiting.  All the taxi's are Honda CRV's.  So that meant we were all squished in the back with Summer on someone's lap.  Victor was a great tour guide.  He took us all over town and pointed out all the important parts of town and included story's.  At one point the entire town was slightly to the north.  There was remains of the original airport.  And the original town.  All the homes looked like little more than crude hunting shacks.  Just a box made out of 2x4's and plywood.  People were very creative.  We saw swings made with spare lumber, rope and a milk carton for a seat.  Slides out of some left over metal.  There was no power, water or gas out there.  

The owners of the buildings kept them more out of nostalgia than anything.  One person had made a jackalope of sorts, combining whale and caribou bones.  It was defiantly creative.  I forget the story of how it came about, but they got ahold of some palm leaves and nailed them to the top of a pole.  The Barrow Palm Trees!  

We continued out to the point.  You could only drive so far by car, the rest of the way would need an ATV.    We were officially at the northern most part of the United States.  They do not have a monument or something like there is for the southern most part.  This is also the general area where they dump whale and animal carcasses so the polar bears do not come into town.  Sadly, we did not see any polar bears.  My host said there was a 30% chance of seeing one.  I didn't have much hope of seeing one, but it would have been the cherry on top of the cake if we did.  We did see many whale bones in the water.  Several houses had vertebrae as lawn decoration so I was hoping I would find one as a souvenir.  With permission of course.  I failed to mention, that you can't just go out to the point.  Then entire area is tribe owned and your not allowed to just go anywhere.  You need to have a guide from a local.  So I wouldn't have just taken something.  

We headed back towards town.  We stopped at a display of a whale skull.  The whales in the area Bow whales.  They have an annual hunt and the entire town comes together to break down and divide the meat.  The skull that was on display was 44 ft long, estimated to be around 100,000 lbs and took 14 boats to town it in.

There is a school system in town.  They even have a football field.  Artificial turf of course.  They do travel to play other teams in Alaska and they are scheduled to have 4 home games this year.  They also have a college and primarily teach trades.  

I was wanting something sweet to drink so we stopped at the grocery store for a pop.  Everything is super expensive.  $5  for a 20 oz pop.  $11 for a loaf of bread.  

While we were driving around we asked about Victor's story.  Turns out he is Thai, he was living in LA when his friend opened the grocery store and asked Victor to come help run it and has been in Barrow for 20 years.

There was going to be a parade later in the day so Victor showed us the parade route and recommended so good places to stand.  We decided on the bank as we could stand in the heated entry way if we got cold.

After the tour we went back to the house to eat lunch and asked Victor to pick us up later to take us to the parade.  

We were not sure what to expect from a parade here but they went all out.  Every vehicle was decorated in some fashion.  They put in more effort than alot of parades back home.  To try an minimize the mess as they couldn't run a street sweeper down the road, most had candy in ziplock bags.  And not just cheap tootsie rolls.  I'm talking full bars of candy.  And not just toss one, they would through out 5-6 at a time.  Victor had brought us grocery sacks and the girls each had half a bag full once it was over.  We were going to walk back to the field after which means we had to walk by all the parade entry's and they were handing us candy as we walked by.  

We went to the hotel as they hand out certificates for those that jump in the ocean.  Unfortunately the girl working the desk was put there from her normal duty and didn't know where to find them.  She told me to come back later when the tour guide was back.  

We once again called Victor to come pick us up and bring us back to the house to clean and pack.  We arranged to be brought back at 3 as we wanted to see the gunny sack races. 

Due to the previous days weather the schedule of events were a little out of order.  They had already began the sack races and were just finishing up the kids races.  We hung out and got some food.  Heidi and I were hoping to participate in the races but we also had to watch the time as the plane boarded at 5.  

The people of Barrow are some of the nicest I have ever met.  Many times we had conversations with random people.  Of all ages.  There was a small break in the races so I talked to a few ladies that were running things to see if we would get our chance to race.  They assured me we had plenty of time and of course started talking about our trip and all the things places we went in Barrow.  One lady even tried to get us to move up there as she was a teacher and they were short staffed.  As our age group got closer they made a point to come over and make sure we wanted to participate still.  They also told us all about the dance and rescheduled boat races that got moved from the previous night.  As much as we wanted to go, we also wanted to make our plane and get back to the camper on time.  I was actually worried as it was very foggy all day but it had all lifted by 3.  They finally got to our age group and raced.  Neither of us did very well.  It's amazing how fast some people were.  It was fun though and I'm glad we could participate. 

We got to the airport, said our goodbye's to Victor, boarded and flew back without any issue.  We didn't feel like cooking dinner so we stopped and ate at a place called Humpy's Alehouse.  It was a bar and grill.  It was packed so service was slow but the food was really good.  After we got back to the camper and went straight to bed as we were all exhausted after our whirlwind side quest.