Moonlight on Prudhoe Bay

Posted on May 24, 2019 Updated on May 24, 2019

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The moon is full again.  Its brilliance lights up the Phoenix desert where I now live.  In an instant, though, I am transported back to my first night on Alaska’s North Slope Prudhoe Bay where the oil companies are still drilling for oil.  It was sometime in 1995.  I worked for an Alaska Native corporation which contracted with the oil companies to help maintain the oil fields.

There is no city or town in Prudhoe Bay, only oil field camps for the workers and the stations to where the oil is pumped to begin its journey south through the 800-mile pipeline to the terminal station in Valdez.  When I was first hired, I flew with other oil field crew members from Anchorage on a chartered jet wearing sorrel boots and a fur-lined parka.  It was in the dead of winter, and when we landed in Prudhoe Bay, it was dark, the air seemed frozen still and the temperature way below freezing.

Snow blanketed the entire treeless and flat tundra, as far as you could see toward the horizon.  The vast snowscape was sparsely interrupted by terminal stations, large ones and small ones, that looked like dots and dashes on the vast white landscape, until you drove right up to stations and saw the massive tanks, pipes, heavy machinery, housed in fabricated buildings built somewhere else and shipped to the fields.

In the morning the employees were expected to be on the right bus to be transported to their area of work at the oil plants and terminal stations throughout Prudhoe Bay.  Some supervisors and managers had their own trucks that they drove to and from work stations.  The trucks were plugged into electric sockets and ran non-stop 24/7.  If not, the batteries and engines would freeze.

Many have called the icy northern arctic as God’s forsaken country because it can pluck you right out of your skin and freeze your heart cold in a matter of minutes.  It is a cold that commends respect from all of life because it can quickly chill the warm blood that flows in constant motion, keeping the human body alive and functioning.  This cold could freeze your breath in mid-air and halt your life motion in minutes, if you are not careful, and we were reminded of that threat during our safety training every day.

My first day on the job was most interesting.  Before I boarded the bus some nice people who knew I was a newbie told me to pick up the brown bags at the huge cafeteria and fill it up with whatever I wanted for lunch.  Sandwiches.  Salads.  Drinks.  Chips.  Whatever I wanted I could have…free of charge.  So I followed the crowd, packed my brown bag, found my bus and boarded.  The bus drove along the snow ploughed road strangely winding around corners when I could  not even see curbs nor obstacles.  The sun was not peeking anywhere but the rays lighted and glittered the tops of the snow-covered tundra.  It was eerily beautiful.  We continued to made several turns through the treeless tundra until I asked the begging question of a newbie, “If this is so flat why can’t we just drive in a straight line to the station?”

Laughter broke out.  I quickly learned that the tundra is not as dead as it seemed.  In the summer the frozen ponds under the snow melted and that the tundra was home to many special and nearly extinct birds which the workers avoided at all cost.  Roads meandered around special ponds and bird breeding areas.  Respecting the land and its importance to the Native people, employees were not allowed to even walk on the tundra.  Of course, I would not see all the beauty now hidden under the snow until summertime.

The bus made a couple of stops and few employees jumped off at their respective work terminals before we headed for our large work station.  My job was assisting the electrical manager and his crew.  I was definitely the female in the female position serving all the manly construction men workers.  [That is for another blog.]  I quickly learned about the project which included timelines, valve numbers, employee names, timecards and schedules, meetings and reports to the oil companies and was given a tour of the entire facility.

The oil companies contracted with many other companies to keep the oil moving.  Every contractor and oil company had their special logos on their hardhats, work overalls and caps.  It was a big deal to collect caps because people, mainly men, came from all over the world to work on “the slope.”  They brought hats from their cities and towns, but most especially for the USA men, they brought their favorite sports team and university or college ball caps.  That was beautiful!  My favorite in my eventual collection was West Virginia University.  Great colors and logo!

The crews always had some competition going on.  I attended the University of Washington (the huskies), and there were several engineers who attended Washington State University (the cougars).  We were cross state rivals, and it wasn’t unusual for me to come to work and see cougar pictures plastered all over my office.  We had our own ways of keeping ourselves humored.

A big daily issue was having enough crew to work on each project and measure progress by day’s end.  In simplistic terms, as contractors, a weekly/daily plan was submitted to the “boss” oil company to show how we’re accomplishing what they want us to do.  Period.  We were on a BP oilfield at that time.  So on my first day the crew status had become somewhat of a challenge and I worked late and missed my bus back to the camp.  Missing the bus is a great no-no, especially on your first day.  There was not another metro bus in the next hour to catch.  I was a workaholic and never a clock watcher, and I was working intently and forgot to watch the time.

The electrical manager, my boss, asked, “How are you going to get to camp?”

