Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay

We arrived in Deadhorse late in the day, just in time for dinner. Deadhorse like Coldfoot is a work camp, but for the oil workers. Deadhorse is an airport built by Alaska so the airport would be on public land. Just north of Deadhorse is the land-lease areas for the Oil companies and the contractors that work in the area. The whole area, referred to as Prudhoe Bay, is similar to an industrial park, but well maintained. The access to the Arctic Ocean is via a tour bus run by the security company for the area as the land-lease property is private property. We posed while dipping our finger in the Arctic Ocean. It wasn't as cold as it looks but the mosquitoes were numerous an we put our hoods on to help keep the mosquitoes off. The oil isn't pumped out of the ground, it is pushed out with pressure by injecting the natural gas and water into the ground so there are pipes from the wells and pipes back to the well.

The flight home was nice. We flew over the same land that we had driven through for the last two days. It looked much the same until we came to the mountains and the rivers. They look very different from the air. Darlene was apprehensive about flying on a small plane but boarded like a champ.

Tomorrow it is on to the the inside passage which means no cell coverage for a couple of days.