 For most of the year, Alaska's North Slope remains an icy desert, receiving less than six inches of moisture. Then in summer, the Arctic bursts briefly into life, bringing migrating caribou back to their traditional cabin grounds. Once this vast land belonged to the wild animals. Today, there's still room for the caribou to graze peacefully in a largely unspoiled environment. Now the Arctic wilderness must be shared with a strange new breed that migrates in trucks and airplanes. Protecting the animal's freedom through strict company regulation, man claims part of their land to help ensure his own survival. Since the first discovery of oil in 1968, Atlantic Richfield Company's operating area at Prudhoe Bay has been the scene of an ongoing adventure. Oilmen and their rigs are part of a massive operation designed to cap some 10 billion barrels of oil locked in a natural reservoir beneath the Arctic tundra. To meet the pipeline completion date, summer 1977, thousands of tons of equipment must be hauled here over long distances. In May 1975, the vanguard of an unusual armada sailed from Houston, Texas. There were no fan fairs, no banners. Its journey would take it through the Panama Canal around Mexico, up the West Coast, to a special port facility on Puget Sound. Here in Seattle, Tacoma, a major industrial complex was being constructed for transport to Prudhoe Bay. In view of snow-clad mountains, workmen struggle against time and the blandishments of balmy weather to assemble the components of immense oil and gas processing facilities. Built in interlocking sections called modules, each unit will be self-contained, a fully-equipped flow station, or gas injection plant, or fuel processing system, like the pieces of some giant erector set. They are insulated by steel-encaged walls against stinging icy wind blasts from the north. The 300,000 horsepower central compressor plant alone will be composed of 41 separate modular units. As shown in this model, each modular unit is a complex, highly-sophisticated structure, containing its own heating, ducting, and electrical apparatus. Hauling the giant modules onto the barges becomes a delicate operation. Every factor of weight and balance minutely calculated to prevent mishaps. Some modules stand high as nine-story buildings and weigh up to 1,400 tons. They are moved onto ocean-going barges the size of a football field. All it will take a month to load 30 barges with modules and equipment. Most 100,000 tons of cargo will be shipped to Prudeau Bay this summer. Instruments, housing units, earth-moving equipment, trucks, crawlers, no space is wasted. The module's underbelly becomes a vast storehouse for precious cargo, packed entirely to withstand the rigors of an Arctic ocean voyage, welded down to prevent slippage in high winds. Spearheaded by ocean-going tugboats, manned by rugged crews, the flotilla prepares to sail. Ming is critical. The barges must reach a point southwest of Barrow no later than the end of July. Only then does the Arctic ice pack move offshore sufficiently to allow normal passage of sea traffic to the North Slope. But even as they depart from Seattle to Koma, there are permonitions that trouble lies ahead. Observers report ice conditions are the worst in 22 years. Some say since 1898, as the unorthodox convoy leaves the harbor, the assembly yards, which at their peak employed over 2,000 workmen, sit silent and empty as if frozen in time. Voyage from Puget Sound to Prudhoe Bay is expected to last a month. An unpredictable journey along 4,000 miles of open sea, whipped by high winds, sudden swells and crippling fog, under a shroud of heavy mist, the convoy navigates through the Bering Straits, the first major obstacle in a journey that so far has been uneventful, even calm. Moving north and further east towards Point Barrow, the barges and their tugs encounter an impenetrable fortress of ice. The harsh predictions have become reality. The entire operation faces potential disaster. Meanwhile, at Prudhoe Bay, Atlantic Richfield's preparations continue around the clock. In summer, the sun never sets on the North Slope. Temporary solace for those who toil much of the year in twilight or darkness. Whether sinking steel and concrete pylings to support the modules, or simply moving gravel for highways, the men of Prudhoe Bay are heirs to a tradition of Arctic exploration begun in the last century by Perian probisher. Searching for oil may seem less romantic than racing to the pole by dog sled, but the potential for mankind is no less impressive. By late August, the sun over Prudhoe Bay begins slipping below the horizon. Dimmer, too, are expectations for an early breakthrough by the barges stranded off Point Barrow. The town itself shows no traces of the struggle at sea. From Eskimo village, Barrow has grown into a prosperous community. Many of its natives employed at Prudhoe Bay. Now they, too, wait for the ice to break. Suddenly, in late August, the unanticipated fury of an Arctic storm lashes out at the barges trapped off Wainwright. One of them, crushed by the force of the ice pack, sinks. In a determined rescue operation, the barge and its precious cargo is saved. Miraculously, in early September, the ice pack loosens its grip on part of the captive fleet. 10 barges make the 180-mile run to Prudhoe Bay. 15 others remain stalled in ice off Wainwright. The remainder, carrying smaller equipment and supplies, turns south to offload their cargo for overland transportation north. A mile and a half offshore, heavy cargo is transferred from deep-draft ocean barges to lightening vessels. Barges designed for docking in shallow water. An unloading dock is formed by sinking a special barge at the tip of a causeway jutting out from shore. Barge 415, pumped with water for 24 hours, becomes a permanent fixture of Prudhoe's West Dock. Along the 4,000-foot causeway, the modules will be moved. Atlantic-rich field officials have anxiously waited more than two months for their arrival. On the backs of giant crawlers, the modules inch forward, looming over the Arctic horizon like faceless monuments from some forgotten civilization. Throughout September, sudden snow gusts sweep the north slope, but steady winds keep the tundra remarkably free of snow and ice, and so the procession continues