by Chris Bray
MacGyver style, I banged a rock in under the bracket to stop it caving in any further, and with nothing else to do we plodded onwards. Soon Clark’s tow point was showing signs of buckling too, and then, a few hours later, a crucial bit of webbing that straps the hauling arm down chafed right through. Of course we have spares, but it was horribly disconcerting to be digging into our ‘spare parts’ bag so early in the expedition.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that we eventually crossed the one-kilometre mark. I turned the video camera on Clark. ‘Well, (pant) that was our first one kilometre of hauling …’
‘And how was it?’ I enquired.
‘Well, I almost broke the PAC, broke my toe, broke my back, and I don’t know how you went … (pant), but we’ve done 1000 metres and we’ve got … (pant) a million to go. So (pant) yeah, it’s going good.’
I agreed, and, boosted by each other’s confidence—albeit totally unfounded—we convinced ourselves that all was on track. We expected a slow start, after all—our PACs would only get lighter, we’d grow stronger, and each day we’d chip away at the mental hurdle, one kilometre at a time.
We finally reached the coast a few hours ago. It’s an eerie place. Hunks of white sea ice scattered hundreds of metres inland (presumably by the tide, which may have interesting implications for our tent site), and a billowing fog has just rolled in, making these crouching white shapes drift in and out of view. ‘Over there—’ We’d both stare blindly, trying to pierce through the swirling haze. ‘Was that a polar bear?’ After a few tense moments, we’d manage to pull our eyes away and focus back on cooking dinner. The tantalising smell of our alfredo pasta lured in our first arctic fox! Clumps of white winter fur still hanging from its new brown summer coat gave it a very dishevelled, scruffy look, to which we instantly related.
I’m now lying in the tent, broken bear alarm still coiled uselessly inside the PACs, and the sun has actually swooped low enough to create a stunning ‘sunset’, splashing beautiful pinks and purples across the sky. Unfortunately, these seductive colours hide a darker truth: the perpetual, 24-hour sunlight of midsummer is already coming to an end out here. And we’ve not even reached our start point yet—it’s still another 2 kilometres up the coast … Considering that today we managed a grand total of 1.3 kilometres after about ten hours of giving it our all, we should get to the start point sometime the day after tomorrow, and the far side of the island in … just over two years and one month’s time.
DAY 3 (1 August 2005): Achievable goals
Surprisingly, we awoke alive again, having miraculously survived two nights without a working polar bear tripwire alarm. I’m sure we’re being paranoid, but each night it feels like a game of Russian roulette—spinning the revolver and putting it to my temple, squeezing the trigger as I close my eyes to go to sleep. Will tonight be the night? Being right on the coast here, this is prime bear territory …
Clambering awkwardly out of the tent this morning—every muscle in my body aching from yesterday’s efforts—a strange bush about 100 metres away caught my attention. It was quite high, its brown leafless branches swaying in the wind. Odd, I thought, considering there wasn’t even the slightest hint of breeze. I pointed it out to Clark and the two of us watched incredulously as it leant over, righted itself and then proceeded to dance towards us. We stared at each other, rooted to the ground like the bush should have been, unsure quite how to react.
As the tree rose higher, we saw it was in fact balanced on top of something, which turned out to be the head of an enormous reindeer, seemingly 4 or 5 metres tall. ‘It’s a giant caribou!’ I shouted excitedly, diving for my camera. Munching the tundra growing along the bottom of a ditch, the animal’s body had been hidden from view, and all we’d seen at first were his towering antlers. Now that we could see him in full, he shrank to the size of a normal reindeer. Without the help of surrounding trees, telegraph poles, buildings or other known height references out here to help judge size and distance, it really is confoundingly impossible to judge!
After the apparition had pranced away, we wolfed down our porridge, packed up camp and shackled ourselves back into the hauling harnesses, wincing as we tightened up into the massive bruises we’d already got around our waists. With a prolonged grunt, our human-piston manoeuvre got the PACs rolling, and we plodded painfully onwards.
