Whittier Pt. 2b: The Bucker Building

Of course, once you return from a successful trip to an exotic place everyone wants to go. The rest of the crew loaded up to go on a tour of their own and this time I took the flashlights.



The Buckner was an arcology of sorts with a theater and a bowling alley and a general store and a tunnel system connecting the buildings to each other for winter safety. While the building we saw was mostly in ruins, the movie theater was in surprisingly good shape -- except for the collapsing ceiling -- and because the seats were intact, it had the most visible evidence that humans actually used the place and lived and played and worked there. We didn't find the bowling alley (we suspect it's in the basement) but we did manage to find the kitchens and galleys as well as the lounge on the second floor.




The damage to the building appears to be mostly man made. For example, most of the latrines have had their porcelain smashed to bits (bears do not carry sledgehammers). The copper and metals have been stripped, the fixtures redistributed and any infrastructure remaining falls from lack of support. Hardhats, while not able to protect you from, say an exhaust fan dangling from a single wire, they will protect you from smaller plasters and are recommended when visiting (again, know that you are breaking and entering when you visit so... leave your felons at home).



Buildings and cars tend to be anthropomorphized more than anything and it's easy enough to project a veil of sadness over the site: The building was built by the military but sold in to private hands so there is no money for cleanup or teardown and so it sits on otherwise usable land. Any sort of amusement or pleasure to be taken from it involves the destruction of the building bit by bit by half-bored teenagers, exotic forms of vandalism and clandestine activities (read: drugs, alcohol, sex). It's not even stable enough to be used as a tourist trap and eventually someone will be hurt or killed by falling debris or falling into debris and god knows what will happen then.

Whittier, Pt. 2a: The Buckner Building

Here is a special Halloween bonus set of pictures from the Buckner Building -- the creepy abandoned building in Whittier. Remember that this thing is full of toxins including asbestos and lead paint, all of which continues to decay and decay and rot and blow around in the rooms so not only are you trespassing, you are risking long term health issues with extended exploration. Further, in some of the pictures you can see calcium deposits leeching from the beams and growing in the form of stalactites. Please note that as water seeps into the cracks in the beans and freezes it expands, weakening the structure. It was rightly pointed out that one modest earthquake could send major portions of the building toppling down.



Regardless, the amount of graffiti and man-made destruction is what you would expect for a building of this type and upkeep. There are no panes of glass in the window frames and the arctic winds cause what few doors are left to smash against their frames. The floors are icy and fallen beams and electrical systems lay on the ground with nails and wires sticking straight up; wear thick soles and walk gingerly. Because of the cold it was a challenge to keep my viewfinder from fogging up -- breath control did little good as the heat from my face caused condensation to develop.



I went by myself at first -- not recommended -- and made a plan to stick to the areas where a source of daylight was within ten feet. The decision was mostly practical as I had no flash on me and no flashlight to guide me. This limited me to the western side of the building and use of the rickety external stairs -- also not recommended. It must be said, however, that with the Buckner being the tallest thing in the area the views are lovely and unobstructed.

Whittier, Pt.1

The drive to Whittier is comically beautiful with mountains so rugged it's as if they have been shaped out of the rock with a hatchet. The coastline is silty and the ocean is shallow and in some spots very still. So still that one can imagine no tidal influence. The runoff from melting ice and snow rushes down the sides of the mountains and into the sea.



Whittier is behind the mountains and is served by a one way tunnel that was, until ten years ago, accessible by rail only. You would pay a fee for the vehicle and a per-person fee and you would be taken two miles through the tunnel to the city of Whittier on the other side. Today, the tunnel is just wide enough to fit passenger vehicles and entry and exit times are scheduled hourly.





For those of you who knew I was making this trip, I may have overstated the status of Whittier (a bit).

The Lie:

Everyone lives in this big creepy building -- it's the first one you see when you GIS "Whittier, AK."



The Truth:

1) Not EVERYONE lives in the Begich Towers building. Only 80%. The rest live in Whittier Manor or in surrounding small buildings.



2) The BTI is NOT the creepy decayed building that one sees when Google Image Searching. That is the Buckner Building which was built to house soldiers and has a movie theater and a bowling alley and an amount of asbestos so large that cleaning and refurbishing the building is not cost effective. In fact, the cleanup needed to facilitate a teardown is so much that the building just sits and rots in plain view. The effect is much like the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea -- a grotesque specter looming over the landscape.



Whittier was created during WWII to act as a port to ship goods from the lower 48 states to Alaska. The same is true today -- most of the freight that comes into the state of Alaska is sent in through Whittier and people make good money loading crates on to rail cars when the ships come in.



Cruise ships also stop over in Whittier and there is talk of expanding Whittier's industry to be more supportive tourism.