Latest Update: August 10, 2001 by Ben Marcus

21:14 ALASKA TIME FRIDAY AUGUST 10, 2001 DINING ROOM OF THE CARIBOU INN

ODOMETER
TRIP METER
MONEY

It's still light outside and Ike is running around looking out for grizzly bear and I'm inside talking to Shane McIntyre, watching sports on the TV. Go Giants. They just lost.

This isn't the Shane McIntyre who wrote the article on Sakhalin Island for Surfer's Journal. This is the Shane McIntyre who is a pilot up in Alaska and whose e-mail address is windtalker (same title of a movie that Brock worked on) and who happens to know two guys who are flying to Kamchatka on Magadan to go bear hunting on Sunday the 19th. The flight we probably won't be going on, by the way.

(Oops, just had to run outside to get a photo of Mr. Brown. Gus came running in shouting there was a grizzly just outside the door. I ran outside and there was Mr. Brown, just cruising around. I worried about Ike and then got the camera and took some photos. That's my first grizzly.)

Gus is outside trying to sell his motto stickers for $1, also watching out for grizzly bear. Well, he just saw one, see above.

Now I'm back in and Shane is debating calling his Russian wife but he's not going to because he'll get a rash of shit.

Gus just put Ike in the car and now he's off to sell mottos again.

It's been a long day. I think I'm in shock. If I don't make any sense, forgive me.

Was it today that we drove from Coldfoot to here? Seems like a million years ago already. I'm in Prudhoe Bay, oil central. I need a shave and a shampoo and I don't have any money and I don't know about this trip and I might not have enough gas to get back to Fairbanks but, as they say, it's all good.

Where am I? What am I doing? Time to make some sense.

This was one of those Alaska days. Driving, driving driving. A dozen different terrains, a dozen different climates. We drove from Coldfoot all the way to Prudhoe Bay. We met a nice Athabascan woman standing guard duty in very cold weather with no protection. We hit a million potholes at 65 MPH. We caked the van in mud. We saw a shitload of different terrain, dozens of rivers, talked to backpackers, argued about ANWR, and drove about 300 miles through the mud and the blood and the beer.

What a day. I can't remember it all but I have to because I want to write a great story about ANWR and submit it to The New Yorker and make that mag.

Is that asking too much? Naw, I could do it.

Long day. Have I said that? Shane is telling me about some hermit guy he knows who lights his coffee with a flame-thrower. Lots of good stories, all around.

I like my grizzly bear story. There it was, walking through the parking lot. I could have walked out of the door of this place and into its arms.

This place is the dining room of the Caribou Inn, which kind of reminds me of the Nostromo from Alien. This is a place for tourists and itinerant oil-field workers. It's low ceilings and humming machines and low tones and tired, crusty-looking people. I fit right in.

We've been hanging around here all day, mooching food and coffee, listening to conversations.

Earlier I watched a video and listened to a spiel given by a tour guide. He said that the longer the oil company delays drilling ANWR the better, because the technology gets better every year. Less and less destructive, etc. etc. Heard a lot but I'm too tired to relate it all. Hope I remember it all if I try to write this thing.

Anyway, drove in from Coldfoot through territory that reminded me of the English moors. There were lots of trucks camped by creeks, but not really any people around.

At one point we had to stop for some road construction and got into a conversation with a nice Indian-looking woman who was freezing her butt off for $20 an hour. Gus tried to sell her a motto and then get her phone number and he failed on both points.

I talked to her and found out she was Athabascan and from a town called Beaver and she was getting sour on her job. I thought it unchivalrous that her company would make her stand outside without protection, but she was getting paid well.

We talked about travel and the world and I let Ike out to run and Gus walked up and down the growing line of trucks selling his motto for $1 a piece. We were in a nice area just above a camp called Happy Valley. A couple of helicopters went by and some airplanes and eventually the pilot car showed up and we got rolling.

I should do a better job of describing the terrain we passed through, but there was so much of it I've forgotten most of it. There was just a lot of it and like the Moors in England it was mossy below and foggy above. It was also very, very clean. The rivers were clean and when you consider there was several billions of dollars of stainless-steel pipeline running through it, and millions of gallons of oil running through that, those things left very little mark that extended within 50 feet beyond the pipeline and the road.

The Alyeska Pipeline is elegant. An engineering marvel but also a work of art.

If I do that article on ANWR, I want to compare it to the Christo thing I saw in Los Angeles many years ago. Cristo installed thousands of big, yellow umbrellas in the hills around Gorman. I went up to see it and was blown away by the scale and industry of it. There were A LOT of yellow umbrellas, and the things were BIG.

