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 The story of my trip to Barrow Alaska began in the early summer of 1981. I was assigned to be an assistant field school director at SUNY Binghamton (the school where I was working on my Doctorate) and was going to work with a fellow graduate student in the upper Delaware Valley, just above the Delaware water gap. But not enough students registered for the summer to support my position. My advisor, who was in charge of the work at Barrow, knew of my field archaeology skills, so offered me a position on his project. So, instead of a the Delaware River and life in an old farmhouse near Callicoon, NY, I got the Arctic Ocean and life in a tent. The strip of quonset style tents housed our entire crew. Four people to a tent. The larger tent at the left side (I'll post a picture of the inside of that tent soon) was the mess tent and general work and socializing space for our crew. Our first night there, which was probably in late June (around the time of the summer solstice) was my first experience with the 'midnight sun.' We had to learn how to sleep in full daylight, with the normal activities of the town going on all around us. The first night, local children, wondering who we all were, woke us around 3 am by standing outside our tents and talking loudly and throwing small pebbles at our doors. They did ultimately grow bored with us, but it was tough to get used to young children running around at literally all hours of the day and night. Posted by forgingahead | Comment (2) Category: My Shots, Places I Have Lived, Places I Have Visited Links: forgingahead Main Site Archives: People (75), Family (77), My Shots (120), Dad's Shots (128), Places I Have Lived (32), Places I Have Visited (64), Archaeology (23) | |
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