by Chris Bray
Crouching down beside the assortment of char, Jeanie gave us a lesson filleting fish the Inuit way, ready for drying. It was harder than she made it look, but eventually our shredded rag-like fillets improved and we considered ourselves pretty well fully-fledged Inuits. Pleased by our willingness to learn Inuit skills, she delved into the bloody tangle of raw fish guts and pulled out the liver. Hoping for an anatomy lesson, we crouched closer as she sliced it in half with the ulu and held it up for us to—look at? The way she pressed it up against my lips in her blood-smeared fingers suggested otherwise. This was no anatomy lesson. I took it in my mouth and swallowed deeply, pushing the liver well below any limit of possible return, and even managed a polite comment on the likeness of the organ’s oily, mucus-covered texture to that of fresh caviar.
Boy, was that a mistake. After enjoying watching Clark being put through the same experience, I gurgled in horror as she scraped aside the roe—the egg sac—from inside the spilling gut cavity and proceeded to offer this new delight up to our mouths. We couldn’t really say no. Slurp, slurp. Wince. Smile. Swallow again for backup. ‘It’s good for you,’ Jeanie grinned. Good for our hearts, anyway—anything that raises the heart rate up to 200 beats per minute is like exercise, isn’t it?
Again she reached inside the fish’s frame and next withdrew the intestines and stomach as we desperately looked around for an escape. ‘And traditionally, our ancestors also ate the stomach,’ she began, ‘but I don’t normally eat it, unless you really want some?’ We at least pretended to give the question due consideration.
The nightmare continued as Brent came over and started trying to push the eyes out of the fish’s head. Thankfully, they held their ground and he gave up, remarking that, strangely, ‘Some people have difficulty eating something that’s looking back at them.’ Really? I’d never have guessed it.
Our next Arctic lesson was to learn some respect for the temperature—or lack of temperature—of the water. ‘We’re going for a swim?’ We repeated Brent’s words incredulously. This experience was made possible by first sweltering inside his home-made sauna until we had to run out and dive into the ice-strewn water to save ourselves from catching on fire. There’s nothing quite as good as a 50-degree temperature differential to reset your heart!
After a lunch of boiled seal which tasted like rubbery, oily tuna, and a bite or two of seal blubber which had an amazingly warming effect as our bodies went into overdrive processing all the energy, Brent took us out to teach us more ice-kayaking skills. Getting in and out of a kayak floating against a sheet of ice was honestly scary. It’s a difficult operation when the ice is moving, the kayak’s moving, the water’s lurching and all that joins the three is your paddle, which grips to ice like water does to a duck’s back. Both Clark and I got a few more grey hairs that afternoon. The Arctic certainly is a risky place to live, a view backed up by Brent, who commented that he finds, on average, one human skull each year.
Now competent ice-kayaking experts, next morning Clark and I hopped into our two borrowed kayaks and started the 10-kilometre paddle home on our own. The wind picked up considerably, and the last few kilometres into the wind across the open bay became pretty intense, forever etched into both our minds. Whitecaps—small breaking waves—were growling past on all sides, along with the odd chunk of ice, and despite digging as hard as we could with our paddles, it felt like we were slipping backwards. Our kayaks would slam into one wave, rear up, and plough into or under the next, icy water running back over the cockpit. ‘We’re not getting any closer, are we?’ Clark shouted over the gale. The town looked just as small and distant as it had for the last twenty minutes, and our arms were tiring.
‘Yeah, we are … for sure!’ I wasn’t as confident as I sounded, and directly downwind of us lay the half-frozen horizon of the Arctic Ocean.
That moment was a bit of a turning point: something extra kicked in inside me, and it wasn’t fear. My mood swung into being extra positive, extra optimistic, and extra inspired—I felt, strangely, that I was suddenly ‘in my element’, and actually really enjoying it. Clark, too, had slipped into the right frame of mind and we both transformed into pirates, hollering ‘Arrgh … Scurvy … Batten down the hatches!’ and suchlike, in between singing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’. It was as if we subconsciously realised that we needed to be positive to get through this, not only inwardly confident, but flamboyantly so, to help bolster each other’s confidence. It was a strategy that we would become mighty familiar with in the months ahead.
