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Visitors to this page from May 14, 2005
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Our Little Northern Holiday
By Jay Freeman, May 10, 2000
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Patricia photographs the team in the tent. L to R we have Blake, Helen and Graeme, Rick and Matty, Rick phoning Resolute, Matty cooking, Blake and Jay.
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Patricia and Jay on the ice
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Two teams totalling 12 Huskies hauled over 1200 pounds of food and gear. "Bad dogs, good dogs, hike, gee, haw, on-by" Matty would shout as the situation demanded.
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The Kitchen tent with pots, stove and Chef Matty
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A lead of open water, the Arctic Ocean at -1 degree C and a typical pressure ridge. These were the two classes of obstacles slowing our progress. The weather and drift of course also worked against us.
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The town of Resolute at 75 degrees N Latitude sprawls below us. From the plane heading north we looked down upon desolate snow covered mountains.
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FIRST THE PHOTOS AND NOW THE TEXT
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I made the grave mistake in 1999 of asking my British wife, Patricia, which of ten adventure holidays would be her favorite. Of the ten, in a travel article in the NY Times, she picked a skiing and dog sled expedition to the North Pole. The basic plan was to fly to Resolute, a northern settlement on Ellsmere Island, which is far north of Baffin Island. From there a private charter Twin Otter aircraft would take the guides, team members, sled and dogs on a long flight north and land on the Arctic Ocean ice flow. The group would then be off loaded at 88 degrees latitude and over the next 12-14 days they would ski and mush the dogs 150-200 miles over the shifting ice to 90 degrees latitude, the North Pole. Departure date was set for around April 18, 2000.
Preparation for the trip included a one-week shakedown and evaluation trip in January 2000, which included jumping into a hole, cut in the ice of a Minnesota lake. This exercise was simply to illustrate that if you did fall into the Arctic Ocean you could get out, change into dry clothes, warm up and survive. Dog handling skills and stamina would be observed by the team leader and in the end both the leader and the candidate would decide whether to commit to the next phase.
Since Patricia seemed so thrilled with the idea of this adventure, I agreed that she could go. but I would instead head south to scuba dive in the Caribbean. Patricia returned from the evaluation, after passing all the tests with high marks. She mushed the dogs and jumped into the icy lake with verve and good humor and was elated and eager to begin the adventure to the Pole. I felt truly left out. Scuba diving seemed so routine, so conventional and unimaginative in comparison. How could I miss out on the real adventure in the frigid north? I became glum and despondent. Within a few days of her returning home, I changed my mind and decided that I would like to join her and the group. The team leader, Rick, said he would consider me for the group without the normal evaluation but I must fly out to Chicago to meet him. This I did. NW Passage is a small operation consisting of Rick and two young women, Nancy and Emily, sitting at computer terminals in a small office in a small building tucked unobtrusively behind a small shopping center in a Chicago suburb. Rick examined the cold weather clothing I had purchased for the adventure. He showed me a video of what I would be facing. The video showed a previous team struggling to assist a pack of dogs hauling a sled laden with 800 pounds of tents, food, fuel and equipment over very uneven pressure ridges formed by the compression of slabs of pack ice jamming into each other. Rick said the most important thing to survive and reach the Pole is not so much physical strength or even skiing ability but rather the will to do it. It’s a mental challenge more than anything else. He wanted me to get up to Baffin Island three days early to meet Matty, the dog team leader so that they could both see my dog mushing skills and skiing ability. It meant canceling our attendance at a wedding but if I was really committed to this, it had to be done. Rick also asked that I commit to serious aerobic training.
In the weeks that followed I agonize over whether I had “the right stuff.” I jogged around Manhattan with a daypack loaded with 15 pounds of steel weights. But then the pounding on hard pavement hurt my knees so I stopped and just increased my attendance at the local gym and both Patricia and I resumed walking up the 19 floors to our New York apartment in the fire staircase.
