A very, very, very, fine house

Husband and I are two of the nearly 4,000 people who live in Barrow. It's the largest village on the North Slope. Of the 7 other villages, I've spent some time in three of them. Recently, I went to Pt. Hope where the population is about 760. It's the second largest village on the Slope (just to give you some perspective). Though the purpose of the trip was to provide training for two days, we had some time to explore the village, particularly the old village. 

It never ceases to boggle my mind...that folks lived in this climate long before central heating and electricity was the norm. Some folks continued to live the traditional way even when these amenities were available. In the old village in Pt. Hope, you can see examples of some of the sod houses pretty much intact, which is unusual in Barrow. The wood-like frame pieces you see in these pictures are actually whalebones. I'm told a person occupied this house as recently as the 1970s. 

At the Winter Entrance

(From Alaskool.org) These houses had two entrances—one for the summer months and one for the winter months —and a window cover of whale or walrus stomach membrane, generally at the center of the roof. The summer entrance led directly into the house and was covered with sod during the winter. The winter entrance was an underground tunnel that acted as a cold trap—people coming into the house first went down three or four steps into the tunnel (or passageway) and then back up into the house. Sod houses were quite adequate to withstand the cold, harsh climate of western Alaska, but they had no heating system—so people kept warm inside by wearing adequate clothing.  

During the warmer months, water sometimes seeped up from the ground and collected inside the house. The people would say, "The water has blown up," and would dig a hole at the corner of the house so the water could collect there. As long as the houses were occupied, the water would dry up. But if no one was living in the house for a while, a lot of moisture and mildew would develop.

A lot of frost would develop on the ceiling of the house in the winter, as a result of people’s breathing. When the frost build-up became very thick, it was scraped off. In the coldest months of the year, ice bulbs formed on the floor and frost on the ceiling. 

Now let your imagination run wild as you think about living in these structures at -40 F for much of the winter!