Chilled Muktuk with Crackers

Tonight I went on a short trek in the darkness, not far maybe a mile and a half. But a mile and half with a -35 wind chill can be quite the mile and a half. All through the snow of course. Sometimes the snow was slick like ice, the way it gets in the arctic. Sometimes it was piled high and I had to wade through it.

At times the journey was perilous. At one point a rider on a snowmachine came perilously close to me. He came flying around the curve and couldn't see me until he was right on me. He yelled something, probably about me being a stupid white man. I'm not sure. But he kept going and the snow from his wake covered me. I kept walking.

The moon was full tonight. But you could only barely see it. Most of it was covered by the clouds that blanket the North Slope most of the year. So I could see a glimmer of the moon, but it was not putting off enough light for me to see by.

Like a fool white man, I had left my gloves at home. I kept them shoved into the pockets of my parki to stay warm.

Finally, I saw it. There in the darkness, like a beacon, shone a lone florescent light. I headed towards it. I had to go off the path to get to it and that meant walking through the snow. And the snow is deep. We've had a blizzard blow in off the frozen wasteland which the Russians calls the Chukchi Sea for the past week. It had blown itself out last night, but the snow was still all around.

I waded through the snow and made my way to the house, the house with the light. I cautiously entered through the arctic entree-way and slowly opened the interior door.

A woman behind the counter greeted me,"Your usual?" she asked.

"Yes I'll have a bacon triple cheeseburger with fries. I also want an energy drink."

I handed her 25 dollars to cover the cost of the burger combo. Then I set down to wait twenty minutes for her to cook my burger. Of course the walk home was miserable since I had to carry my burger sack and was not wearing gloves.