High in the Arctic !! Eskimo .. .. !

Wow. I don't know how to thank you ALL (blushing) for the comments you have so graciously posted. um, er, ah. ... what can I say, cept think of a true story to share with you. so much of what happens up here is unreported in the news media.

STORY TIME:

Well last August we flew up to Barrow, on a whim, because of what the barge captain told us. Get up to Barrow with your bracelets, (my sons make Ivory bracelts each and every day.) They sell quickly.

My second oldest and I head up to Barrow, broke, no place to stay, hotel ? um yeah, but that is 150 - 175 a night. We are broke, but we have many bracelets and ear-rings with us. We take a chance and fly.

I am well aware that there are housing shortages in all villages, to find a place to rent is next to impossible. I am going out on a limb so to speak, nothing but hope !! ..........(holding breath) !!

Landing in the airport in Barrow, Jets can land here, there are only two villages that Jets can land at, well three, Nome, Kotzebue & Barrow
of the three Barrow is the largest, 5000+ and growing, People from all over the world live here,

Here is an except about Barrow:

School children and travelers for years have found Barrow on the map of North

America and then chosen it as a destination for pen pal letters of a vacation

adventure. It is the town at the top of the world...the northermost community

on the North American continent. Barrow became the county seat of the North

Slope Borough when the borough was formed in 1972, shortlly after the

passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

It presently serves as a hub for transportation, regional government administration, communicatinos, economic development and education in the region. However, the current history of Barrow must be measured against the archeological history. The town contains mounds and artifacts that date from a period more than 1,200 years ago. The proper and traditional name for this community is Ukpiagvik ('place for hutning owls') but a British Sailorofficer named Beechey on a surveying expeditino in 1825-26 named the place after Sir John Barrow of the British Admiralty and the name on the subsequentlly printed maps prevailed.

A few miles to the northeast lies a low penninsula, the geographic Point barrow, which marks the meeting point of the Chukchi Sea on the west and the Beaufort Sea to the east, both part of the Arctic Ocean. In addition to centuries of the comming and giong of the Native hunters and travelers, the point has seen the passage of other explorers, sailing ships of the nineteenth century commercial whalers, traders, solo adventurers, and more recently the huge barges transporting equipment modules to the Prudhoe Bay oilfields to the east of Barrow.

The population of Barrow has increased in recent years with the business and local government activities generated by the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) and the Borough. It stands at about 5,000 residents today with a sixty percent portion of Inupiat (Eskimo) citizens. Despite its remote location the community has a rich ethnic mixture of Asian, Pacific Island, Centeral and South American and several other national groups.

The North Slope Borough employs just under fifty per ecnt of the approximate 2,500 person workforce; the School District nearly fourteen percent and the remaining one-third of Barrow's employed work for private business and industry.

The community is served by daily passenger jet flights and several regional air carriers, Cable television and local dial-up,adsl, wireless, and high speed broadband offer complete packages for accessing Internet service, public radio on both AM and FM bands two celllular telephone providers, a local telephone service companyu, two facilities based long distance companies, and several long-distance resellers, all combine to make the Barrow community accessible to and from the rest of the world and the public switched telecommunications network. The Borough's community teleconference network operation center is in Barrow while the North-Slop[e Borough public safety divisons (Police, Fire, Search and REscue) operate an extensive radio-telephone network with links to the other Borough communities. The Borough leases a long-distance netowrk to support distance education and governmental services administration in the villages.


Well sit back, relax, and let me tell you what happend when we flew up here, on a whim, with absolutely no money, no place to stay.

You can't possibly do that where you live, this is insane, ha ha ha ha.. well if you have read most of this post you can tell, stuff like this doesn't happen to oridnary people.

We land, we are hungry after this 3 1/2 hour flight. Hmmm?? stepping outside the airport, we see a hotel across the street. King Eider hotel..

Mark walks in and I wait outside the airport across the street. It is warm, nice and I am all excited to see what happens.