The terrain we were inching through today was a cross between an African savannah and a Martian landscape with chunks of ice thrown in to add to the surreal feel. A flat, endless expanse of ice-shattered limestone stretched out as far as the eye could see, the ground melting into a shimmering haze in the distance, where refracting light projected up distorted visions of things below the horizon. At first glance, a distant caribou we spotted around lunchtime actually looked like a giraffe—its legs and neck visually stretched to three times their normal height.
Another weird visual effect resulting from the complete lack of landscape reference points out here is that stationary objects, unbelievably, often appear to move: on numerous occasions, no sooner had I convinced myself that a certain chunk of stranded ice was not a polar bear, or that a particular boulder wasn’t a grizzly bear, I’d glance away and look back, only to find it crouched in an apparently different location! Occasionally, fixed objects actually seemed to glide across the ground in front of our eyes until one or other of us would stop to stare directly at it, whereupon our PAC’s momentum would quickly lurch us awkwardly forward and we’d stumble onwards, still trying to stare back over our shoulders. And our bear paranoia has quickly soared to the point where we have both now adopted the rather fatalistic attitude of hauling on regardless of the ominous white shapes we regularly notice. One of the strangest phenomena we witnessed today was a large grizzly bear about 200 metres away that we both agreed was definitely moving. In the end it turned out to be a stationary rock, only about 50 metres away, and much smaller than we’d thought. The weirdest thing, though, was that it had recently been moving. This boulder had somehow smeared its way across the mud, leaving a path some 20–30 metres long behind it. ‘What the?’ We marvelled at it for a while before realising that it must have been pushed up the shore by pack ice, long since melted.
Just ahead of me, Clark paused for breath and I drew level. ‘Time for a … nut break?’ he asked, between heaving breaths. One or two minutes of hauling at a time was all either of us could manage, and the idea of hauling all day (let alone across the island) was more than we could cope with, so we decided to break the day into mentally palatable portions. Even ‘hauling until lunchtime’ was inconceivable, so we split our 200 grams of nuts per day into four ‘nut breaks’, during which time we slumped beside our PACs and munched quietly on just a few, stashing the rest in our pockets to eat one at a time later, further dividing the otherwise interminably long 45-minute sessions until the next nut break. We aimed for achievable goals like reaching a particular rock, but often found ourselves simply counting down 50 steps before hanging exhausted in our harness, eating a single nut or a bit of our chocolate ration while trying to recover. Another 50 steps, come on, let’s go … Fifty. Ffffffforty-nine … Fffffforty-eight … And so we struggled towards our ‘start point’.
‘I reckon that’s it,’ I announced around dinner time, pointing to a protruding section of the coastline, ‘the most easterly tip of Victoria Island!’ We agreed, and set up the tent on top of a rotting matt of seaweed—literally the only place where the jagged edges of the shattered limestone wouldn’t slice the floor of our tent to ribbons. ‘It stinks, hey?’ I said, laughing at Clark’s feigned retching. ‘Maybe it’ll help mask our scent from the polar bears!’
Not entirely convinced by this, I spent half an hour after dinner taking apart the bear alarm, and, to our huge relief, after a bit of rewiring managed to get it working again.
For the first time, we are actually going to sleep feeling safe and secure, and even surprisingly comfortable—the squelchy carpet of decomposing seaweed beneath our blow
-up mattresses works a treat.
DAY 4: An expensive lesson
After breakfast we shackled up and pulled arduously away, at last heading towards our destination, rather than just the start of our adventure.
A herd of six caribou raised their heads and gazed at us with bemused expressions as we toiled slowly past. Suddenly, curiosity got the better of them and they started prancing towards us. All of them. It was amazing. Running right at us. Getting closer. Big antlers. ‘Get your video camera!’ Clark’s words shook me from my trance. Just as we were both starting to wonder at what point we should swap the video camera for a shotgun, they paused, turning their heads awkwardly to one side to stare curiously at us from one bulging eye. As with most herbivores, caribous’ eyes are on the sides of their head giving them great peripheral vision to watch out for predators, but they can’t see directly ahead so well compared to carnivores with their forward-facing eyes. Nostrils flaring trying to identify a whiff of these strange two-legged animals dragging giant orange abdomens, they edged closer and closer, visibly torn between curiosity and fear. Suddenly one spooked, and the whole herd wheeled around and cantered away.
