Kathleen Ritter:  

I am a supervisor for housekeeping at Oliktok Point/ENI, Alaska. I work for Arctic Catering and have been for quite some time. A lot of people ask me how cold it gets in the winter time, well, on the coldest days, it gets -80. that's just darn cold, in the middle of summer, it gets up to 70. That's a 150 degree change in tempeture!! We dress for the weather. I have 19 houekeepers that I supervise, and they are wonderful. We spend any where from 2 weeks to 4 weeks up here at a time, with either a week or 2 off. We work 12 hour days, 7 days a week untill we go home. Summer is 24 hours of sun, and well, the winter? We do not see the sun for 3 months. There are no trees up here, it's just flat land, Our camp is right on the Beaufort Sea, so there are a lot of huge Ice bergs, and once in a while can see a polar bear. They are BIG!! A lot of caribou, geese, and the giant mosquito lives up here as well. As flat as it is, we get the wind, we catigorize the wind by phases. Phase 1 is windy, the vehicles must use caution when driving, and we can still fly out in this weather. Phase 2 means that when vehicles leave, they must convoy, at least 3 vehicles, visibility is pretty bad, and can still fly, then of course we have phas...Expand for more