I Took Almost 1,500 Pics

Be prepared for a long post. :-)

First things first, I keep forget to bring you up to speed on the toilet seat. I made a new one a few weeks ago. I got a piece of rigid foam insulation and custom fit it to the outhouse. When I laid it down I cut the hole to fit the open for the seat. The first time I sat down I almost fell in! I made the hole too big! Luckily I've got a big butt so it works. I do have more insulation so I will make one with a smaller opening to that visitors with smaller booties won't fall in. lol

WARNING: This paragraph borders on TMI. Consider yourself warned. Read at your own risk. Saturday night it snowed, just a light dusting and there is still some on the ground in the shady areas. It was in the high teens temp wise this morning and I had to use the outhouse. The seat is AWESOME! It wasn't cold on my behind! lol I have wet wipes in there that I use. Well, they were a frozen brick this morning! I guess I can't leave them in outhouse anymore. I have to take them back and forth. I also have hand sanitizer in there. While it wasn't frozen this morning, I'm sure it will be when it's 20 below so I'll have to take it back and forth as well.

Ok, now on to my weekend. It was the most amazing weekend, the coolest thing I've done yet. Words and pics cannot describe or do justice to the experience I had. I flew up to the Inuit native village of Kaktovik on Barter Island. It is just off the coast in the Arctic Ocean and is the only village in ANWR. There are about 500 natives who live here. The village is a whaling village. They are allowed 3 bow head whales a year. They also hunt caribou, moose and fish. This is also the gathering spot for polar bears the end of summer while they wait for the sea ice to come in.

We flew up there Saturday morning (I was part of a group that a local charter flight company put together). We landed about 11:30. As we were coming in to land , there was a snow plow on the runway so we had to circle around a bit before we could land. After we landed, we were met by the manager of the Kaktovik Native Corporation who then took us to the Marsh Creek Inn, the place we stayed. After we were given rooms (I had to share a room with two other men on the trip and the bathroom was down the hall) we had lunch, then went on a driving tour of the village. The first place was the end of the air strip, where we came across our first polar bear. What an amazing sight he was!! There were a couple of people there in their cars watching him and he was super close. We watched him for about two hours. We were able to get out of the van to take pics and got pretty close to him. We were told that this bear had just showed up a few days before. He was very thin, and rather sickly looking. The other bears all slept during the day and fed at night. This guy was the opposite. He didn't look thin to me, until I saw the other bears that is.

After the driving tour we hooked up with a couple of the locals who had boats. They took us out to a spit of land about a mail away where the bears slept during the day. When we got there there was a female and her two cubs really close to shore. They were all cuddled sleeping together. We were able to get pretty close to them and then the got up and started wandering around. They were aware of us but not threatened in the least. The twin cubs were very playful and fun to watch.

Behind them, pretty much everywhere you looked you could see bears. There were 24 in total. Most were laying down sleeping but there were some who were moving around. There were some cubs that were play fighting. They were fun to watch!

After the mom and twins moved down the beach, some of us got off the boat and moved closer to the other bears. We were able to get better pics and it was just so amazing to be close, nothing between us and them. Words fail to describe this experience.

After a while we got back on the boat and went down to watch the mom and twins. There was another female that have been kind of following them. For some reason, the mom didn't like this and she and one of her cubs went over to the female. The mom and the female squared off and shared a few words. Again, what an amazing experience! It was only a couple of seconds but everything was resolved by that little exchange. The cubs then went in the water and played in the water for a while. They were almost acting like sea otters. Very fun to watch!

We ended up going back to the hotel and had dinner. At 8pm we went back out to the bone pile. It was dark by then. The bone pile is where the villagers put the whale remains. They do this for to hopefully keep the bears out of town. This doesn't always work. When we got to the bone pile, there was only one bear there eating. We watched her for a while and after about an hour others started showing up. In total there were 9 bears there eating at once. At this point it was easy to realize how small an sickly the first one we saw was. The female that we had been watching was pretty large, as were most of the others who came around. Then the hugest bear of all showed up. He was sooooo big! He easily stood a foot taller than the others. Just an amazing creature!

We were pretty close to all the action, may be 15 feet. I got out of the van a couple of times to just watch and try to get pics. One of the villagers was there who was on lookout patrol, making sure we were safe. He kept an eye out for where all the bears were. As the others started arriving, we got back into the van. I was in the front passenger seat. One ended up walking right next to the van on one side. Then one walked right by the other side. Amazing!! Then one walked right up to the front of the van, seriously only a foot away, and looked right in the window at me!! Talk about chills!!! Then she went back to eating.

I had rolled the window down to listen to the bears. A few of them exchanged words now and then. There were tons of seagulls around but they moved back and gave the bears space. Well, some psycho gull flew right at me in the van and was trying to come through the window and attack me!! I was trying to keep it out with my hand and tried to roll up the window! Funny, 9 huge polar bears around and it's a freaking seagull that attacks me!! LMAO

About 11pm we went back to the hotel to sleep. The next morning we went back out to the bone pile at 7am. The only bear there was the sickly one we first saw. We watched him a while then he laid down and went to sleep. I got about 15 feet from him and had my picture taken with one of our guides and the bear in the background.

We went back to the hotel to hang out until we were to fly out at 2pm. A couple of people went back to the spit to watch the bears again. When we went the day before, it was a beautiful day, it wasn't windy or snowing, just cold. (I had hand warmers in my gloves and toe warmers in my shoes!) But this day it was snowing and windy. I had no desire to be out there in the wind.

Flying out was an experience. The runway hadn't been plowed since the night before and the visibility was minimal at best. But there weren't any mountains around. So despite the poor visibility, I knew that as long as we could take off we'd be fine. I also knew we had the company's most senior pilot flying the plane. He was also their VP of Operations. So I felt like we were in good hands. We took off just fine but it was an interesting experience. I slept pretty much the whole flight back and was drained by the time we got back to Fairbanks. What a weekend of a lifetime. This was by far, without a doubt, the most amazing thing I've ever done. I took almost 1,500 pics during the trip. I chose some of the best and put in an online album. If you are interested in seeing them leave me your email address and I'll send you the link.