“I don’t know.  May I use a truck?”  I asked.

“Get her a truck,” he said, as he thanked me for staying to finish the work we were doing.

“Do you know your way back?  You know where you’re going?”  He asked with a frown on his face.

“No, I don’t know the way, but I’ll find it.”  I responded.

“Are you kidding me?  You don’t know your way?”

“Well, this is my first day here!”

With that I pulled on my sorrel boots and fur lined parka and followed one of the guys to my truck which had been running continuously over 24 hours and was really warm inside.  The guy gave me quick instructions and unplugged my truck. I said thanks, backed up and started my trip into the dark.

My first thought was, “Wow!  My first day and I have my own truck.  I bet I’m the only woman with my own truck!”

The excitement quickly faded as I drove onto the tundra without any road signs.  There are no real road signs.  This is all private property.  I drove in silence except for the high humming of the truck which has been running 24/7 for I don’t know how long.  I felt warm and safe in the truck as long as I had lots of fuel.  The ride that morning from the camp could not have been more than 20 minutes.  Or was it 30 minutes?  I wasn’t paying much attention.

I concentrated on looking for familiar turns as I drove at a slow pace along a straight stretch of road with no turns in sight.  To my surprise, instead of panicking I became immensely aware that I was driving on the northernmost part of the North American continent.  I was literally on top of the world.  All by myself.  No one else around.  I could’ve been the last and only person on planet earth.  That’s what it felt like.  No human structure or sign of any other human was in sight.  But I just knew I was not alone.  A window opened to a sphere like opening a gift and feeling overwhelmed and surprised at receiving such an awesome and priceless gift.  It was more than luck….it was being at the right place at the right time…whatever experience you want to call it.  I just knew I was “there,” or “here” or perhaps “everywhere.”

I wanted to stop, turn the engine off and just sit there, but I knew the tragic and dangerous cost if the truck stalled or didn’t start up again, so I didn’t.  Instead I drove slowly, looked at the huge moon which I hadn’t noticed earlier.  The moon lit the dry snow and transformed it into a fairy-like land with sparkles of cold air and snow light drifting slowly all about the truck.  A sudden movement in the snow startled me and I watched a white snow fox stop at the edge of the road to watch me drive by.  It was white on white and without movement I would have missed him completely.

I looked up into the sky and the big dipper hung like a wind chime that I could reach out and touch.   Unsuspected tears filled my eyes as the stars, clear and sparkly, playfully smiled at me. The canopy of stars glittered at my fingertips and I felt like I could move them around if I wanted to, like the lights on my Christmas tree.  The moon, my lantern and guide, hung like my table lamp at home.  The beauty was too much for me to comprehend and absorb.  I was caught in the middle of a rush of warm, crisp universal embrace between space and earth; it was a place where I witnessed sky and earth embrace not in the tropical breezes that caress your face or the dive into the warm Pacific Ocean of Hawai’i where I was born.  It was not the fresh mountain air and the chirping of birds that surrounded me whenever I sought solace away from the cacophony of a busy life.

This place of frozen ponds and treeless landscapes displayed a beauty that welcomed me, embraced me, and even spoke to me.  It came from a familiar place inside of me that said, “See?  I made this, too.  And all the beauty of earth is for you to enjoy.  Peace be with you.”

I don’t know how long I drove along that stretch of road until I saw another movement, a caribou, standing in the snow.  I didn’t question its existence in the intense cold.  I only saw a creature who shared the glory I beheld all around me.

The next turn was the road to the camp.  I don’t know how I got there, or how many turns I had made.  I could see the perimeter lights and the road grew familiar.  I drove into camp, found an open parking space, clumsily got out of the truck in my heavy sorrels I was’t yet used to, plugged my truck in to the hanging socket and trampled through the snow to the camp.  I stepped into the complex and for an instant stopped to get refocused to the present moment–blurred movement of people around me–someone getting an ice cream cone at the ice cream machine (need to remember that); people in sweat suits going to the gym; guys watching tv; a line at the phone.  I pulled out my room key to look for the number of my room and waded through the complex seeking silence and rumination.

That night I could hardly contain the glorious moments of awe and wanted desperately to remember every part of it—the silence, the darkness, the light, the shimmering air, the glittering snow, the hanging stars at my fingertips and the weightless moon suspended in mid-air lighting my way through the tundra, guiding me back to camp.

I’ve learned that whenever I try to hold on to those moments, they quickly fade away and elude me even as written words on limited space on a paper often miss the mark in describing the experience.  But when I embrace, breathe in and enjoy those times, and impress them through my thoughts onto my soul and spirit, then let them float away into the fiber and frequencies of the limitless universe for others to enjoy and discover…..they come back to find me again…..and they are always close by.

The Creator creates only the best for those whom He loves.