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We flew to Barrow June 26th and stayed overnight. We had hoped to rent ATV's, but no one rented them out anymore. We couldn't believe the number of vehicles! And they had taxi service! Gas prices were lower than in Fairbanks. This is because the native corporation subsidizes it and for good reason. Barrow does not get warm like it does here - they heat almost year around. So while most places (us in Fairbanks included) get to save money on fuel in the summer, they don't.
We had stayed nice room that had a great breakfast. We walked around town, and almost saw a polar bear. We went to dinner at Osaka's sushi (good sushi!) and had noticed a bunch of police cars nearby. Come to find out they were watching and scaring a polar bear off! Well, better that we were safe - polar bears are very nasty! Most other bears will leave humans alone, but polar bears definitely consider us on the food chain.
We walked along the Arctic Ocean and could not believe the number of sea shells and starfish. The ice was near the shore, but it isn't really safe to walk on if you don't know what you are doing - so we stayed off it for the most part (and if we did walk on it stayed very close to shore.)
We missed the blanket toss by hours (our plane was late getting to Barrow.) They had just gotten a whale the day before and while we walked around town we saw people preparing whale meat for storing. Barrow really doesn't get warm enough for outside gardens, and a good part of their daily diet is meat. We did get to see some native dancing and listen to some of their music. At the local museum a local dance troop was video conferencing with a children's hospital in Houston, Texas. Other than the people setting up the video conference, we were the only spectators. This was the high point of the trip.
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