The University sits on a hill. From my room I look out over the plain where the buildings in Fairbanks rise (barely) above the spruce forest. It is a beautiful place, with statues spread around campus and a Museum I hope to visit when I return.

I spent the day getting the bike checked out, renting a satellite phone (which I hope I will not have to use -- no cell phone service North of Fairbanks), and buying provisions . Helpful locals wander by as I clean and adjust bits and pieces of equipment. They comment on what bike they drove, or wished they drove, or on how the region North of Coldfoot has a lot of bears, grizzlies actually, or on how mile 120 to 130 of the Dalton Highway is reportedly soft, whatever that means.

I decided to ramp up my knowledge of Pipeline lore, and drive out to the Alyeska visitor center to see the pipeline exhibit.   There was no one there. The exhibit is the actual pipeline, 48 inches in diameter, stretching North and South through the forest. The crude oil is transported 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, the US's northernmost ice free port. The oil is warm as it is pumped South. Sometimes the pipeline is put below ground, when the earth is stable. A lot of the time the conduit is above ground, when the material below is partly ice which could melt and destabilize the pipe. Built between 1975 and 1977 at huge cost, it was a response (in part) to the energy crisis of the 1970's and helped the US guarantee its sources of crude.

Oil was discovered in the North Slope of Alaska in 1968, on government land. The oil companies decided a pipeline was the best way to extract it. However, controversy around unresolved Native land claims and environmental issues would prevent the pipeline from being built until 1975.   This was the year of the Arab oil embargo and gas shortages in the US. The President finally signed the authorizing Act in the Fall.   The enormous $ 8 billion construction project, $10 million per mile, was privately financed. It employed some 28,000 at its peak, and had more of an impact on Alaska than all the Gold Rushes combined.

So, if this is so important, I guess I will have to drive up and see what all the talk is about. I leave tomorrow.