And so the days ticked past—we’d now been on the island for over a week, still without any progress on the kayak hold-up. We even did our first Sky News TV interview ‘live from the expedition’ over the phone in Doug’s house: ‘How are we finding it? Well actually we haven’t left yet … no …’ Great. Remaining ever optimistic, we reasoned that we needed to keep in shape, so we found an old truck tyre at the local tip and took turns dragging it around town, cementing the publicly held belief that ‘the two Oz-tralians’ were ‘a bit funny’ if not ‘completely mad’. Clark had managed to develop a whopper blister on his heel, forcing him to hobble around like an old man, and we’d both somehow caught a cold that we just couldn’t shake. Yep, we’re the *sniff* two ultra-fit Arctic *sneeze* athletes who are here to cross the island.
A benefit of our delayed departure was that one day we returned home to find our house had been reclaimed by its original owner—Doug had returned from Ellesmere Island! From all the stories we’d heard of him, we imagined Doug to be a great giant of a man with a booming lumberjack’s voice who could beat up a polar bear with one arm tied behind his back.
We were genuinely surprised by the real ‘White Inuit’. ‘Oh,’ he said in a quiet, almost timid voice, ‘you must be Chris. We get to meet at last, that’s really neat … I’m having a cup of tea, would you like one?’
Doug was an absolute wealth of knowledge on all things biological, geological, geographical and even meteorological. ‘Do you like these?’ He pointed to the series of semi-transparent fist-sized spheres that decorated many of his windows.
‘Yeah, we were wondering what they were! Are they seeds inside them?’
‘Very good, yes. They are actually the crop from a pigeon-like bird called a ptarmigan … it’s a traditional house-welcoming decoration. You cut it out of the bird, tie up one end, and then blow into the other and the crop fills like a balloon.’
We carefully put it back on the windowsill. ‘And the seeds?’ we ventured.
‘Well, they’re already in there, the crop is almost like the bird’s first stomach when it’s gathering food …’ His gaze flicked to a balloon of a different shape hanging from the overhead light. ‘And that one, that’s a fish bladder.’
Doug was an inspiration. ‘Your trip’s going to be really neat,’ he predicted. ‘I wish I had the time to come along with you, at least for the first bit along the coast … you’ll discover all sorts of things up there!’ In his same quiet manner, he then made another, more disturbing prediction. ‘I think you’ve left it too late in the season, though.’ We stared fixedly at the table, not wanting to hear it. ‘It doesn’t really matter; you’ll get part of the way across, I think. Maybe you should treat this one as a trial run, and come back again next year.’
A little deflated, we recited our well-practised line of defence: ‘It’ll be fine, the delay starting just means we’ll finish a few weeks later, that’s all. We’ll get there.’ At least his predictions, refreshingly, didn’t involve us both dying out there. We could have sat for days soaking up his wisdom on all things Arctic; however, true to character, after enjoying only two days’ respite back in the comfort of home since having just spent three months alone on his remote post, he waved goodbye, setting off on a five-day canoeing and fishing trip with some friends.
‘Good luck with your trip,’ he said, slipping on his caribou-fur jacket. ‘I guess you’ll be long gone by the time I get back.’ We assured him we would be.
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nbsp; Five days later, we ran down to the shore to welcome his return. The joke had gone on long enough, and I thought I saw a faintly pained expression flit across his face as he saw us. ‘You’re still here?!’ Whether it was sympathetic pain at our misfortune, or inner pain at having us still occupying his house, we couldn’t be sure. We herded our sea of gear into one corner of his living room, and so as not to impose any more than necessary, decided to spend our ‘nights’ camped out of town from then on.
