An Expedition to Barrow Part III: A walk to Pepe's

Post supermarket exploration, we decided to walk the 2 miles back into town.
I took a few photos of sites along our journey.

This is the one gas station in Barrow. Let's check the prices.

 I don't know about you, but they're not as bad as I was expecting.

We stopped at Brower's Cafe for a break from being brutally abused by the Barrow winds.

Owing to it's Korean ownership, the menu has a wide variety of dishes on offer.

After perusing the menu we decided against kimchi, favoring some good old fashioned hot cocoa to warm our icy fingertips.We all agreed that it was the best hot cocoa from a packet we had ever had. I believe this finding was primarily due to our being a tad cold and wind weary rather than an indication of any particular superiority on the part of this particular hot cocoa. At $3 it was also the most expensive hot cocoa from a packet we had ever had.

You can get fresh soft serve ice cream in Brower's Cafe and the owner swore that its a popular item all year round. I was tempted to get some and eat it outside in my t-shirt, but common sense got the better of me.

The decor is quite nice as well.

Brower's Cafe offers a warm, cozy respite from the wind abuse outside as well as a fine set of whale bones outside.

We headed back out into the elements, continuing our noble quest for Mexican food.

We were not bit a few hundred yards from the cafe when we were stopped by a white SUV, the occupant of which inquired as to whether he could interest us in some baleen. We declined, but I now regret not purchasing some. It was only $10.
We made our way back to the ocean.
Perhaps some of you are curious as to whether or not seagulls frequent the Barrow shores.

That's a resounding "YES!"

I was wearing my bathing suit and at this point had the half-hearted intention of jumping into the silty, cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. It had been a whole-hearted intention at our journey's beginning but my courage was carried gradually away by the 38mph winds. I got so far as getting ankle deep before I admitted my defeat. I mean, with the wind chill and all I would surely be at risk for catching pneumonia. That darn common sense getting in the way of my fun!

Off to Pepe's we go, where the promise of hot Mexican food kept us constant in our journey's goal. But we did stop at Top of the World Hotel, which is next door to Pepe's. Elizabeth and I book people rooms at Top of the World Hotel so we were curious what it was like. It has a fancy flat screen t.v. in the lobby and the staff was super friendly, as was the polar bear along side the t.v.

Bienvenidos a Pepe's fine Mexican restaurant.

Pepe's as everything one could ever desire from a Mexican eatery.

It even has a fun logo.

It does not, however, offer margaritas. This is because Barrow is classified as a "damp" village, which means that you can own alcohol that you have bought elsewhere and brought in but it is illegal to purchase or sell alcohol in Barrow. The other native village I visited, Anaktuvuk Pass, is classified as a "dry" village, which means that it is illegal to own, sell, purchase, or imbibe any alcohol. On a side note, our company almost accidentally aided in the illegal transportation of alcohol to another "dry" native village earlier this season. Some people charted a flight with us and as the pilot was loading their cargo one of the lids popped off revealing cases of whiskey. He called the troopers and it was a bit like the t.v. show cops for a brief bit. Apparently a bottle of cheap whiskey sells for upwards of $100.
Despite the lack of margaritas, I would recommend stopping at Pepe's even if Mexican food doesn't suit your fancy because the staff gives you a pretty sweet certificate verifying your having been to Barrow. Plus they have Bavarian pretzels and these fun, fruity flavored Mexican sodas. I tried guava while Elizabeth went for pineapple. Both proved tasty.

Mission accomplished. Barrow, consider yourself visited. Okay, so now what?
We headed back to the plane to make our 3:30pm departure time.

 I slept the whole way back, so no more exciting photos to show you.
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Some of you might be wondering what people who live in Barrow do for a living. If you're a fan of pretty graphs and tidy statistics then this site will be of interest to you. Basically most people are employed in either the retail or health industries. According to City-Data.com, 9.4% of the Barrow population is Asian and from what I could tell they appear to be busy. As you may recall my mentioning that one of the super markets is Thai owned and it seemed that many of the restaurants are foreign owned as well. In addition to the Thai restaurant, the Korean owned Brower's Cafe, and Pepe's Mexican, there is also Osaka's Resturant [Back off grammar police, that's how they spell it on their sign!], which, contrary to what its name would imply is Korean owned.

 I have also heard reports of an active Filipino population keeping taxis and stores running.
Along with the jobs in hospitality that the few hotels in town offer, there are also institutions and industries where Barrow residents can find an occupation such as the Ilisagvik College that keeps some people busy either as students, faculty or administrators, the Tuzzy Consortium Library which brings book-learning to the Arctic, and utility companies keeping things flowing.In addition, the local florist is busy helping to keep demonstrations of love alive. Not to mention the importance of employees in the communication industry. When you live as far away from the next booming metropolis, which is of course Fairbanks, Alaska, boasting of a population of roughly 35,000, your need to keep in touch demands cable t.v. and high speed internet. Let's give a shout out to our Barrow cable guys working hard to keep Barrow connected! And hey, when things get tough you can always try selling baleen to tourists.
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Thank you, Barrow for showing my friends and me such a fabulous time! Perhaps I will visit you again someday in the Winter if you can promise me that they will have hot cocoa waiting for me in Brower's Cafe.
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For more information about Barrow checkout the following websites;
1) City of Barrow-Farthest North American City
2) Barrow, Alaska on Wikipedia
3) Some random dude named Rob's blog from a winterish visit