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| Prudhoe Bay General Sto |
Most of the passengers aboard the plane between Anchorage and Deadhorse wore some article of clothing emblazoned with their purpose of travel: a Mistras hat; a GCI sweatshirt; a BP windbreaker. Though my allegiances weren’t so overt, TSA undoubtedly knew what I was up to--they'd left their calling card in my pelican case that was filled with various types of vice. To everyone else, though, I'd been instructed to fly under the radar.
“If they want to know why I’m visiting,” I asked Tripp, “What’s my answer?”
“Tell them you’re a housekeeper.”
“When I say that, should I raise my eyebrow?”
“Yeah definitely, and then you should ask them which camp they’re staying at, and if there’s an ATM there.”
Fortunately, no one asked.
As we approached touchdown, I was uncertain if we were over clouds or tundra until I saw the pipeline beneath. We landed; the stairs out of the jet shook in the wind. By the time I ducked inside the terminal, my cheeks were beyond numb. I was overcome by this feeling that I was in a place unlike any I’d been before. I grinned and fell in love a little just then.
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| Sunrise on the Slope |
Tripp was there, waiting. We grabbed the pelican case and swung up into his work truck. It was drawing near to 10 AM, but the sun was barely quivering at the horizon, looking sort of like a Japanese lantern in the haze. We drove out the Dalton--the Haul Rd. I drank in the expanse: vast, harsh, stark. It was impossible to discern the boundaries of land, sky, and sea--this time of year, they bear the same color and texture. It was windy: ribbons of snow were perpetually blowing, nothing to stop them. Driving against them was surreal, like going upstream the braided channels of a glacial river.
It was before noon when we checked into the Aurora Hotel, but we fell asleep shortly after, slumbering on through dinner, finally waking after midnight. It was clear; living in Chicago, you come to appreciate a dark starry night.
“Can we go for a drive?” I begged Tripp.
As always, he was ready for adventure. We fortified ourselves with a thermos of coffee and set out the Haul Rd. again, driving until we were free of the lights of town. This took some time, for it was so cold the transmission wouldn’t shift out of second gear. When we reached a properly dark pullout, we stopped and killed the ignition; wind shook the truck. Outside, the aurora was playing across the sky--great tongues of light passing overhead in giant swaths. A sly tear or two slipped out of the corner of my eye as I sat there next to Tripp, grateful to be there, and to be there with him.
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| Next Services 240 Miles--the start of the Dalton |
When the coffee was gone and the aurora dim, we drove back to town and went back to bed. Tripp rose soon--too soon--for work. Fortunately, he came back soon, too. The day’s assignment had been at G&I--grind and inject. There, drill tailings are brought to the surface, and that which has been thousands of feet subterranean for epochs taints all around with an odor Tripp deems jurassic pussy. It smells about how you’d imagine something with a name like that would.
Tripp and a couple of his coworkers took me on a tour of town. Our first stop was a hotel-lobby coffee shop that had a pool table. These coffee shops are one of the only spaces for socializing--and, though Deadhorse is, on paper, damp (meaning you can consume alcohol if you’ve purchased it elsewhere), it might as well be dry; there are no establishments where you can drink it. Housing and vehicles are all company property, all dry. We then made our way to the general store. As expected, it was a fantastic medley of tourist crack (like mugs and crass t-shirts) and Slope essentials (like an entire rack of Hustler magazines). Town bears this atmosphere of a modernized frontier outpost. Buildings are all bland, alike except for the trademarks of the industries they represent. Most are hardscrabble housing for the hordes of transient workers. In fact, the entire place has the feeling of a work camp. Work stays; workers come and go. There are odd Alaskan amenities, like tanning beds for those here during the long, sunless winter hitches. Everywhere there are bull rails--tall hitching posts with electrical cords hanging down, to preserve your vehicles’ batteries in the cold.
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| Bull Rail at the Aurora |
My third and final morning on the slope, we were socked in with fog. After I checked in for my return flight, Tripp and I took one last drive down the Haul Rd. The fog muted everything even more; there would be no chance of finding the muskox we’d seen distantly the day before. Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, is the end of the road and the edge of a continent...it feels like the end of the world.