Having been stuck in Cambridge Bay now for thirteen days, the next morning I was due to call Sky News for what should have been our second weekly interview from ‘out on the land’. I gazed forlornly at my scribbled list of ‘news’ to chat about, notably devoid of any information on our kayak’s hostage situation, let alone a departure date for our expedition. ‘No, actually we’re still in Cambridge Bay …’ I tried to sound up-beat, but the producer’s direct, blunt questions had the effect of unravelling my carefully woven cocoon of optimism, leaving me exposed to the harsh reality of our situation. ‘No, we’re not sure when we’ll … Yes, we’re still going to go.’
I don’t think she really believed me—hell, I didn’t even know if I believed myself anymore. ‘Well, I don’t think we’ll do an interview,’ she said. ‘We’ll look at running one next week if you’re on your way by then.’ I wondered if ‘on our way back home’ counted.
As much we tried to ignore it, every passing day drew the end of summer one day closer—our window of opportunity was sliding shut, and had perhaps already closed. Every evening we convinced ourselves that we could wait just one more day, forever stalling the inevitable decision. It was pathetic. Even if we started out the very next morning, our allotted 65 days would push us well beyond mid September, by which time our world would freeze over and lengthening darkness would start swallowing the hours of daylight. The temperature would begin its slippery slope to 50 degrees below zero, accompanied by 24-hour darkness. We just weren’t equipped to cope with even the start of the oncoming winter, yet each day we knew the tail end of our trip was extending further and further into this deadly freezer. It was obvious to us what we needed to do. ‘We’ll just have to get there in under 65 days I guess …’ Irrational optimism had got us this far, we figured, and we’d put in too much to give up now.
Thankfully by now we had plenty of supportive friends on the island, and we drew encouragement from what was in fact our own optimism which they now reflected. We even managed to convert a firm disbeliever—Colin. In days past, he’d had an elite dog team, and a real spark danced in his eyes as he related some of his earlier adventures with them. Thinking him a man after our own hearts, we were a little taken aback when he commented over dinner that he thought we were foolish to set out on our adventure, and that we’d almost certainly die an incredibly lonely death out there. As the evening progressed, however—and as details of our trip leaked out—we could see him getting more and more excited by our plans, just like the geologist in Vancouver. By the time we’d brought out some pictures of us building the PACs and traced a finger along our proposed route on a wall map, Colin was as excited as we were. He announced, ‘Well, boys! I think what you’re doing is just great! What an adventure!’ and firmly shook our hands. ‘It’s my honour to shake your hands. Good on you. I still think you’ll probably die, but good on you for trying!’ Our soaring egos placed firmly back where they belonged, he humbled us with one final remark: ‘You’ve inspired me, boys, you really have. You know, there are still a few dog-sled trips I’d like to try one day—maybe I’m not too old.’
ACTION STATIONS!
The next morning I called Craig for our daily dose of bad news. ‘What do you mean “it’s happening”?’ I asked. ‘What’s happening?’ My cautious optimism gave way to euphoria as he explained to my disbelieving ears that he had done the impossible. He’d again met with the spokesperson representing the striking truckers and convinced him to let our trucker-saviour ‘Paul’ come in and collect our container. Further, they’d already located the container—now buried underneath six others on the clogged wharf—and first thing Monday morning a huge crane would start digging it out for us.
‘And the paperwork? The container handling company said that—’
Craig interrupted me, ‘It’s all sorted, I’ve found you a decent handling company—Ecu-Line.’
The uncontrollable grin spreading across my face made talking quite difficult, but I carried on, searching for the inevitable catch. ‘So, after the crane puts the container aside, how long before—’
Again he cut me off. ‘It won’t be “put aside”, Chris, it’ll be placed directly onto the truck, with engines running, ready to drive immediately to Edmonton airport—that’ll take nine and a half hours if he doesn’t stop. You’d better organise room on that plane.’ It was quite definitely the best piece of news I’d ever heard in my life.
