Southcentral AK and Back to Barrow

On Friday June 29th, I flew home to Tacoma for a friend's wedding and stayed in town for a couple of days. Then on the following Tuesday, I met up with my boyfriend at the airport and flew to Anchorage to visit his parents. While there, we went hiking on Baldy Mountain, clamming near Ninilchik, and fishing outside of Seward. We ended up getting 220 clams, 5 halibut, and 4 lingcod. During our little trip to the Kenai peninsula, I also saw tons of bald eagles, puffins, a bear and a moose. I had a great time exploring Southern Alaska, but that's not the focus of this blog so let's get back to what I've been doing in Barrow....


When I returned to Barrow on Sunday, July 8th I had no cell service. In fact, my phone didn't have service until that Friday. Something was wrong with the local cell tower. It was rough not having cell service, especially when I'm used to having full bars and 3G back home in WA. Also, all the sea ice had finally floated


On Monday morning, I returned to work at the clinic. Dr. Coburn was finally back in town so there were a lot of appointments and spays and neuters scheduled during the week. The sun finally decided to warm this part of the world and the temperature got up to the mid-50's almost every day during the week. In fact, on Tuesday the veterinary clinic staff decided to have a BBQ on the beach at 7:30 that evening. However, by the time our BBQ began, it got cold and windy and dropped to the low 40's. Although I would have liked warmer weather, I still had a great time and the BBQ ribs cooked on the beach were delish!

Vet Clinic Staff Beach BBQ

On Thursday my roommate flew down to Anchorage for eye surgery so I got the fun job of watching her two dogs, a corgi and a chihuahua, until she returned the following Wednesday. 

Beautiful calm afternoon 

Over the weekend, the weather got even better, It was really windy on Thursday and Friday, and the sea ice ended up blowing back to shore. Saturday morning was also pretty windy and rainy, but cleared up during the late afternoon and ended up becoming a warm evening. I decided to take advantage of the warm evening and went for a walk on the beach. 



While walking the beach, I met a dental student up here on a 2 week externship. He didn't know anyone in town, so we exchanged numbers and planned to do the polar bear dive the next day. Lucky for us, Sunday ended up being warm and 60 degrees! We met up in the afternoon and headed to the beach where we were greeted with a million nasty large mosquitos who willingly accompanied us on our search for the perfect iceburg and used us as snacks along the way. We walked the beach until we found an iceburg close enough to shore to wade out to. We waded out to the iceburg and climbed on top of it. Some people walking by took pictures for us while we stood on the ice shivering and fighting off mosquitos. The pictures turned out really good and actually look like we are enjoying a warm and insect free swim. After a couple of minutes on the iceburg we took turns jumping back into the freezing cold arctic ocean. Luckily the sun was still out and warmed us up quickly as we dried off and sipped on hot cocoa. 

Polar Bear Club