After my Polar Bear Tour, I only had 6 weeks left in Deadhorse. My time was coming to an end, I was equally excited and nervous. Besides the one week outing with my cousin, I had more or less been on a secluded island. Deadhorse has its own culture, it’s own social norms. Not to mention I hadn’t been around more than 30 people in 6 months. Would it be overwhelming to be with a crowd of people? How would I handle being in the airport?
Final 6 Weeks in Deadhorse
The sun had finally started to set. After nearly 5 months of constant daylight, we were getting hours of darkness. I couldn’t have been happier, you don’t realize how for granted you take the darkness until you no longer have it. Because the sun slowly makes it decent over weeks there’s about a solid week where you get a few hours of sunset a day. The gorgeous pinks and reds danced across the sky signaling the chance of the season.
On August 29th we got a decent snow shower, enough to coat the world around us and warn us of the storms to come. I can now say I have seen it snow every month of the year. It was a strange thought, August in New England is still very much summer, sometimes even the hottest month of the year but here in the artic, it was fall.
The tundra had turned from the greens of summer to a dark red. The birds that had stayed behind were flying south for winter, all too aware of what was about to come. The tundra would soon freeze over and the neverending white would return.
Wildlife of Deadhorse
The ground squirrels were becoming desperate, in order to survive the winter they needed enough fat stores. One little guy became particularly brave, so I attempted to make friends with him. Of course, he chose Courtney over me because Courtney wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Are all male creatures the same?
Looking at this adorable little fella it is amazing that they manage to survive an arctic winter. It is nothing short of a scientific marvel as to how the ground squirrel hibernates. As the tundra starts to freeze over and the nights become longer the ground squirrel retreats to his/her burrow more than 3 feet (1 meter) below the surface. There it has built a nest lined with various grasses and furs. Their heart and breathing rate slows, their core temperature plummets even their brain function slows. Nearly 7 months later they wake up perfectly healthy. Sometimes I feel like I need a 7-month nap to come back refreshed too.
Unfortunately, Momma Grizzly Bear was put down, the cubs were moved to a zoo in Oakland. I was incredibly upset and infuriated to hear this news. Apparently, they had tried unsuccessfully to relocated her several times but she continued to come back. Because there were no laws requiring the businesses to have bear-proof dumpsters she became reliant on dumpsters for food. This also put her in regular contact with humans making her less and less fearful resulting in more interaction.
While I do understand why they felt she was a danger to the people in Deadhorse this was not her fault. There should be laws requiring the businesses to have bear-proof containers, she would not have been so drawn to Deadhorse if she was unable to get food there. She paid the price for our neglect, her cubs will no spend their lives in a zoo because we failed to prevent her dependence on humans. Unfortunately, nobody makes money from protecting the local wildlife so therefore they don’t.
Aurora Borealis
As the darkness began to take over the tundra there was one huge item left on my list, seeing the Aurora Borealis. Deadhorse is actually a little too far north for aurora viewing but I had high hopes that just once I would be lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Given that I did go to work for midnight I was up at the best hours for viewing.
Even though Deadhorse was small the light pollution did make the chances less likely so whenever possible I would take a drive 20 miles south or so. Out there it was nerve-rackingly dark. With no light pollution, the stars were jaw-droppingly bright. It was as if I was looking at a whole new sky. It could not be the same sky I grew up looking at, this one had hundreds of stars I had never noticed before. On a couple of these drives, I did see very faint green swirling around the sky. So faint it was hard to say for sure if those were the northern lights or if they were just clouds.
September 28th
Courtney knocked on my door at 10 pm and told me to come out to see the northern lights. I quickly dressed in my warmest gear, the temperature had dropped quickly. It was now in the single digits regularly. I was not prepared for the show I was about to see. I stepped out of my cabin and there they were. The northern lights dancing across the night sky.
There was a single line across the night sky, the top half was green the bottom was a purplely red. I could not believe my luck, I only had days left I didn’t think I would get to see them. They swirled and twisted around the night sky putting on a magic show like no other. I didn’t care that soon I couldn’t feel my fingers or that my cheeks were burning from the cold, I would have stood out there all night to watch them.
September 29th
It was finally time to say goodbye. I wanted to give a sappy goodbye hug to all the guys but I knew they wouldn’t go for that. They were not the goodbye kind of people and frankly I didn’t know how to thank them for becoming my arctic family. I didn’t know how to thank them for making me feel safe and at home when everyone warned me of the contrary. How could I thank them for being the best group of guys I had ever met? I couldn’t so I didn’t. Instead, I joked about how happy I would be not to see their grumpy faces anymore. I joked that I was going to be sitting on a tropical beach in less than a month while they were in full-fledged arctic winter.
There was a chance I would be coming back so I steadied myself with the possibility of seeing them all again. I nearly cried saying goodbye to Courtney but I managed to hold it together. I was about to start a new adventure I would be spending the next couple of months in Central America. So I chose to think about that to keep my emotions in check. It was scary to go back to the real world I didn’t feel quite ready. At that moment the 6 months had seemed to of flown by.
