A good article about high school football in Alaska in the Los Angeles Times. It includes this:
This year, the Barrow High Whalers are fielding a team believed to be the first U.S. high school football team north of the Arctic Circle.
Barrow, Alaska’s northernmost village, is more than 500 miles away from its nearest gridiron foe.
On Saturday, the visiting Delta Junction High Huskies, from the Fairbanks area, played the Whalers just yards from the Arctic Ocean, amid snow flurries and temperatures in the 30s.
Barrow school officials had told the visitors the district would place a sentry in a wooden lookout tower to keep an eye out for wandering polar bears.
Pressed for details, Barrow High’s assistant principal, Mike Wetherbee, let out a laugh over the phone, and conceded there may have been an intimidation factor behind that announcement.
“The truth is, polar bears at this point in the year really aren’t all that much of a problem,” Wetherbee said. Alas, Barrow lost, 34-0.