Once you cross the Atigun pass, the highest pass in the largest state in the Union, you begin to enter a new biome. The "North Slope" is the northernmost fifth of the state of Alaska. It's where the Brooks Range ends and the land slides down to sea level to meet the Arctic Ocean.
The Tundra up here is entirely north of the Arctic circle. It's a severe climate. Luckily while I'm here, the sun is up all day and never sets. For most of the year, darkness brings extreme cold. Only 23 of about 3,200 of Earths species of mammals live up here. Although many of the world's thousands of species of birds migrate here, only 6-7 are permanent residents. Life is scarce-- more scarce than a desert. In fact, so little rain falls here it's considered a desert and a wetland at the same time. How? Because what water has fallen in the last few thousand years is frozen in the ground.
The lack of year-round sunlight creates one of the biggest obstacles of this arctic world: Permafrost.
Essentially frozen mud, Permafrost can either be right at the surface during most of the year, or just a few inches or feet underneath the ground during the warmest times of year. The ground is frozen as far down as it gets until the Earth itself can warm it geothermally, or it's just frozen on top of bedrock.
Permafrost is the reason no trees can grow here. It's the reason water, when not frozen in the summer months, can't permeate into the ground and instead just stands on the surface. That standing water is prime real estate for mosquitoes and they swarm by the billions. Permafrost is the reason plants must grow their roots along the surface rather than down.
Permafrost is the reason the Dalton Highway is one of the shittiest highways on the planet to drive on. Even if you have sections of the highway that are paved, the permafrost will cause the road to swell and shrink, causing huge waves of tar that cause dips and humps that send vehicles bouncing and even skidding. It also causes great cracks and potholes. That makes DIRT sections more preferred, but they come with their own issues such as washboards and sinkholes. The semi trucks that take this haul road no doubt leave their mark on the highway as well.
The trucks are all here for one reason, the oil field to the north. As I cross a hundred or so miles of Tundra I finally see the drilling rigs on the horizon--
It's Deadhorse. The oil town on the shore of the Arctic Ocean deep in the land of the midnight sun.
I pull in as the mercury hits 38 degrees (5C), fill up on gas (very much needed), take a video and pictures with the sign at the end of the highway, then check into my 'hotel', which is a 'luxury' worker camp as far as they go here. I arrive at 10PM and the sun is very much high up in the sky, but the settlement is silent, save for a few diesel engine pickups mulling around.
The next day, bright and early, Deadhorse roars to life. Trucks, construction vehicles, and massive engines beep and roar through the dirt roads around town. The dry cold air smells of jet fuel and gasoline the way an airport does.
The inhabitants of Deadhorse are all here for work. There are no families, there is no school, and there are only a few dozen permanent residents.
Living here is what I imagine it being like when in prison or the military. Your meals are provided, you have a daily set schedule and must be accounted for everywhere you go, clearance is restricted, and you do your time here before moving on with your life. 99% of Deadhorse's inhabitants are seasonal workers, all on temporary contracted tours here.
Even fewer are the tourists, like myself, with very little to do. I perused the gift shop section of the general store for some well-earned stickers, I took pictures with the Deadhorse sign, and I signed up for a tour bus to take me through restricted oil-company property to the northernmost point I'll ever go- to the Arctic Ocean to take a dip.
The "Deadhorse Camp" gives $69 tours through oil company property to the coast. We must give our personal information to the staff in advance so they can submit it to the oil companies. I'd been told that background checks are done on foreign applicants and they'd even denied a Chinese national from the tour in the past.
We're given some background on the town. The oil play here is very close to the surface so no derricks or pumpjacks are needed. All of the oil fields up here are about the size of the state of New Hampshire. Buildings are built on stilts not for snow to accumulate under them, but because the heat from the buildings can cause permafrost to melt and create sinkholes. If not built correctly on the permafrost, the tundra can swallow buildings. Some buildings cannot be built on stilts, like garages, so pipelines run underneath them and out their sides to help radiate heat away from the building on the surface. As we check into the restricted area, our tour bus is not allowed to stop moving. We're also given a walkie-talkie at the checkpoint so that we can either be radioed in the event of a Polar Bear sighting, or report a sighting ourselves.
Polar Bears, unlike their grizzly or black cousins, are strictly carnivorous and are known to hunt down humans. When sighted they're not interfered with, but production shuts down and things in Deadhorse could come to a stand-still as a result. Hoo boy.
Eventually, we reach the ocean. Myself and 14 other tourists hop out of the van with our towels and cameras and slide down the rocky slope to the Northernmost point on Earth that any of us will ever venture. I strip down until I'm in gym shorts, hand another tourist the camera, and wade into the freezing brackish saltwater. I've swam in Lake Superior before. I know this procedure. You don't dip in slowly to adjust to the cold waters, you just rip the band-aid off and get it all over with.
I face the camera, spread my arms wide, then think of the years of work, preparation and the month of riding it took to get here for a brief moment as I tip backward and hoot victoriously as I crash into the frigid waves.
I've finally done it. The top of the world.
Aside from the stickers, the tour, and the experience of rubbing shoulders with these workers, there wasn't much else to do in Deadhorse but recover from the Dalton's rough toll on my body. There are 500 long miles between Deadhorse and Fairbanks and only one gas station in between. In addition to that, I'm at sea level, meaning Lechuza will be netting less milage dragging me and all the gear up the Brooks Range to Coldfoot.
Round 2. Here we go again.
JT - 8/6/2022