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July 13 Taloyoak to Gjoa Haven. Pt 2.Imagine my surprise and delight the other day when I read the comment posted by Ken Vernon to my little blog story, dated July 13th '06 and called, 'Taloyoak'.
Here's a bit more of the story of that dog team trip. When I set out from Spence Bay that day, I'd only been with the Bay and in the Arctic for about six months. It was the darkest, coldest time of the year so I didn't spend a lot of time outdoors looking around. My time was divided between the Store, our Staffhouse, the Nursing Station and Ernie Lyall's house.
Of course I'd seen lots of dog teams and their drivers coming and going, and in and around the village. Most of the teams I'd seen where small, only three or four dogs, the driver usually appeared to be just sitting on the sled, occasionally flicking his whip at the dogs as they zipped along from one side of the bay to the other. From my perspective dog team travel seemed like an easy, speedy affair. The reality is very different.
The RCMP team with whom I was to travel, consisted of about 12 dogs, Adam Takolik, RCMP Special Constable, was their caretaker and handler, Cpl Dick Vitt was the Mountie on Patrol, I was the lowly HBC clerk hitching a ride to do some work in Gjoa Haven. When we three left Spence there was quite a load for the dogs to haul. Three large Arctic 3 Star sleeping bags, our camping gear and grub box, a couple of dead seals for dog food, several caribou hides for bedding, a rifle or two, an 7'x7' canvas tent and poles, fuel for the Primus stove and Coleman lamp, plus miscellaneous gear and whatever other personal items we had brought along. The sled and load alone, probably weighed close to a thousand pounds, plus another 600 hundred pounds for us three guys dressed as we were. I was skinny and relatively fit then and only came in around 160#. The maximum number of folks sitting on the sled at any one time, was two.
Late in the winter and getting on towards spring, the snow was not at it best for dog team travel, or for that matter, running along beside a sled. Dressed as I was, wearing a duffle undercoat, flannel shirt, jeans and a full suit of long-johns, covered by a heavy winter caribou parka and bib wind pants, plus heavy mitts and caribou mukluks, moving about period, let alone running, was a strenuous affair. Interestingly, I would have been warmer had I been more lightly dressed.
Alternately hard or soft, constantly breaking through the snow crust, up to my knees one second, running over a drift as hard as concrete the next, it was tough going. Up down, up down for miles on end at a brisk jog, very hard on ones hips and knees. Sweating like a pig as long as I ran, but chilled to the bone five minutes after I stopped doing so. The dogs, working hard were also having problems with the tough snow conditions so our travel speed was limited to only a few miles an hour.
Our first night out, although it was cold, the snow conditions were not good enough for Adam to build a complete Igloo. The snow was not strong enough to support the weight of a full snow dome, so Adam built a half Igloo and we just threw our tent over the top as a roof. I remember I was disappointed with this, I had been looking forward to the 'full meal deal' of sleeping in a complete Igloo. Silly rookie that I was, at the time the tent roof seemed like a 'cop-out' if you'll pardon the pun, but I now know it was a common practice in poor Igloo building conditions. In the Arctic, adaptation to circumstances is the name of the game.
After a breakfast of Pilot biscuits, porridge and tea, next morning running again, we set out into an endless, featureless, gloom of gray and white. A white-out, there was no contrast, the only relief to my straining eyes were the dogs, sled and traveling companions. With absolutely nothing else to look at, my world quickly sank to my immediate surroundings. It was not long before all depth perception beyond the lead dog disappeared into an endless sea of hummocky white. In this white-out the horizon was not discernable, even our sled tracks and footprints vanished twenty feet behind us into a white nothingness. The only sounds were my laboured breathing, the crunch of my feet, the creak and hiss of the sled, the panting of the dogs and an occasional encouraging word to them or the smack of his whip from Adam. Conversation was pretty much zero.
Eventually after about eight hours of this and several breaks for tea and a snack later, Adam announced that he could see 'Cam C', a small Dew Line, 'Eye Site', perched on top of Mt. Matheson ahead of us. I looked and looked but for the life of me couldn't see any sign of it. More time passed until finally I was able to pick out the Radome and accommodation module in the distance in front of us. I think it was the twinkling lights of it in the twilight that finally caught my attention. I have no idea how far away it was but it seemed to, and did take hours to get to it.
