This was the end of our time above the Arctic Circle. Don, our guide, drove us out to the airport to meet our plane. The Sheriff was there to check the incoming passengers to make sure that no one had any alcohol or drugs, which are illegal in Kaktovik. I had a long talk with the sheriff and learned a lot about the town and how it functions. Then we just had to wait for our pilot to do “everything” that needed doing for our flight to Fairbanks.

The pilot had to spend a substantial amount of time to load all of our luggage. He put a substantial amount of luggage in the nose of the airplane, especially large suitcases and packs. He carefully filled the compartments right behind the engines. You can see one of those compartments in the first photo. We also still had all of our gear from our camping trip to the parks, all of which had to be taken back to Fairbanks. Next, our pilot had to fill the gas tanks for his return trip, in the second photo.

Our plane only had five seats and there were five of us, so it was a full flight. The pilot suggested that we use the restroom as this was a 2.5 hour, no bathroom flight. I commented about the fact that there was no terminal or anything else at this airport. The pilot just smiled and pointed me the way to the restroom. Talk about a restroom with a view, which you can see in the third photo. That’s the back side of Barter Island, by the way.

I got a much better photo of Kaktovik as we were leaving which you can see in the fourth photo.

We got some great views of the Brooks Range mountains on our flight to Fairbanks. I included one photo.