‘I got some awesome footage!’ Clark beamed. ‘I should charge my video camera; have you got the cable?’ I handed it over. Charging our electronics out here involves plugging them into our large 12-volt gel-cell ‘main battery’, which is itself continually kept charged by our giant flexible solar panels draped over the back of our PACs throughout the day. The problem is, of course, that not everything wants to be charged at 12 volts, and so I’d painstakingly built a ‘voltage convertor box’ that plugs into our main battery.
‘That’s funny,’ Clark said. ‘The charging light on the camera only comes on briefly and then starts blinking at me—it must still be fully charged … Cool.’ He handed the cable back and I plugged mine in.
‘Great battery life!’ I commented, waiting for my charge light to come on. It didn’t. I unplugged it and tried again. Nothing. ‘That’s weird,’ I muttered. ‘Mine doesn’t even react when I plug it in. In fact,’ I was now frantically trying to turn my camera on, ‘it won’t even turn on anymore! What’s going o—’
And then it hit me. ‘Oh, shit!!’ I ripped the charge cable out of the camera and stared at Clark in horror and disbelief. ‘We just plugged them directly into 12 volts!! We didn’t use the voltage convertor box!’ Holding my lifeless video camera to my nose, I inhaled. A familiar smell of charred electronics stung the back of my throat. ‘How could we be so STUPID?!’
I was more surprised than angry. ‘I spent weeks researching, designing and building that charger box,’ I mumbled, shaking my head. ‘How could I just … forget to use it?’ It was such a basic failing on my part that it was scary.
‘Next we’ll forget to load the shotgun, and when—’ Clark cut his joke short, realising this mistake was no less likely. ‘We’d better be careful.’
We heaved our PACs into motion and wearily stumbled onwards in silence. Fifty painfully drawn-out steps, then pause to wipe the sweat away, calm my breathing, swallow the rising urge to vomit, and fence my thoughts from running wild and dashing themselves against the enormity of it all. This is impossible.
Somehow or other, Clark’s video camera thankfully survived being electrocuted, but mine wasn’t so lucky. It’s actually the circuit board that’s fried, not just a fuse, so there is nothing we can do to fix it out here, and after discussing leaving several kilograms of now useless video camera behind on the tundra, I didn’t have the heart and have stashed it away in my PAC to get repaired when we get home. We learned an important lesson today, though: physical exhaustion leads to mental exhaustion and bad decisions. We think we’re making rational decisions, but really, clearly, we’re not. And out here, where decisions have very real, potentially life-threatening consequences, we have to realise that we actually can’t trust our own judgement—we are going to have to consciously distrust ourselves, and compensate by double- and cross-checking everything, even stuff that seems simple.
As our hauling sessions started to grow shorter and weaker this arvo, we made camp a little early to give our bodies a chance to recover. We’ve managed 5 kilometres today, which is great—our best yet. We’re gradually finding our rhythm out here, but at the same time, it feels like we’re getting more and more tired each day. We’re also getting hungrier, which is a bad sign so early. Our breakfast, lunch and snacks are the same every day, but dinner is on a three-day rotation menu. One day it’s an amazingly tasty dehydrated meal such as Beef Teriyaki with some extra rice, the next day it’ll be plain pasta with butter and a few herbs, and the third day—which is unfortunately tonight—it’s just lots of plain white rice, with loads of butter and a sprinkle of herbs. Despite each meal being equally (and highly) calorific, this ‘rice night’ in particular just seems pathetically small compared to our increasingly ravenous hunger. So this evening, while I wrote our first expedition update for our website—focusing on the positive news such as discovering iPod-assisted hauling (but with only one earpiece, so we can still hear bears, etc.)—Clark went for a walk with the shotgun, hoping to bring home an arctic hare or perhaps a ptarmigan to add to the pot. Although we purchased hunting permits for both delicacies (as well as for fish) before we left, we weren’t intending to shoot anything unless we really needed to extend our rations towards the end of the trip, but already, serious food cravings are starting to chew away at us.
Unfortunately, Clark returned empty-handed, and after literally licking our bowls clean, we set up the bear tripwire alarm and, feeling hungry and concerned, shuffled deeper into our sleeping bags and fell asleep within seconds.
