Barrow, AK

Last week I headed up to Barrow with the volleyball team for a tournament. You might remember from last year when Michael went there, but Barrow is the furthest north point in North America. So, it's claim to fame is "Barrow, AK- the top of the world." It was such a crazy place to go to; the land is so flat and white for miles, and the sun is so far away that it seems like it's not even the real sun.

In Barrow, they have a very deep whaling tradition; one that has helped them to survive in the crazy conditions up there for hundreds of years. The whaling village is about a mile out of town to help keep the polar bears from wandering in town after a whale has been killed. We took a bus ride out to the village and saw where they cut up the whales. In fact, a whale had just been killed, and so there were some remains on the snow when we went out there. Before we got off the bus, the bus driver told us that if he honks the horn on the bus, we need to run as fast as we can to get on the bus because there is a polar bear coming. Awesome! He never had to honk the horn; it actually would have been really neat to see a polar bear. Here are some pictures from the whaling area:

Whale baleen

Looking at the whaling village:

How many people can say they've actually touched whale baleen?!

Another crazy thing about Barrow is how the water there freezes. Here in Kotz, we are surrounded by a Sound, and so the ice freezes more like a pond where it is just one big chunk of ice that freezes further and further out from the shore as the winter goes on. But, in Barrow, they are on a point at the very top of the continent, and so their water doesn't freeze because of the currents, but instead the ice pack moves in from the north and eventually makes a sheet. Whereas our ice it all the way frozen already (for the most part) theirs will not be until at least December. When Michael went there last February, he said it was crazy to look at the ice because there were some places where the ice was 30 feet high from the icebergs crashing into each other. It was wild to watch the current moving with the ice pack.

Here is a short video of the ice moving (you can hear the wind blowing in the video!):

Standing on the shore at Point Barrow (brrrrrrr):

Standing underneath a whale-bone arch (sorry about the weird coloring):

You also might have read on ESPN about the football field that was built up in Barrow a few years ago. The reason for building the field was to try and improve attendance and increase the graduation rate. It has already made quite a difference. The field is right across the street from the Arctic Ocean. Football season ended about 3 weeks ago, and the Barrow Whalers lost in the state semi-finals. The field was completely covered in snow, but you can get the idea. On a side note, the Athletic Director told me that they have guys that stand on the side of the field with rifles just in case a polar bear wanders up. They actually have a picture from a couple months ago with a polar bear standing outside the fence and looking in at the field. Wow!

The football field (or what you can see of it through the blizzard)

Of course, the real reason why we were there was to play volleyball, which we got to do a ton of. We played in 6-team tournament and ended up taking 3rd in the tournament. I have a very young team this year, but they have a ton of potential; both are very exciting things for a coach! We have about a month left until regionals, and I have high hopes of going to state this year. One of the great things about coaching up here is all of the different places that I get to visit. I would never have visited to top of the world otherwise!