E-mail travels from North Pole to South Pole and back.

Dr. Dale Collins, M.D.

Recently my wife and I noted that our accumulation of miles on Alaska Airlines entitled us to a round trip anywhere on their system. “Let’s go to the top end”, said we, “to a place we wouldn’t ordinarily visit”. Barrow Alaska, 3000 miles from our San Diego home was it .

Barrow is the northernmost community in America, 330 miles above the Arctic Circle. It is a fascinating and friendly Inupiat Eskimo village on the shore of the ice covered Arctic Ocean. No roads exist to Barrow, all supplies are brought by plane. No wonder milk is seven dollars per gallon!

While in Barrow, I arranged to e-mail my daughter who, with her husband, works at McMurdo Sound Base in Antarctica. The e-mail exchange is attached. At that contact moment I realized that these two instantly linked spots ( via satellite ) were located as far apart as humans live on earth and yet about 12 to 20 hours of flying from Southern California take you to either location. Only a trip to an extraterrestrial body would be more distant - yet a fairly brief plane ride encompasses the earth! It seems the world has shrunk in one generation! As the Eskimos say “Arigaa” (“ I like it “).

Original Message

From: King Eider Inn [mailto:eider@barrow.com]

Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 11:31 AM

To: @mcmurdo. >

Subject: Daddy from Barrow

Hi Carey and Dave- Here we are in the Arctic writing you in the Antarctic! It is a small world indeed. I guess we couldn’t get any farther away without going into space. I wonder if you or maybe grandchild Acacia may do that in your lifetimes?

We met a gentleman on the plane to Seattle who is not only a deadheading Alaska Air pilot but is heavily involved in a dot com company- really a delightful guy. He was interested in our e-mail message from A to AntA. We would love a reply to this in the other direction if you pick this up in the next hour or so.It is not as cold here as your location (about 38 or down to 28 with windchill). We have all the sunlight for 24 hours while you get the darkness at present. That means you see the Southern lights but we don’t see the Northern ones!

Tried some seal meat. Pretty good-the equivalent to your Arctic Cod perhaps. Must end this and thank the King Eider Inn www.kingeider.net, http://www.kingeider.net for the use of their computer. A nice new Inn and warm!

Love from us both-Daddy and Mom

King Eider Inn

From: “Collins, Carey” < @mcmurdo

To: “‘King Eider Inn”’

Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2000 4:16 PM

Subject: Hello from Antarctica! To 0 Collins

Hello there-

What a treat to get an email from the top of the world!! I don’t think we could get much farther away, unless we were working at the South Pole Station (another 800 miles south of McMurdo).

The weather sounds nice in Barrow. Today on Ross Island, Antarctica we have an ambient temperature of -11 F, but very blustery so the windchill is down to -57. Yesterday (Sunday, our one day off for the week) we had gorgeous clear and calm weather. The stars were beautiful, and at midday I took a walk so I could look at the glow on the horizon. Lovely orange color- proof that the sun will indeed rise again on August 18. It is still very dark from about 5 PM to 5 AM, so we can still watch auroras during the nighttime hours.

Glad that you are enjoying 24 hour sunlight! Dave loved being a shuffle driver here during the summers, since even on the swing or graveyard shift the sun was still cheerfully shining all the time. I can’t wait to see some pictures of Barrow and environs. I hope you are having a great time!

Thank you, King Eider Inn, for the use of your email

Happy Travels!

Love,

Carey and Dave

McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Photos from Barrow and McMurdo Sound.

Click on the photo to see a larger image.