We flew to Finland to get a cross-country ski lesson and to practice on the frozen river that flows by Roveniemi in Finnish Lapland. There I noted that hard as I tried, Patricia was covering about 1.5 miles to my 1-mile. Her strides seemed more efficient and effortless. After three days of skiing we flew back to England to begin our one-week walk on the Pembrokeshire coastal footpath. It was now March and the weather varied between sunny pleasant days, to cloudy gray days, to one wild rainy day with 70 mph gusts that literally blew me off my feet, but fortunately not off the high cliffs. We walked the undulating rocky path for 107 miles, with our longest day being a 24-mile slog around the Pembroke estuary with its oil tanks, refineries, and tankers disgorging or gulping up the black gold from a maze of long steel pipes. It was not the most beautiful of scenery unless you happen to be a petroleum engineer, but it did give me some assurance that I could still walk a good distance without collapsing. At 61 I find the need to periodically test my physical ability to see if it has diminished. Clearly I am over the hill at this point. I just don’t know the steepness of the slope on the downhill side. I was somewhat comforted by my performance but walking in Wales and skiing in Finland with a warm hotel, bath and meal at the end of each day is not the same as surviving on an ice flow at –20 degrees F for two weeks. Again I became gloomy and despondent. Was I up to it? Patricia knew a little about the other three participants which, she had learned from Rick during her evaluation. One was a marathon runner, very fit and strong from Alabama. A father and daughter from the Channel Islands, with prior polar experience, were joining the group at Baffin Island. Rick and Matty knew them as very capable. Patricia was already judged to be an excellent addition by Rick. And then there was me, untested and worried that I would hold up the group, or worse, need rescue. Rick said rescue was extremely difficult even though he urged us to take out insurance for it. The slow skiers hold up the others who must wait and freeze while waiting for them (me) to catch up. What a situation! I was damned if did and damned if I didn’t.
I started to read a book called Walking on Thin Ice, by David Hempleman-Adams, about a British adventurer’s journey to the North Pole, man hauling a 300-pound sled. Why do the British always turn up in these extreme undertakings? I married one and now I was sucked into this craziness too. Anyway the author describes what he faced; hundreds of pressure ridges up to 40 feet high and even more daunting were the leads, open water caused by the pulling apart of the ice. They often block your path north and getting across these leads is essential to complete the journey. Sometimes he had to cross thin ice over newly frozen leads, where it was unclear whether he could make it without breaking through. Falling into the Arctic Ocean is a chilling experience in many ways. He did and had nightmares long afterwards. I would also be facing these challenges, and very soon indeed.
On April 15 we flew to Iqualuit, Baffin Island and met Matty at the airport. She owned Northwinds, the company that consisted of her and her husband Paul Landry and over 25 irrepressible huskies. Matty, in her late 40s, is only about 5’ 4” but is a bundle of energy. Intense and outgoing she has driven her dogs all over the arctic on long and arduous journeys. Soon we met Graeme, 61 and his daughter, Helen, 33, the clients from Jersey, Channel Islands. They had prior arctic skiing experience. For Graeme, reaching the North Pole would be the culmination of all his prior northern adventures. He was very serious and determined about this.
Matty soon had us out with the dogs and sled and later skiing over piles of icy blocks out in Iqualuit Bay. I was falling and crashing at every turn. The others were faster and it was disheartening but Matty and her friend Denise said I could do it. Graeme also gave me reassurance and encouragement. I was ready to drop out but was persuaded by all this to continue with the group. Soon Blake, in his early 40s, joined us after flying up from his home in Alabama. Blake constructs and rents buildings to the U.S. government and owns a cattle ranch. More to the point he was a power weight lifter, a skill that would prove essential to our progress in the early part of our trip north.
Soon we were sifting and sorting food and gear. It was a bit chaotic with Matty trying to reduce weight on the plane by a few hundred pounds. This meant dumping clothing that we had assembled over months. Her advice on warm clothing differed from Rick’s. The printed list we used was yet a third guide. For the clients it all proved confusing.
We spent one evening separating gorp (trail mix consisting of nuts, fruit and chocolate) into plastic bags and stuff sacks. On April 19 we bundled our bewildering array of gear and consumables onto an aircraft and flew north to Resolute at 75 degrees latitude and then onto another plane flying further north to Eureka, a scientific research station and fuel dump at 80 degrees latitude. We spent the night in Eureka and the next morning flew north on a chartered Twin Otter aircraft towards our starting point at 89 degrees. From the plane I could see below an enormous barren white world of mountains and valleys, unexplored and forbidding. Finally the land ended and the flat and broken ice of the Arctic Ocean spread out before us. First we stopped at a floating fuel dump at 86 degrees North Latitude. Our group of adventurers stretched out for an hour while the pilots transferred gasoline from 55-gallon drums to the plane’s tanks. After another two and half-hours we spotted the camp of the expedition that was ending. We would be inheriting their tents and dogs. Rick greeted us and Matty’s husband, Paul and his friend boarded our Twin Otter. In a few minutes they were gone and we were left 1,000 miles from civilization, with our lives in the hands of two leaders. It was –25 degrees F and I could feel the hairs in my nose freeze with each inhalation. Matty fired up the stove in the kitchen tent and soon our group of seven was warm. We had dinner and split up with Blake and Rick sharing a tent and Patricia and me another tent, called the “Honeymoon Tent.” It was difficult falling asleep in 24 hours of daylight. I covered my eyes with a neck gator but what was really keeping me awake was the distress of the unknown physical challenges that lay ahead and the extreme isolation into which we had placed ourselves. Fear overcame me. At 3 am I whispered to Patricia my concerns; falling into the ocean through thin ice, frost bitten fingers and toes, bad weather preventing evacuation. She said, “look it’s a business. Matty and Rick can’t bring clients on these trips if it was so dangerous.” This made sense. The next day we faced many pressure ridges and leads. Blake assumed the heavy work of running one of the two dog sled teams behind Matty. It was tough going but at the end of the day I could see I was keeping up, had all body parts intact and warm. My confidence increased. Matty and Rick are expert at keeping warm in these sub zero conditions. It was critical that we stay dry and that meant adding and subtracting clothing layers according to our level of exertion. I had three layers on my legs and five layers on my upper body while inactive. Cotton and wool were not permitted. We wore fleece, goose down or polypropylene
Each day began with the dogs howling a chorus of orchestrated yelps. We ate breakfast, generally oatmeal, hot water was prepared from melted snow and our water bottles were filled. We broke camp, loaded the sleds and set off for 6-7 hours of skiing and dog sledding. At lunch we would stop briefly for a snack and then continue till it was time to set up the tents for the “night.” Making and breaking camp took 2-3 hours each so when this time was added to the day’s advance north it was full and tiring. Every day Rick would take an evening and morning GPS reading.