unhindered. The men have scored a victory. The 10 barges are unloaded without a single loss or damage. Their exhilaration, the plight of the icebound fleet left behind, is momentarily forgotten. Two miracles are joined, one of technology, one of nature. Modules move along gravel roads laid down to protect the tundra, a thin, delicate blanket of lichens and moss covering a 2,000-foot deep layer of permafrost. In the south of Alaska, winter's fury has not yet struck. To Valdez, a juncture for sea and land transport, one of the barges sent back from the Arctic already has arrived. Oversized trucks will now carry a vital load north to Prudhoe Bay. Giant beams and girders or bridges to span one of the many rivers coursing through the Arctic. So large are these vehicles and their cargo that all roads north have been cleared by government direction to enable them to pass. In late September, when all seemed lost, nature again releases her hold on the vessels blocked at Barrow, led by Coast Guard icebreakers moving like flagships triumphant in battle. The 15 barge fleet sails through fresh channels toward Prudhoe Bay. Those have pushed the ice pack far enough from shore for all the barges to make it safely through, as tugboat boughs and whirling propellers help clear the surface ice. Maneuvered into favorable unloading positions by the skillful tugboat skippers and their crews, the barges must be offloaded soon after arrival, a race against the impending threat of winter. Soon after the successful breakthrough, nature reasserts her power over man. To storm rages, the barges yet to be unloaded become entombed and clutching ice. But on the land, man retains control. The temperatures fall rapidly and wind velocity increases. The movement of the modules to their final destination continues. Shrouded in protective canvas, they are carried by the giant crawlers to the oil facility site. Using a drilling rig, the modules lend an airy enormity to the winter landscape, like medieval siege towers being towed towards the attack. Night falls early. Soon there will be no daylight at all, but there can be no let-up in setting up the modules. They are the heartbeat of an operation which went completed. We'll help send two million barrels a day flowing to what Alaskans call the lower 48. In the near future, Bruteau Bay, the largest reservoir yet discovered on the North American continent, will provide nearly 10% of the oil consumed in the United States. Constructed of sturdy steel and concrete, these pedestals eventually will support an Arctic complex of processing plants, living quarters, and recreational facilities for workers. Sunk into a gravel pad, the exposed sections rise eight feet off the ground, allowing air to circulate beneath, eliminating heat transference, and minimizing snow drift. Some 400 miles south in Fairbanks, rail lines to the North terminate. 63,000 tons of cargo from the diverted barges, brought here by 1,800 rail cars from Seward and Anchorage, will now move to Bruteau Bay along the highways. It will take almost five months to complete the transfer. There's the truckers of the far north must challenge one of the world's most hostile environments. Leaving Fairbanks, the trucks begin their journey north. Through an inhospitable land, they travel the last leg of a journey roughly equal to two thirds the width of the United States. They cross mountain passes that rise to 8,000 feet on wind-battered highways. That would scant warning can be whipped by winter storms. Reaching the detrict pass in the Brooks Range, the truckers come to one of the great natural barriers to the Northland. Once over the mountains, they will enter the sprawling endless monotony of the Arctic Plain. Across this barren land, a life-supporting pipeline is being constructed. When completed, the Trans-Alaskan oil line will stretch 800 miles from Bruteau Bay to Valdez, supplying energy necessary for America. Far above the Arctic Circle, Bruteau Bay now lies enveloped in around-the-clock darkness. The mass trucks which have arrived from Fairbanks stand as silent testaments to man's perseverance and energy. All the equipment transferred from the barges, 3,500 truckloads, will make it through to ensure a bustling on-schedule winter at Bruteau Bay and to provide a wide choice of unexpected nesting births for a year-round resident. As long as weather permits, the flow of huge cargo trucks goes on uninterruptedly. The endless night of winter, the Arctic landscape is transformed by ghostly figures of men and machines. Winter temperatures may fall to 60 below, and assembling flowlines must be performed inside a mobile welding hut. These pipes, when joined, will be part of an extensive gathering system, drawing oil from the ground, separating it from intermixed gas and water, and speeding it to the main pipeline. Welded together, these 34-inch steel sections are eased through a window to meet the other parts of the line. But the silent tugs sit safely out of its reach, to withstand gusts up to 100 miles per hour, and temperatures unimaginably cold. Officials are taking no chances. Self-generating heating units are carried to the barges to provide further protection against the extreme Arctic winter, and to activate some of the priceless machinery within the modules so as to prevent their deterioration through disuse, helpless and unmoving ice six feet thick. The barges must wait until the spring, the nature cycle repeats its timeless pattern, and the ice begins to break. Until then, there is nothing man can do to free the vessels, but the modules they carry must and will be moved to shore. Powerful cutting machines are put into operation to clear a path through the ice for a gravel causeway, which will extend nearly a mile out to sea. Constructing the causeway required special permission from the state of Alaska and the U.S. Corps of Engineers and might have men and machines attack the strangulating ice. Within a month, the causeway will be completed. Assurance that a crucial project will now be maintained on schedule, hitting himself against nature, man has beaten the odds, moves steadily closer to the silent towering monoliths, and the modules will be hauled out to shore, set into the Arctic landscape. Permanent monuments, commands ingenuity, and spirit.