Why I was the last to arrive inside the module, I can't remember. I do remember that I was very glad to be there. The hospitality shown us by the three inhabitants of that bleak and remote spot was unexpected and very, very welcome. Remember, this was the middle of the 'cold war' and the Dew Line, I thought, was supposed to be military and very secret. I would not have been surprised if we had been turned away, or greeted by an armed guard. Instead we were made very welcome.
Although he was technically off shift, the chef jumped up and quickly provided us with a hot and hearty meal. I remember the chef apologizing that it wasn't better, the food was like ambrosia to me. We were made to feel very much at home and given beds for the night. I've never forgotten how warmly we, dropping in, uninvited, unexpected and in the middle of nowhere were received. I guess Ken and his buddies were as glad to see new faces as we were. Spence Bay or Taloyoak if you wish, was a small place with a population of only about 250, only twelve of whom were non Inuit. We knew everyone, had seen 'em all and had been to everyones house at least twice.
The next morning was bright and sunny. After a hearty breakfast consisting of things I hadn't seen for a while, like, bacon and fresh eggs; we loaded up the sled and set off on our last leg of the journey to Gjoa Haven.
Cam C sat on top of a hill, so every direction was downhill from there, easy going. The dogs were straining and yipping to be off, Adam pulled up the snow anchor, we all piled onto the sled and in a cloud of snow dust and at a gallop, off we went down the hill.
This was great, this was as I had previously imagined dog sled travel. Yahoo, we were flying! Just to stay ahead of the sled so it didn't run over them, the dogs were going flat out. Down the hill, over a ridge, round a corner and out of sight of the Dew Line Site. We traveled like that for about ten minutes, then the joyride was over. One of our sled runner scraped over a sharp outcrop of rock hidden just below the snow, promptly peeling off about six feet of runner mud. Instantly we slowed to a crawl as the runner lost its slipperiness and dug in.
Runner mud is no ordinary mud, it's a special mud collected in summer and carefully preserved all winter. During the coldest months, steel sled runners will not glide on snow, rather, they stick to it. It is then that a thick coat of heated and thawed runner mud is applied over the steel, and a very thin covering of mouth-warmed water, is spit out onto a piece of Polar bear fur and applied on top of the mud. To make great, speedy, slippery runners is an art. Expecting no trouble of this type, Adam had not brought any extra mud with him.
We were hooped! At the speed to which we were now reduced, it would take us another two days to get to Gjoa Have. We'd be out of camp fuel, people and dog food by then. Embarrassed after our spectacular flying departure we did not want to walk back up to the Dew Line site.
We were now out on a little frozen lake at the bottom of the hill scratching our heads. Idly looking around I noticed a bare patch of windblown ice with some straight cracks in it. I had an idea and suggested it to Adam and Dick. To my surprise it was not rejected. I suggested that with our axe we could chip out some straight pieces of ice from along the crack and cement/freeze these piece onto the steel runners in lieu of the missing mud.
We hastily half set-up the tent as a windbreak, fired up the Primus to melt some snow for water, and carefully began chipping out, six inch long by a couple of inches thick, slivers of ice from along the crack. As Dick and I stood around watching Adam with his trusty wood plane shaped and stuck the ice to the runners in place of the missing mud. An hour and a half later Adam was done, we loaded up the sled again and we were on our way. You would think that ice on snow would glide pretty well, well it doesn't. Its viscosity did not replace that of the missing mud and ice combination, we were slowed considerably. Also the ice chunks kept breaking away from the runners, we were constantly stopping to make repairs. We kept going however and finally limped into Gjoa Haven sometime after dark.
It seems my dog trips between Spence and Gjoa Haven were always to be difficult, I have another tale to tell and have coloured 35mm slides to go with it. Unfortunately it's even longer-winded that this one and will have to wait for another day.
So to my new-old friend Ken, for his warm hospitality and for being kind enough to post his comment and validate my experience, "Thanks again, and that's the bit you didn't see." It was funny and embarrassing at the time, and still is today.
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