Through a cold, gray drizzle we landed in Kotzebue this afternoon, about 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle. One of the archaeologists, Ian from Oregon, and I met our BLM contact John Erlich at the airport. He drove us to our BLM house and also to the grocery store. Ian almost fell down when he saw the price of groceries. A gallon of milk can cost $13! I bought some potatoes and an onion to pan fry. They were not too expensive.
We put on our rain coats and went for a walk, exploring the town. It has about 3,200 people, most of whom are native Alaskans. Despite the drizzle, teens go zipping past on their 4-wheelers on the gravel roads. Men pulled up on shore in 20-foot aluminum boats. We were impressed to come across a softball game! These people are really tough. Most folks in the lower 48 would be inside drinking cocoa on a day like this.
Some of the buildings are quite old. You can see the old logs and tar paper used to make them warm inside. But there are also many new buildings such as the hospital. A woman named Ruth who is a nurse invited us inside where we saw a wonderful display of native crafts and tools including several interesting harpoons. The counter is solid jade.
Kotzebue was named after Otto von Kotzebue who explored the area for Russia in 1818. The peninsula its on has long been used as a meeting site for trading native people, who called it Kikiktagruk or Qikiqtagruk which means "almost an island" in the Inupiat language. Archaeological evidence shows they met here at least as far back as the 1400s.
We'll be here for a couple days while the last plans are figured out. Then we fly in a Cessna Caravan on to the Red Dog mine. There we'll begin shuttling people and gear out to our remote site at Raven Bluff in the R-44 helicopter.
Ian agreed to swim in the Chukchi Sea with me before we leave. Watch for photos!
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