On the Shore of the Arctic Ocean

It was a privilege to spend the 2014-2015 academic year and summer on sabbatical at the University of Hawai’i in Honolulu. During the last week of July, I stood on the spectacular beach at Kailua near sunset and said to myself “wow, wow, wow”. A week later, on my way home, I stood on the dramatic shore of the Arctic Ocean in Barrow Alaska, the northernmost U.S. settlement in a 45°F rain, a comparably singular experience. The sun set that the day for the first time since May, but due to the cloud cover, I never saw it, as an undirected light illuminated the sky and mud and utilitarian buildings. I returned to the beach the next day, and the heavy winds of the night before had littered the shore with meter-sized icebergs. The native Iñupiat people still practice subsistence whaling, and Barrow is home to some Pacific islanders, including Hawaiians.