Full Circle

Series: Full Circle
Day: 3
Country/sea: USA
Place: Nome - Alaska
Book page no: 18

Day 3: Nome

Nome, Alaska, USA
click to enlarge
file size

Moose monument and Bering Sea in quiet mood.

Over the counter in a gift shop across the street I get talking to Richard Benneville. 'Sure there's a booze problem,' Richard nods across the street at a cluster of watering holes - with names like the Board of Trade, the Polaris, the Breakers Bar, the Bering Sea Saloon and the Anchor Tavern. 'Those bars on Front Street take ten and a half million dollars a year.' But he doesn't believe Diomede-style prohibition is the answer. 'The modern Eskimo is changing. They have their own corporations now. They can make up their own minds. There used to be two Alcoholics Anonymous groups here, now there's twenty-two.'

Later, Jim Stimpfle, a local businessman, enlarges on the changes, though with the discretion of a real estate salesman he refers to the Eskimos by their politically correct name: 'This is not a native American town. It's a gold-rush town. A town of outsiders, laid out on the traditional US grid plan. That's why Nome is special and that's why property developers like it.'