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Squarespace calm / win over 3,500 miles
from Washington DC 3,000 miles north of
Los Angeles 750 miles north of Anchorage
where the ground never melts where the
snow falls midsummer where no plants
taller than a few inches grow where the
Sun sets for months in the winter and
stays up for months in the summer lies
America's northernmost town Barrow
Alaska combing through maps Barrow has
always intrigued me and I had two
questions why does it exist and what is
it like so I visited it now asking why
Barrow exists might seem like an absurd
question you could ask the same for
Fernley Nevada or Grafton Vermont or any
other town but Barrow is a bit unique
it's not a small town at least by Arctic
standards just as many people live in
Barrow as in the entire rest of northern
Alaska there's only one talent on earth
larger than and further north than
Barrow considering Barrow is one of the
northernmost communities in the world
the weather is far from typical
this clip from 1:45 a.m. on May 30th
shows just how unique it is just hours
before it was 68 degrees in Los Angeles
70 in Denver 93 in DC and 96 in Dallas
while Americans across the country were
having their Memorial Day barbecues and
here in Barrow the Sun still lit up the
landscape and at billowed snow just
before 2:00 in the morning snowy weather
isn't the least bit unique in the weeks
leading up to summer and even during
June July in August the ground regularly
gets a light dusting you can tell it's
the Arctic for 65 days in the summer the
Sun never sets then 465 again in the
winter it never rises on the ground
Barrow is desolate it's bounded on one
side by the flat Arctic tundra and on
the other by the often frozen Arctic
Ocean there's little emphasis on
aesthetics within the town itself but
there are few sites as beautiful as the
sea ice just off the beach there's not a
single paved road in Barrow as they
would be destroyed each year by the
shifting land as it freezes and melts
in fact there aren't even roads
connecting barrow to the outside world
they end just a couple miles out of town
that does mean though that for all but a
few months of the year there's only one
way in or out the airplane barrows
Airport is quite literally the lifeline
of the community the entire town relies
on planes going in and out to get food
in and people out somewhat surprisingly
multiple jet planes fly into Barrow each
day from Anchorage you could start your
day in this small town above the Arctic
Circle and finish in New York with no
roads or port with little exception
every ounce of food flies into Barrow
there is even a special type of aircraft
built almost exclusively to serve small
towns like Barrow the 737 combi these
planes have their front half built like
cargo planes and their back half built
like passenger planes to serve
communities that are small enough that
they can't demand full size cargo
airplanes and still need a way to bring
passengers in and out increasingly
nowadays however Barrow can be supplied
by boat for just a few months of the
year the ice breaks up enough that a
barge can come to shore and bring all
the goods to Barrow that won't fit in a
plane that means that if you need a car
or a truck or building materials you
have one shot a year to order it as the
mayor says cost of living is very
expensive here because none of them
produce products and very expensive
because their throat is your Freight is
very expensive heavy things are
incredibly expensive 15 dollars for this
hand sanitizer and $30 for this stain
remover products that need refrigeration
in transport such as frozen pizza are
also unnaturally expensive $17 for this
one bulky things demand a premium to $20
for some toilet paper and $22 for
diapers the cost of living above the
Arctic Circle in Barrow is just
extremely high due to its location in
visiting such a foreign place you do
sometimes have to remind yourself that
you're still in the same country as
Miami Minneapolis or Milwaukee it's a
reminder of just how vast the United
States is Barrow still has a u.s. post
office a Wells Fargo Bank those are
american-style signs it's still an
American city even if it's closer to
Tokyo and st. Petersburg than it is to
DC so why do people live in Barrow why
have 5,000 people chosen to live their
lives as close to the North Pole
as to their own state capital well for
many residents it's been their home for
thousands of years Barrow is the
cultural center of the Inupiat tribe one
of the dozens of Native Alaskan tribes
there's evidence that the Inupiat people
have lived in the same spot as Barrow
for more than 1500 years making it one
of the oldest permanently inhabited
settlements in North America that's why
over 60% of the residents in the city
are Alaskan native mostly from the
Inupiat tribe the answer to why the
other 40% is there as it often is is oil
Barrow is the administrative center of
the North Slope Borough the equivalent
of a county or region the area is larger
than the entire United Kingdom yet less
than 10,000 people live within its
borders Barrow itself doesn't have a
significant amount of oil but nearby
Prudhoe Bay has the single largest oil
deposit in North America larger
companies that have leases out in the
Prudhoe Bay oil fields they hire people
to fill in positions that are needed
within their services
some people go from Barrow to Prudhoe
Bay to work the drills but there's also
good work within Barrow as it serves as
the home of the borough's government the
primary employers in the area are the
city borough state and federal
government and in fact you can make some
decent money in Barrow the median
household income is over $80,000
compared to the u.s. average of about
$55,000 of course when spending five
hundred dollars a week on groceries as
normal this number seems slightly less
impressive but the city does have real
industry that of course is a big reason
why 5,000 people live here it's a
completely self-sustaining city it's
expensive hugely expensive to live here
but those who do make that choice for a
reason among American cities Barrow sits
center stage watching
the world warm the thing we lived
through climate change on a daily basis
vomit change and global climate change
as it affects on the north low there's
some the different effects over time as
its it occurs depending on the season
mostly you could see it in the fall and
spring from seasons in terms of the
effects of climate change so tying the
warmers and pictures movement of a
migration of animals occur in a little
bit more earlier than what they were in
the past
so these are changes that were
contending with on a daily basis America
day by day the oil supplies in the North
Slope Borough run out and the world is
turning to renewable energy the area has
a looming threat of its biggest industry
moving out many other places in a
similar situation such as the UAE or
Oman or Norway have attempted to fill
the gap that oil will leave by growing
the tourism industry but as mayor Brower
says it's very seasonal determining this
from the spring to the fall majority of
the tourist season and occurs there's
some interest in developing tours of
entrepreneurship into the communities
but the infrastructure still lacking the
lack of old camels and lack of
transportation meet or for tourism
business items that needed to conduct or
isn't quite developed in a lot of our
abilities visiting Barrow is an
adventure not a vacation and nobody
should come expecting a McDonald's and
Segway tours and super fast Wi-Fi the
beach of America's northernmost town
presents one of the rarest views in the
world thousands of miles of civilization
free ice water and nothingness Alaska's
license plate may say that the state
itself is America's last frontier
but nowhere feels closer to the end of
the earth than Barrow Alaska
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traveled to Barrow with the guys behind
two channels real life lore and second
thought you can find their videos on the
town here please also be sure to check
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