That's the same effect I got from the pipeline. Just unbelievable that men could build something that big and expensive and elaborate.

Anyway, the driving was mostly muddy with occasional nice patches of road, and the weather was mostly crappy with occasional stretches of semi-clear.

I don't remember what time we pulled into Prudhoe Bay, but the place was bigger than I thought. There were buildings and industry as far as the eye could see. We tried to drive down one road out to the ocean, but the lady turned us down. I let Ike turn on the charm, but it still didn't work.

We ended up at this place, and this is where I've been hanging around all day. I just had a piece of pie and some coffee and I'm debating paying, because we have to have enough money to get back to Fairbanks.

I feel like a grifter, sort of, especially with Gus selling those motto stickers for $1.

But things will work out okay.

When I got to this Caribou Inn I checked e-mail and got some okay news from everyone. Looks like the departure date is moved up to August 26, but that should be okay. It might give others a chance to jump on board.

I called George Nikitin and we had a laugh about all the dingalings having trouble with their visa applications, but I think everything will work out okay.

I don't know. I'm too tired and mal-nourished to worry about it anymore. Whatever happens, happens.

I had a good chat with Shane Macintyre, a pilot from Oregon who is up here doing aerial mapping. He can't talk about what he is doing much, but he's a nice guy. He lives in Sisters, Oregon and has a Russian wife he met in Kiev. Her father was a KGB station chief and she has military training. Maybe she can show me how to strip clean my SV-98 single-bolt-action sniper rifle when I bring it back. Not.

Anyway, it's now midnight and it's still light outside. People are starting to look at me a little funny in the hotel, and people are concerned about my cat. Going to download the bear photos and send this, and go get some sleep. Not sure what we are doing tomorrow. There aren't a lot of places to go here, so we may just turn around and do that whole horrendous drive back.

Some people from Texas just came by asking about Ike.

"He's lived so far. I trust him."

"Okay, y'all have a good night."

What else? Too tired to remember. Saw two lynx yesterday, did I mention that?

In a message dated 8/11/2001 10:41:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time, ken@coolidentity.com writes:

Hey ben
What kind of camping stuff do I need and what is supplied? I don't want to buy a bunch of shit I don't need if you know what I mean..

BRING A TENT AND A SLEEPING BAG, FOR SURE. WARM CLOTHES.

I DON'T KNOW THAT ANYTHING IS SUPPLIED.

I'M BRINGING A TWO-BURNER STOVE AND PROPANE. YOU MIGHT WANT TO BRING POTS AND PANS AND UTENSILS AND SUCH

Also is anyone going to be videoing? I have a Canon L1 that I can bring and shoot with if need be. It's not Digi but its great. It's the old version of the XL 1 that is Digi.

BRING VIDEO. I THINK FLEA HAS A MINI-DV, BUT THE MORE THE MERRIER

Also is there going to be any where we can charge digi batteries? I just need a lighter outlet. I have a bunch of batteries but a back up would be cool.

NOT SURE ABOUT THAT. IN THE CITY, NO PROBLEM. IN THE STICKS, PROBLEM. IM BUYING BACKUPS FOR ALL MY COMPUTER STUFF.

Oh yeah, call me an idiot but whare are you going to email Palladini shit from Kamchatka?

FROM PETROPAVLOVSK THERE ARE CONNECTIONS.

It never fails to make me laugh when climbers say it is the test of human endurance and all that blah blah blah tough guy climber shit about climbing everest. If it's so hard why don't you leave the sattelite phone, laptop, gps, batteries for the stuff behind and your pack would weigh about 80 pounds less. It's so hard to climb everest oh wait you lead this pitch I just got an email from my girlfriend and my sponsor sent me a postcard from "The Edge" collection of internet cards.

YOU FUNNY MAN.

If I am ever rich I will finance an expedition of sherpas only to climb everest and have them hang out on top in Budweiser foam beer hats( the ones with a beer on each side and a tube to their mouth) a smoke, and a lawn chair so they could greet all the cool guy climbers and laugh at them.

SEE ABOVE.

Sorry got off on a tangent there.

UNDERSTANDABLE.

Counting the days.

ME TOO.

Oh so I can count right, what day are we supposed to be in AK for the tidal bore thing?

LOOKS LIKE WE AREN'T GOING UNTIL THE 26TH OF AUGUST NOW, SO SHOOT FOR GETTING THERE THE 23RD TO DO THE BORE THE 24TH AND 25TH

Ken