A Viking’s Walkabout – Day 17 – Viking Navigation LLC

Deadhorse, Alaska to the Arctic Ocean shore… and beyond

Distance: 32 miles / 52 km (round trip)

Time: Couple hours

It is not possible to drive the last few miles to the Arctic Ocean from Deadhorse. Security at the gate to the oil pads will not let you through. To get there you must book a seat on the Arctic Ocean Shuttle through Deadhorse Camp. They will coordinate your security checks and drive you to the ocean.

Jack, the tour guy, is a pretty cool dude. He’s one of those smart people that can engage with anyone and have something to talk about. He has vast knowledge of flora and fauna and a working knowledge of petroleum engineering. Some tour guides make stuff up and you know they are. Jack is at least smart enough to play it off if he is making it up.

The last point of land on my trip before the Arctic. Jack says to me, “You’re swimming, right?” I say to Jack, “I didn’t know we could.”

The wind was gusting a bit on the walk from the bus to the beach … It was about 39*F / 4*C, so chilly, but not cold. Jack assured me the water temperature was about the same.

Did I mention the wind was blowing? So Jack starts to undress and has his swim trunks on and two of the other tour participants — a couple from Fairfax, Va., of all places — strip down to their suits too. Jack says, “I do this twice a day, every day.” “Every tour?” “Yep. You should swim. You won’t be back, and you’ll never see any of these people again.”

As with his identification of various loons and sea birds, Jack was right. Or at least he sounded right. Here, one of my fellow tour participants kindly took a picture of me in my underwear after my brief swim. Jack is out there treading water. There are other photos, but those are only available to subscribers…

Certificate to prove it…

One last look back. I’m glad I made it. I’m glad I swam. The security guards were watching us. Jack said, “Oh, there are several polar bears and grizzly bears on the oil pads, so they are watching to make sure the bears don’t come after us.” Now… he might have been making that part up… but that’s the kind of fib you WANT your tour guide to tell.

You know I would have taken photos of oil operations, but the windows were caked in mud.

Driving back to Brooks Camp (blue) from Deadhorse Camp after the tour.

Forgot to photograph this yesterday. Hey, Josh! This is the northern terminus of the Pan American Highway! Just a stop sign at a T intersection. Not much fanfare.

There is a lot of really, really big gear up here. Everywhere you look are machines just a little bigger than what you are accustomed to seeing.

Artisanal wells. I still have to fact check this with some of my petroleum engineering buddies, but I am told there are no pumpjacks and no fracking in Prudhoe. You poke a hole in the ground and the pressure squeezes the oil to the surface. These boxes contain the well heads and pipes run everywhere, but not a pumpjack in sight.

The cafeteria at Brooks Camp. These places are all-inclusive. You pay for the room and then all the other stuff is all you can eat. Again, very clean. Everyone tidies up after themselves, and everyone puts on lunch lady plastic gloves before touching anything in the food service area. In another part of the camp they have a room the size of a convenience store full of freezers with shelf after shelf of ice cream sandwiches, energy drinks, and the like. Just grab what you need. There is a huge rack of spices and condiments and mostly people put them back in neat ordered rows after they were done eating and cleaning up.

The busiest night was the first night and there was a big MMA match on the TVs that everyone was watching.

You might expect an oil camp to be rough and tumble and dirty. This was orderly, clean, and nice. I’m not sure why I am surprised, but it exceeded my expectations. I was in Deadhorse for six meals and I ate all six in the cafeteria.

My cafeteria meal the last night: All you can eat prime rib and pork tenderloin with good veggies. It was pretty alright. The staff in charge of food prep were really into their job. It depends heavily on what they can get shipped up, but I heard lots of menu planning conversations that centered on what was apparently the best burritos they had ever had, and definite plans to make them.