BP Gathering Center 1

     As the gathering centers were coming to an end, we had to remove everything from inside the buildings and put it outside in storage. The big day was soon to arrive. Last minute checks and little tweaks making sure everything will go off with out a hitch. Even the flare pads are roaring, burning off the excess natural gas. (The flare pad roaring full blast) The flare stacks were about 50 feet tall and about 6 feet in diameter, and the gas coming out of them made flames over twice as tall as the stacks. The noise from the flare pads burning off the gas could be heard for miles and seen in all directions. All the tests, and pre runs went off with out a hitch, we were ready for the big day.

      The day arrived and the oil began pumping to pump station one just down the road the first stop in the pipeline on its way to Valdez. As the oil was being pumped we could not hear a sound, it moved through the pipes very quiet. The monitoring control room was busy at the gathering center as they could control the flow of oil from here or from some place on the other end of the pipeline in Valdez. A major achievement had been accomplished. It was not long after the oil started that the animals started to arrive up here on the North Slope. The thing that amazed us was the amount of caribou that came this time, more then all the other years together. Just the opposite of what the environmentalist claimed would happen, this was the largest migration in over 100 years and the pipeline didn't slow them one little bit. After the oil started flowing we geared up on a new site called GCIII as the gathering center I which we just finished was completed, and GCII was almost done just a few months away. Prudhoe Bay was changing shape and starting to become a town now.

      One thing I learned to do while working up there was to write letters. I would write everyday to my family at home. I called once a week to say hi and see how everyone was and so I could hear there voices again. I also made sure my check arrived OK. I used to look forward to my goody boxes the wife sent me. I would get some of my favorite snacks and pictures from home along with some fresh baked goodies. I got a chance to read a lot too especially in the wintertime, as we did not go out except only when necessary. I only had two carpenters that worked for me as roommates, as they did try to keep the supervision apart from the working hands. In August of 77, I was getting kind of homesick and things started to wind down. This is when I decided to come home for an extended vacation about 4 months long. Then in January the coldest part of the winter I would go back again and work as a carpenter. The crews were winding down and I got to see a lot of my old friends again. We were really coming along on the new gathering center it would be finished in a couple of months. I left for good that summer after I had an accident while working. We were erecting a scaffold in the top of a modular building and we were passing scaffolding pieces up the metal stair way to the top about 40 feet high. I was about 1/3 of the way up when one of the men at the top dropped a section pole and it came down and landed on my hand. End first while I was holding on to the handrail. It broke my hand my writing hand at that. It was hard to do anything so I left and came home to Arizona for good. Some times I miss being up there but the cold winters I don't miss at all. The friendships I made and the wildlife is something I will never see again. The scenery was spectacular but the winters are too harsh for this old Arizona man now.

      One special memory I have is walking out into the tundra into a small herd of caribou and taking their picture. They did not really do anything they just stood there, as I moved slowly as not to scare them. They were a lot bigger than I thought. To see one close up all we had to do was reflect the sun at them in a mirror and they would come to investigate. (I took this while walking out and into the herd the only danger was from being stepped on) The antlers were so huge it's a wonder they could hold their heads up. Another memory I have is of the poor little arctic fox. The scientist up there was tagging them to see how they migrate and survive in the arctic. Some of the poor little fox used to tingle all over as they put lots of tags on them. We used to say they would scare their food away from the noise, and we did not see how this was helping them at all. Another special moment was one day in the dead of winter I found a group of men with lights shining on a huge seal that was crawling inland a long way from the ocean. Come to find out from the wildlife people it was an Atlantic seal and it was crawling inland to die of old age. They took it back east to Canada where it came from, as it was most likely sick and not dying like it may have thought. The poor thing was most likely freezing to death, as it must have been 50 below.

     One sad memory I have is that of a teamster named Steve who used to make 3 quarters (25-cent pieces) rotate around his hand in his fingers at the same time. One day during a white out he was hooking up the chain to the lead car bumper when the bus backed up and with his hand through the chain and it pulled his hand right off. Everyone on the bus saw him standing there and waving to back up. Another incident was of a pipefitter. I saw him in the restroom shooting up some drugs, and a little later in the lunch hall he fell over dead from an overdose.