After 4 months off work due to the chest surgery temporarily voiding my medical I am back in Alaska to work my 2nd shift as a Caravan captain and my 1st shift in Barrow, Alaska, the northern most city in all of the United States as well as the coldest. It has a population of about 4,000 people who pretty much all work there because of the oil money that lubes everyone’s wallets. Barrow is on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, very flat, and turns into a flowing river of mud that nearly slips into the ocean each time it rains. The houses have brightly colored metal roofs hoisted on stilts as Barrow is a swamp that is constantly melting and refreezing. Among pilots Barrow is known as the base with the worst weather, most icing, and most flying. On the positive side, Barrow is so flat that there are very few things you can fly into.
Upon initially getting back into Alaska my chief pilot required that I did training with another checkride to ensure I would be ready to get back in the airplane and fly passengers since it had been such a long time. My first stop in Alaska was Anchorage and then a 1 hour taxi to Palmer, Alaska. I got through the training while fighting a bug I had picked up in Central America with Diarrhea pills and tactical dehydration. I passed the checkride and was shipped off to the not-yet-frosty north.
My first day in Barrow I had to take a plane to tradeout with another from Barrow to Fairbanks and back with fellow pilot and Marine Jon. It was the most gorgeous flight I’ve ever flown. It crosses half of Alaska and the clouds cleared to give us a view of the lush and green Brooks Range.
The next day was my first day getting a copilot as a captain. After introducing myself he skipped to the plane saying, “this’ll be fun!” We got our plane loaded and I was immediately thrown into the unfamiliar thick white world of chowdery IFR that is the arctic North. I’ve never flown in so many clouds in my life, and after 2 days of never seeing the ground I felt like an expert again. I saw some of the most amazing cloud formations of my life but was relieved when on day 12 they thinned out and left us with 2 beautiful days of sunshine on our skin.
We flew all the way to Barter Island one day and saw the arctic ice start to float down with the change in wind. We saw muddy polar bears perusing around, dead whales littered in seagulls along the coast, and on one occasion 3 enormous grey whales breaching 100 feet below us on our final approach into Barrow. Of course we couldn’t tell anyone until the next day or they would be slaughtered and eaten in chewy delicious slices called, “Muk Tuk.”
There are 3 planes stationed in Barrow, 2 Cessna Caravans and a Beech 1900. The other two captains are Jimmy and Doug. Doug had been my captain when I was a copilot and I can only describe him, affectionately, as part Neanderthal. He has a habit of screaming, “LEROOOOOOOYYYYYY JEEEEEENKIIIINS” over the radio and fanning his bibfarts out for the whole world to enjoy.
We shared one of the apartments and his girlfriend came to celebrate his birthday during shift. For his birthday she brought him a black sexdoll named Leroy who quickly became a mascot that you could often see Doug carry around tucked under his arm. For his birthday we shotgunned a few beers and got to participate in a Barrow Beach party where we go to the beach and burn pallets, take shots, shoot guns, make smores, take shots, dance, and depravity slowly increases until we kind of just fall into our beds. At this particular party the police rolled up while we were shooting and politely asked if we could hold off while the boat unloaded their cargo just down the beach. Only in Alaska.
The shift went well, I flew 115 hours, I was exhausted and ready for another two week adventure. This time I would be going to Peru.
