Fulfilling an Arctic dream

(Second of two parts)

It was like being on top of the world. That was how we felt when we reached Barrow in Alaska.

Actually, we really were on top of the world – literally speaking – because Barrow is way above the Arctic Circle and was the closest we could possibly get to the North Pole within US soil.

When we got there, the first thing I noticed was the size of the airport – it was very small. It was so tiny that the departure and arrival areas were one and the same. And there was no carousel where you get your luggage. Claiming your checked-in bags, you just waited for these to roll over from behind a hole in one corner of the airport.

After a short drive through snow-covered streets, we registered at the hotel – aptly called Top of the World – a two-story structure with small, but comfortable enough rooms. Posted in one corner of the lobby was a list of flavors available if you hankered for shakes (yes, they serve shakes and ice cream even in freezing weather) and the most popular – so we found out – was buco-pandan. Already, we could sense the presence of Filipinos in the area.

It was already early in the evening when we got to Barrow and the only thing left for us to do was eat dinner in our room (sandwiches actually that we bought at the airport in one of our stopovers) and wait for a possible display of the northern lights (aurora borealis).

The weather bureau said the northern lights would be visible at 9:30 p.m. and we drove to Barrow Point and waited for almost three hours . . . for nothing. No-show. I wouldn’t get to see the northern lights until I got to Anchorage on our way back to LA.

The following day, we were brought around town by our tour guide, a native Eskimo, who looks like a Filipino of Chinese or Japanese descent.

Yes, you can put him in SM Megamall and nobody would notice he’s Eskimo and, in fact, looks like just one of us. (The typical Eskimos have round faces.)

The temperature that day was minus five degrees – a relatively good weather for sightseeing. Barrow is a rather small place with a population of 4,800 people. There is only one stoplight, which never turns red because there are very few vehicles to cause traffic anyway. And I noticed that they hardly turn the engines off there because the muffler could get frozen.

Although the place is mostly tundra, it offers basic needs and services to its small community. It has a public school built to the tune of millions of dollars. In the collegiate level, you only spend two years of basic college there and finish the rest of the course in schools in nearby Fairbanks or other cities around.

You need to stay in shape? There is a recreational center where you pay $1 and you can work out and play basketball until you have a good sweat. (Other than the recreational center, I don’t know how else the Eskimos perspire because it’s really very cold there.)

There is also one large supermarket where you can do your groceries – although it’s quite expensive there because everything has to be flown over.

Unfortunately, or maybe I should say fortunately, there are no fastfood outlets anywhere. But there are a lot of restaurants – Chinese, Mexican and, incredibly enough, a Filipino eatery, where the best-selling item is the lumpia (egg roll).

A lot the natives there still get to eat during hunting season the traditional Eskimo food – polar bear, caribou, whale and seal meat. Only they are allowed to hunt and kill the animals, but only for their consumption and it is against the law for them to sell the meat.

Perhaps you may wonder if the Eskimos still live in igloos. Well, I was told that the Eskimos in Alaska never had igloos (they once lived in sod houses). It’s the Canadian Eskimos who actually stay in igloos.

The houses that I saw in Barrow are made of wood – some brightly painted – and built on stilts because the heating system may just cause the snow around the structure to melt and that’s going to be a lot of water for the residents there.

In less than three hours, we had the place covered (including a museum tour) – in a leisurely pace at that. Tourists usually come in by plane early in the day and leave late in the afternoon, but we opted to stay overnight to get a whiff of the culture and lifestyle there (like you can do that in a day or so – ha-ha).

With a lot of time to spare, I decided to venture outside of the hotel and walked to the Arctic Ocean right in front. To me, that was the most memorable part of the travel there because – imagine – I walked on the Arctic Ocean, which was frozen that time. I would have wanted to stay on the Arctic Ocean longer, except that the wind chills were just too much and my face began to turn red. All throughout the time I was walking on the Arctic Ocean, I kept touching my covered ears to check if these were still attached to my head and hadn’t fallen off because it was really so cold and I felt numb all over.

Then it was time to go. Hopping to the van that was going to ferry us to the airport, I heard a familiar singing voice coming out of the car stereo. It was Regine Velasquez singing Ako’y Iyong-iyo. When I looked at the driver’s seat beside me, I discovered that he’s Filipino and that his name is Paul – one of the 400 or so Pinoys living in Barrow.

Flying out of there, I thanked the Lord for giving me the chance to fulfill my Artic dream. Never mind if my original goal was really Antartica. (But who knows – it may yet happen).

I felt so blessed that I was given a chance to visit the place – and I meant visit and not live and work there like Paul and the other Filipinos in Barrow. For while that town above the Arctic Circle is a wonderful destination for adventure, living and settling in that cold, cold place is an entirely different story.