bizarre Barrow

Barrow is about as far north as you can go in Alaska. In Barrow you can shoot a polar bear if it comes within 500 feet of town. In Barrow the sun sets some night in November and doesn't come back up until mid-March. The winter weather is so unruly that if for some crazy reason you decide to leave your house (which is on stilts because of permafrost), you have to wear goggles. Otherwise you'll be suffering from skin abrasions by the time you reach your car. The sun resurfaces in March, and soon after decides it doesn't want to leave, which means twenty-four hours of daylight. Children stop sleeping and spend all night running around outside while their parents are in bed. The temperature gets up to 50 so the kids go swimming. The only people crazy enough to live there are the natives, who I imagine love the climate, in the way midwesterns love the harsh winters and pacific northwesterns love the rain (they do, don't they? people always seem to be bragging about how bad the weather is where they come from ), and itinerant teachers who like the big paycheck: $50,000 your first year, which makes the annual Alaskan resident dividend of $1000 seem kind of measly. Can't even buy a snow-go with $1000.