Bodily functions must be attended to on the ice at subzero temperatures. I took a "pee bottle” to bed, which eliminated the need for getting out of the sleeping bag. Unfortunately Patricia had to get up and go out on the snow. When it became necessary to go to the toilet, if we were near a pressure ridge we could get some privacy on the other side. “Snow wedgies” were a substitute for toilet paper and speed was essential to avoid freezing bums. Loose huskies would sometimes appear and curiously observe the goings on.
During the evening meal, with pots boiling and two stoves creating heat, our group would hang wet boot liners, gloves, neck gators, cowls and socks on drying lines strung around the kitchen tent. The wind outside made the tent walls shake which in turn caused the drying lines to quiver, making the wet clothing bounce in front of our eyes like frenetic puppets. Peering between the dancing objects we finished our tiring day with a few jokes and plans for the next day’s advance.
In the beginning our progress was disheartening. In terms of miles traveled we would typically cover 7-8 miles but overnight we would drift south 3-5 miles. The net effect was a daily advance of only 3-4 miles. Since the Pole was 70 miles away there was no way we could reach it in the 12 days allotted for the journey. On April 25, the fourth travel day, Blake fell through thin ice on a frozen lead. Wet to his neck he raced towards Matty, who quickly organized the group to head for solid ice, set up a warming tent and had Blake strip to change into dry cloths. Meanwhile Patricia and Helen managed to get Blake’s dog team to pull the floating sled out of the broken ice. Two hours later a shaken Blake said he was ready to proceed forward.
Helen became ill. We stopped a bit early to give her time to rest up. Later she was to blame poor sanitary procedures in the camp for her condition.
Longitude became an issue in our slow advance north. Ideally we should have begun our journey at 75 W longitude where the southward drift is slower. However to join up with Paul’s gear we began at 61 W longitude and found that not only were we drifting south but east as well. The more east we drifted the more the southern drift would overwhelm us. On the night of April 25 the GPS read Longitude 55 W. with our Latitude at 89 degrees 19 minutes. We had 41 minutes (or 41 nautical miles) to go to reach the Pole at 89 degrees 60 minutes (i.e. 90 degrees). The next day Blake needed a rest from his enormous exertions. He took my waxless skis and I burrowed Helen’s waxed skis. I found it very tiring slipping and sliding on the smoother waxed surface compared to the larger fish scale grip of the waxless skis. We stopped about an hour early for me to rest up.
On April 28, frustrated by our poor progress the five clients poured out their disappointment. Graeme, with his prior Arctic experience became our spokesman and confronted Matty and Rick with a blistering verbal attack on the planning, organization and judgment of the leadership. He condemned the decision to start at Longitude 61, the confusion over what to take and what to leave behind, the lack of a professional musher for the second team and the lack of group cohesion and commitment. He felt the skiing day should be longer and the setting up and breaking camp, faster. Helen focused on the poor sanitation and especially Matty’s leadership (Though I must note I saw Graeme a bit careless when he loaded some yellow tinged snow into the container for melting). I felt great sympathy for Helen at that point as the cost of the trip was quite a lot for her. And I also felt for Graeme whose dream of reaching the Pole was being taken away by events out of his control. But I also felt sympathy for the leaders. Running trips to the North Pole is not the road to riches. Matty and Rick were clearly doing this for love, not money. It was hard work and they were really trying to get us to the Pole. And Patricia and I liked them for their personal qualities as well. Patricia expressed these views during that first confrontation and I could see that Matty was deeply moved by her kind and balanced judgment.