DAY 5: More trauma
3.00 am: SCREECH!!! SCREECH!!! SCREECH!!!
The siren sliced through my dreams and I wrenched my eyelids apart, squinting blindly in the sunny tent. My eyes focused on Clark’s and for a second, we gazed stunned-mullet style at each other in complete lack of comprehension. It didn’t sound quite like our wristwatch alarm, and it couldn’t possibly be morning already. Could it? We blinked stupidly at each other. ‘The bear alarm!’ I yelled, and terror suddenly surged through us. Just outside, a hungry polar bear would now be lumbering towards us, and if it got to the tent before we climbed out, we were about to die a particularly horrible death.
Fumbling frantically for the zipper on my sleeping bag, after what seemed like hours I finally grasped it, tore it open, and scrambled free. Beside me Clark was doing the same, and simultaneously we ripped open the zippers leading to the tent’s twin vestibules, grabbed our shotguns and with a final flourish, unzipped the tent fly. Almost out! My heart racing, I crouched down and scampered awkwardly through the flapping doorway, expecting at any moment to be crumpled by a shaggy hulk of yellow-white fur, claws and teeth. I sprang upright, wildly looking everywhere at once.
Worryingly, something big had actually snapped rather than pulled the tripwire. Its broken ends trailed in the wind. ‘I can’t see it!’ I shouted above the alarm’s ear-splitting wail. ‘Neither!’ Clark yelled, eyes wide with fear. Where was it hiding? There were no hiding places for a bear. Maybe it wasn’t a bear? But there was nothing—not even a fox. Whatever it was had apparently vanished into thin air. We were alone. As the panic subsided, I gradually became aware of icy water wicking through my warm bed socks from the sodden tundra underfoot, and felt the cold wind cutting through my Icebreaker thermals. Clark shrugged. I silenced the alarm, tied together the broken string, reset the tripwire and clambered back inside the tent. ‘Maybe it was just the wind,’ I suggested, as we both lay there, staring at the inside of the tent. ‘We did set the string pretty tight.’
Today endlessly toiled past, much like yesterday, but thankfully without any more major equipment failures.
Snug back in the tent at last, we hooked our little laptop up to our Iridium satellite phone and connected briefly to the internet to check our email. There was a flood of little messages sent to us through our website—wo
nderfully encouraging emails of support, sympathy, admiration and, generally, enthusiasm—from all around the world. We even got one from renowned polar adventurer Wave Vidmar, who in response to our iPod comment wrote that we needn’t bother leaving one earpiece out, as we’d never hear a bear until it was too close anyway. ‘So, listen to your iPod with both ears, but keep an eye out on your downwind side,’ he advised. Another poignant email was from Eric Philips, well-known Aussie polar explorer, who wrote, ‘It’s a really inspiring trip—you’re breaking new ground with every step. Hang in there—as the muscles harden and the systems streamline, the mileage will begin to increase.’ Humbled and cheered by his words, we drifted off to sleep.
DAY 6: Slow and steady
Late this afternoon we reached the tail end of our very first esker. Unshackling and scampering up its surprisingly steep side we stood on its flat, pebbly top. ‘Wow!’ I drew a low whistle, impressed.
Clark raised his eyebrows. ‘It really is like a gravel highway!’ Paving our way forward beside a beautiful lake, this wondrous esker looked purpose-built to haul along.
We heaved our PACs onto the esker, and as it was already 5 pm, decided to make camp—it’s just too perfect a spot not to. We managed a mere 2.5 kilometres today (a far cry from the 15 kilometres per day we need to start averaging soon to get to the end before our food runs out), but today’s poor mileage was the result of several hours testing and improving our systems, durably repairing our PACs and so on this morning. Tomorrow on the esker will be better. We’ve adopted a ‘slow and steady’ approach now—we’re out here for the long run. We’re already forgetting to miss the comforts of home like hot showers and warm dry socks, and with such an incomprehensible number of days still ahead of us, such luxuries are too far off to ‘look forward to’, so this—what we have here and now—has actually become ‘life’. It is what it is, and we’re getting used to it.
