{"id":325,"date":"2003-07-31T00:24:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-31T00:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/?p=325"},"modified":"2015-02-03T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T00:21:36","slug":"back-in-the-arctic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/2003\/07\/31\/back-in-the-arctic\/","title":{"rendered":"Back In The Arctic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/blog\/archives\/blogpics\/kotz_frontstreet.jpg?resize=350%2C225\" alt=\"kotz_frontstreet.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I first arrived in Kotzebue in January 1993, landing in the winter darkness in the midst of a snowstorm. I meant to only stay for several months, but ended up living here for two and a half years\u2014first as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mikemedia.com\/writing\/\">editor of the local newspaper<\/a>, then striking out on my own doing desktop publishing work.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m back, now, for two days, and it&#8217;s much milder weather today, if you can call temperatures in the mid-40s in July mild. As the plane landed around 11 a.m., the local temperature was 39 degrees\u2014I was wishing I hadn&#8217;t left my jacket behind as I rushed out of the house in Anchorage this morning.<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/blog\/archives\/blogpics\/kotz_eskimobuilding.jpg?resize=350%2C225\" alt=\"kotz_eskimobuilding.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nKotzebue is a town of about 3,000 people\u2014mostly Inupiat Eskimos &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/kotzpdweb.tripod.com\/kotzmap.html\">located 30 miles above the Arctic Circle<\/a> and not connected to the rest of the world by road. The only way in and out of the area is by plane\u2014Alaska Airlines flies several 737 jets a day between Kotzebue and Anchorage, 550 miles to the south. The town is located on a gravel spit at the tip of the Baldwin Peninsula, which juts out into Kotzebue Sound, which in turn leads into the Bering Sea.<br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/blog\/archives\/blogpics\/kotz_bus.jpg?resize=350%2C225\" alt=\"kotz_bus.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\nKotzebue itself is <a href=\"http:\/\/kotzpdweb.tripod.com\/kotzpics.html\">not what you&#8217;d call picturesque<\/a> (the beautiful areas of this region are across the Sound <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aqd.nps.gov\/grd\/parks\/noaa\/\">on the mainland<\/a>). But I was lucky to have a bit of blue sky blow in tonight, so I went out to see if I could <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/photos\/2003\/kotzebue\/\">capture some shots<\/a> that would put a good face on this excellent little arctic burg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I first arrived in Kotzebue in January 1993, landing in the winter darkness in the midst of a snowstorm. I meant to only stay for several months, but ended up living here for two and a half years\u2014first as editor of the local newspaper, then striking out on my own doing desktop publishing work. I&#8217;m&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/2003\/07\/31\/back-in-the-arctic\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Back In The Arctic<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5heLP-5f","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mikegerhardt.com\/mg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}