The light at the end of the world is different. One of the first things I notice when I land in Nome, a tiny port town halfway up the coast of Alaska, is how bright it is. The sun sits on the horizon, its rays making a thin, sharp line that cuts between the grey sky and water. It seems both more and less powerful here, where there are only a few hours of daylight. Canary yellow and smoke are the colours that Rothko would have painted had he lived here.
It’s 10.40am on October 25, but the light makes it feel much earlier. Nome is more like a foreign country than any place I’ve been to in the US. Homes are lifted on stilts, as it’s difficult to build on permafrost. The local paper, the Nome Nugget, leads with stories about Indigenous People’s day and the latest storm to pummel the Bering Strait. The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, perhaps the ultimate He-Man sporting event, finishes in this town, where commerce consists mainly of survival supply. Local bulletin boards advertise fish-skin tanning and gun raffles.
There is one other thing in Nome: the United States Coast Guard. This is the branch of the American military that polices the country’s waters for everything from drug trafficking and illegal fishing to Russian and Chinese spying. The Coast Guard does lots of other things too, like rescue distressed vessels or people, chart new shipping pathways and facilitate scientific research. I’m here to board the USCGC Healy, an “icebreaker” that can navigate through ice nearly 5ft thick. Of the Coast Guard’s fleet of 241 active “cutters”, which are ships 65ft in length or greater, only two are icebreakers.