But Graeme was bitter and said all these errors had guaranteed failure and that it was now too late to correct them. He said there was nothing to do but get an early flight home. Rick literally begged us not to stop and had we listened to him we might have reached the Pole. For the next two days we camped and called Resolute using the Iridium telephone. But when an early pick up was not possible because of poor weather, Graeme said let’s go for the Pole. With newfound enthusiasm we set forth on May 1. Graeme and Rick scouted ahead on skis for the best route for the dogs, Matty and Blake ran the two sleds with very brief snack stops and Patricia, Helen and I took up the rear to assist if the sleds got stuck. At one point we passed a floating ice island with mountains of ancient frozen water perhaps 300 feet high. We saw two rainbow patterns (sundogs) on each side of the sun produced by refraction of light off airborne ice crystals.
We had our best day covering 11.5 miles (10 nautical miles) but three of us fell through the ice: Graeme with two legs; me with one leg and worst was Blake who fell in again, up to his chest behind a sled. This time Blake courageously decided to keep going without changing cloths, but during a rest stop he got chilled. We made camp in an unstable area now just 20 miles from the North Pole, to give Blake a rest and because the weather turned bad with flat conditions. We went to sleep at 4 am trying to ignore the clock. Blake now had mild frostbite on his toes, we were running low on food and the dogs were out of food. The next day Rick scouted out a good landing strip just 20 minutes away.
Rick felt that Borneo, the Russian floating research station, only 150 miles away, might be open and that they could pick us up with a military helicopter if necessary. But as it turned out Borneo had just closed for the season. I was becoming increasingly worried. I examined worst case scenarios and did not like what they were telling me. Graeme was sanguine and felt we were far from a dire situation and should go for the Pole anyway. This time I spoke up and said getting to a good airstrip should be our priority and not the Pole. The safe homecoming of every member of our group was far more important as far as I was concerned. We had drifted south during our two day rest and now the distance to the Pole was about 25 miles with a possible Twin Otter pickup in 40-50 hours. We were running low on food. The dogs had none. A tired and worried Blake would be put upon yet again to run the dogs in this final race to the Pole. The thick cloud cover created flat conditions with poor visibility, making routing and skiing difficult. If we had three falling through the ice in 10 miles how many more would fall through in 25 miles? We were standing on an excellent landing site. How much additional time would be needed to find an equivalent if we did get to the Pole? Although almost everyone wanted to proceed, my cautious views were treated by Matty as a veto and we stopped forward progress on May 3. I spoke near the large flat pan that would become our airstrip. I did not want to be solely blamed or be burdened by guilt for our failure to reach the Pole. I was just one link in a chain of events starting with our first Graeme inspired two-day stop, several short skiing days caused by illness and fatigue and starting at the wrong longitude. All these delays, in series, contributed to our failure to reach the Pole. For the next 2-3 nights we hibernated while Rick checked in to see if the pilots at First Air would risk a 1,000 mile, 12 hour evacuation flight. Time passed slowly. I could almost feel Graeme’s glare and his sarcasm and bitterness were evident. But towards the end I think he softened.
We had groomed our 1,500-foot ice runway filling in holes and chopping down bumps When Karl the senior pilot finally took off it was a $100,000 gamble by Rick that a landing was possible even under marginal conditions. NW Passage would have had to pay the cost regardless of the outcome. As back up, the pilots brought food which they would have dropped, if a landing proved too dangerous. A brief break in the weather was our good fortune. A low was moving in which meant a second pickup attempt would have been another week away. We had jokingly discussed eating the dogs if things got really bad. Pang would be first, as he never pulled, then Thor who always fought with the other dogs. Rick and Matty, both animal rights advocates and lovers of man’s best friend, insisted this would never happen. Now such morbid speculation was no longer necessary. The two planes arrived, tested the strip with a touch and go and then swooped down for a bumpy landing. We all cheered and drank some champagne which quickly froze in our glasses in the –15 degree weather. Then we scurried about, pulling down the kitchen tent for the last time, collecting the tent poles and sleeping bags used to mark the runway and loaded twelve hungry huskies onto the planes.
Karl then flew us over the Pole dipping low, banking left and then right. He would not risk landing, as the ice was too thin. In all directions spread the endless pans, leads and pressure ridges, white and barren, forever grinding and cracking, as the unseen power of sea and wind relentlessly moved and carved the lonely world below.
In retrospect I am glad Patricia and I, together, undertook this adventure which tested us in many ways and brought us into contact with the unique high Arctic. When all the interpersonal differences and tensions are long forgotten what will remain for Patricia and me will be the memory of survival and movement across the harshest zone on our planet. In time, I believe every member of our group will come to feel the same way.
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