Bonfires, Beaches, and Border Collies

First, I have a confession. After some research, meaning I started closely listening to my friends who are Iñupiaq speakers, I figured out that quaq is not what I was told it was. (Which causes me to wonder if I was being punked, except Ashton Kutcher is nowhere nearby). It was during a conversation that someone switched from English to Iñupiaq. She was talking about her ice cellar (the gist of the conversation was joking about the person she was talking to going into her ice cellar to steal some maktak and some quaq). I don't even know how I understood this exchange in Iñupiaq (I do know it happens alot during new language acquisition), but the bottom line is that quaq is frozen whale meat. Obviously, you won't see a leg on frozen whale meat as we clearly see in this picture, which you'll recognize from the previous entry when I wrote about quaq. Well, now you have another Iñupiaq word to add to your growing vocabulary...tuttu. Tuttu = caribou. Now, it's making some sense!

I'm beginning to realize that Barrow is a well-kept secret. Before I moved here,  I thought Barrow = barren. Okay, there is that aspect, but there is also this beauty that is breathtaking.

We've been having unusually warm weather. Now, don't laugh when I say warm and 45°F in the same sentence. For Barrow, that's shirtsleeve weather. The day starts out a bit cloudy, or foggy and then we get the evening.

About 9:00 p.m. last night, we looked out the window and couldn't help but throw on our shoes and run across the street. We were not alone on the beach. You see, the Barrow equation is:  good weather + sunset + pallettes = Bonfire. Keep in mind, folks are still unpacking barge orders and pallettes abound. They wind up on the beach and locals take advantage of them to enjoy these "Indian Summer" evenings.

Oh yeah, folks just drive right onto the beach. In fact, I don't even notice tracks on the beach anymore; it's just part of the scenery, but you can see in all of our pictures, the beach is just another roadway. It's one of the things I really love about Barrow. There are far fewer bureaucratic restrictions on life. For instance, there truly are no signs that say, "No dogs", or "No Motorized Vehicles Allowed". So we run the dogs and dodge the 4-wheelers and the occasional pickup truck. It's all about sharing the space.

We're enjoying this bonus weather. The cold is not far off. Not just any cold, bitter cold with wind mixed in. So we are basking on our beach thinking we're the luckiest people in the world because the ocean is outside our front door.

And when the wind kicks up to 40 mph, and it's snowing sideways, and I'm wearing my facemask, scarf, gloves, 4 layers of shirts and 3 layers of pants, I'll look back on this day and be able to smile (until my teeth start to chatter).