Pics from the North Coast

[NightTrain]

Got a few pics I've taken as we bomb around Barrow... usually it's pitch black out, with a twilight about 2pm to 4pm - but we're gaining light very quickly up here, and soon the sun will be shining 24/7 in this neck of the woods. Haven't actually seen it in months here, though.


Caribou. And this is as much sunlight as we get up here right now.

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11173&stc=1


Palm trees. Actually, they're made of baleen from whales. Baleen is the filter inside a whale's mouth to strain food like krill from giant gulps of water :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11174&stc=1


Coasties heading out doing a rescue mission for a couple of knuckleheads that went out on the sea ice on their snowmachines and the ice pack broke away from shore... and off they went on a little float trip, and it was more than a 3-hour tour, Gilligan.

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11175&stc=1


I wish this would have turned out better. It's a shot of two Arctic Fox kits playing outside their den while Mama was out hunting. They're white, fluffy and awfully adorable. It was a ways off the road, and I was using my phone's digital zoom to try and get a shot of them.

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11176&stc=1


Here I'm instructing my apprentice on the finer points of snow removal.

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11177&stc=1






I'll add more later, but for now I need to get in the truck and head out to work. We're patrolling daily for polar bears to get a few shots of them, but so far they've eluded us - we hear they're on one side of town, we haul ass there and they're gone. We'll catch up with them, hopefully on our terms. :laugh:

[darin]

that is beautiful. I want that.

[Abbey Marie]

I want to see those fluffy babies!

[Elessar]

Heh! Coasties out trying to save idiots. Kind of typical!

[High_Plains_Drifter]

I couldn't live there... no how no way... pitch black for months, I'd go insane.

Love to look at the pics though, and I'll take that utility tractor... boy do I have things I could that for.

[Funky Winkerbean]

If I want to be out there in the Yukon freezing my ass off, I'll read a Jack London novel, thank you for your service.

:clap:

[Black Diamond]

If I want to be out there in the Yukon freezing my ass off, I'll read a Jack London novel, thank you for your service.

:clap:
Call of the wild ? To build a fire ?

[Funky Winkerbean]

Call of the wild ? To build a fire ?

Yep, and those snowmobilers were nearly there, Coasties saved their lives.

[NightTrain]

If I want to be out there in the Yukon freezing my ass off, I'll read a Jack London novel, thank you for your service.

:clap:

The Yukon area is no where close to this part of Alaska.

[Russ]

I couldn't live there... no how no way... pitch black for months, I'd go insane.

Love to look at the pics though, and I'll take that utility tractor... boy do I have things I could that for.

I agree, I couldn't live there. But it looks beautiful, and a good-paying contractor gig like NT's sounds like the perfect way to visit!

[Funky Winkerbean]

If I want to be out there in the Yukon freezing my ass off, I'll read a Jack London novel, thank you for your service.

:clap:


The Yukon area is no where close to this part of Alaska.

No? Well, now I feel embarrassed. Can you freeze your ass off there? I'd like to be at least half right. ;)

[NightTrain]

No? Well, now I feel embarrassed. Can you freeze your ass off there? I'd like to be at least half right. ;)


You can freeze your ass off in Cuba City, Wisconsin and be about as close to the Yukon.

Know what I mean, Doug?

[Balu]

Thank you for your marvelous pics, Night Train! They are fantastic! :clap:

[High_Plains_Drifter]

that is beautiful. I want that.
Seriously, bro... you'd live there?

[Elessar]

I was going to be transferred to Kodiak, but some clown of a corpsman lost my
medical record, so I was stuck for a while.:laugh:

[NightTrain]

Sign on the hotel door :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11185&stc=1


Bowhead whale skulls :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11186&stc=1

One of the roads we patrol regularly for polar bears :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11187&stc=1

One of the Rolligon trucks used for going across the tundra - these things are amazing and they roll convoys hundreds of miles across the north coast to get equipment & supplies delivered to remote sites - I want one :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11188&stc=1


What happens when Front-End Loader meets Fiber - yep, that's an $80k screwup. Bizarrely, the operator fled the scene and didn't say anything, like we wouldn't notice that one of our fibers was cut... knucklehead. Now he'll get fired for it, instead of just an ass chewing :

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11189&stc=1