We exploded into action. After two weeks of stagnation, obstacles and impossibilities, in the space of about five minutes everything had just fallen into place. We sent an update to our website with the news, and Canadian Press got hold of the story within hours and rang for an interview. Sitting there listening to their pre-interview spiel before they crossed over to me, it really hit home just how impossibly lucky we had been: ‘With the trucking strike now in its third week, Vancouver businesses have lost over $500 million, but it looks like an exception is being made for two Australian kayakers … We have one of the boys on the phone now; Chris, how did …’ To be honest, I didn’t really know how, and while I tried to justify how critical it was that we started our expedition before summer slipped past, I couldn’t help but start to feel a little guilty. The media was full of reports of countless people’s dreams that had been broken by this strike, and I feared more than a little resentment brewing that somehow these two foreigners had been given special treatment just to embark on a pointless walk. It could have quite easily turned spiteful, but thankfully, the presenter took a positive view from the start.
The good news circulated quickly, and we confirmed with the floatplane pilot that he’d be able to fly us out to our start point in the next few days. ‘Oh, sure. No worries. We’ll need two planes, and we’ll just strap one kayak onto the side of each.’ I reminded him they weren’t typical kayaks, but he brushed my concerns aside with a sweeping gesture of his hand.
As the passenger jet carrying our PACs appeared in the distance, Clark and I were already crouched with our video cameras pointing skyward on the back of Wilf’s truck hurtling towards the airport. He scarcely slowed at the gates to the airport; instead, flicking on the truck’s roof-mounted spinning lights he proceeded to drive right out onto the airfield. The plane touched down right in front of us and we stood around like impatient children on Christmas morning, waiting for all the passengers to disembark so the cargo could be unloaded. After what seemed like an age, the massive cargo hatch swung open, and there on top of everything else was our bubble-wrapped present. It was certainly a sight for sore eyes.
Our two toys had been whisked away from us to Canada before we’d had a chance to even play with them, and we couldn’t wait to put them together. As soon as the forklift placed the package on the ground we fell upon it, tearing off great strips of bubble-wrap, deaf to the indignant shouts from the handlers that we couldn’t touch it until transport had been paid for. Friends turned up to get a look at the PACs, and the local CBC radio presenter pulled a tape recorder from his pocket and recorded an interview on the spot. We were on such a high that I scarcely batted an eyelid when the cargo handlers—who by this stage had realised the only way they were going to get us to fill in any paperwork was to bring it to us—presented me with the $4000 bill. To be honest, I was expecting more like $400, but right then, I think I would have signed away my first-born child to get our kayaks.
‘Chris and Claaaark!’ It was the local journalist, Helen, waving us dramatically over to her. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you! We’re all ready for you, come on,
the mayor is waiting!’ We had all but forgotten—she’d organised days earlier for a traditional Inuit performance for us that very afternoon! Shoving our PACs in an unused hangar, we piled into the truck and headed to a quiet corner of the bay. Her aunt Mary—an Inuit elder dressed head to toe in a traditional caribou-skin gown—performed the most amazing ‘drum dance’ for us. We watched in awe as this seemingly frail old woman whirled around, chanting, wailing and stamping her feet, while rhythmically striking a large skin drum held in her wrinkled hands. Her dancing was so vigorous, and her wailings so sudden and intense, that several times Clark and I shot alarmed glances at each other, wondering if perhaps she was having a heart attack.
Following this, two Inuit girls, Yvonne and Charlotte, enchanted us with a display of ‘throat singing’, the most unusual kind of singing either of us had ever heard. They linked arms, facing each other, and ‘sang’ together in harmony from the very back of their throats. Surprisingly deep and gurgling without any spoken words, it sounded to me a bit like a cross between a bleating muskox and a burping yodeller. That may sound off-putting, but it was actually hauntingly melodious, beautiful even, transporting us briefly into the timeless, spiritual world of the traditional Inuit people. It was a rare privilege and put us in the perfect mindset for heading out to explore their ancient land.
