'On The Land' in the High Arctic

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection

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My Guides: Gus and Willie

Chapter 2

I met my two guides, 54 year old Gus and 52 year old Willie, after I'd settled in at Roger's place. The Eskimos had an unspoken question as to whether I, as a 62 year old guy from Florida, was capable of driving a skidoo the required distances. On my first day in the Arctic, and as a little test of my competence, Willie and I took skidoos out to Husky Lakes to do some ice fishing.

This was about a three hour run each direction. I'd driven skidoos before, but it was 35 years before and it wasn't in the high Arctic. I found it very bumpy going. The lakes had these pretty little rippled snow drifts that I immediately found were as hard as ice and bounced the skidoo every which way. We were in the Mackenzie delta area which has thousands of lakes and in fact, there is more water than land, or more ice than tundra, when I was there. This high Arctic area is above the tree line, so nothing on the tundra grows taller than a small bush. The permafrost prevents trees from growing.

Driving the skidoo on the lakes was bad enough, but the snow covered tundra was even worse. The average bump was about double the small snow drifts on the lakes. But, the very worst, was the bare frozen tundra without snow. They were having an early spring, so the snow had already disappeared from parts of the tundra. The Eskimos don't hesitate to drive a skidoo over bare ground, even though it's hard on the machine and shortens its life. Whenever we came to bare tundra we just kept on skidooing, bouncing up and down over the eight inch high ruts.

Here I am on Husky Lake pretending I know how to fish.

We got to Husky Lake, which isn't actually a lake but a long bay off the Arctic Ocean, so it's salt water. Willie stopped near some other Eskimos from Tuk and proceeded to make an ice fishing hole for me. The ice was the standard Arctic six feet thick, so making a hole is no small chore. Most of the Eskimos use a gasoline powered ice auger, to start the hole. They'll make a hole as deep as they can with the auger, about five feet deep, and then hand chop out the remainder.

I'd already been told, it was unlikely I'd catch a fish. They were right. I got one bite, but it was such a surprise that I didn't react fast enough to hook him. The other Eskimos around me were occasionally catching nice 10 to 12 pound fish they called Lake Trout. I would have called them Salmon. They don't find Arctic Char in the Tuktoyuktuk area although they do catch Char about 300 miles to the east.

Eskimo woman fishing on Husky Lake

It was late Friday afternoon when we started back to Tuktoyuktuk. On the way back we kept passing Eskimo families on their way out to Husky Lake. A lot of the Eskimos, with regular jobs, come out after work on Friday, to camp for the weekend and ice fish in the nice spring weather. It was pleasant high Arctic weather, sunny at times to overcast with temperatures from -5°C to -15°C. The sun was setting about midnight and rising a few hours later. It never got dark at night, just a bright twilight.

When we got back I told my guides, if we kept the pace to a moderate level, I felt confident of my ability to drive the skidoo out to the Musk Ox. I had yet to experience the semi whiteouts of heavy overcast skies or the total whiteouts of blowing snow. Departure for my Musk Ox adventure was scheduled for the next day.

Eskimos do not plan on early morning starts. I think there are several reasons for this. One reason is, in the spring, there is often ice fog in the morning, and no one travels in the fog. Another reason is the Eskimos go to bed late. Late being, possibly up all night, and going to bed at 6AM in the morning. I suspect this is because, after they've gone through 24 hour nights, they want to make the most of the long days. Then there is packing the sleds for the trip. This is a long, time consuming affair that almost eliminates leaving early.

Almost every Eskimo traveling around the Arctic by skidoo is hauling a big sled. The sleds are hand made from ¾" plywood with 2x8" runners covered with ½" thick plastic. They are typically about 4 feet wide and about 12 feet long with an open box on top 4 feet wide by 8 feet long by 1½ feet deep. They have very few fasteners, instead relying on ropes to tie the pieces together. The ropes allow the sled to twist and flex on the rough terrain they travel over.

As an inexperienced and paying guest, I wasn't expected to pull a sled. Both Gus and Willie were pulling sleds and had big two man skidoos. Their skidoos were longer and heavier, than the one man skidoo I was using. The sleds were packed with two tents, sleeping blankets, rifles, cooking utensils, extra clothes, extra boots, kerosene heater, a $1000 worth of spare skidoo parts, SSB Radio, 100 gals. of gasoline in Jerry cans, tripod, three cases of camera equipment, and two coolers full of food. The food was put in the cooler to prevent it from freezing.

These items were covered with a canvas tarp and then very securely lashed in place. The sleds don't have shock absorbers, like the skidoos, so they are frequently airborne and anything loose in them would soon bounce out. We were finally ready to venture 'On The Land' about 2PM. The Eskimos refer to traveling out on the tundra, away from home and overnight, as 'Going On The Land'. Going on the land is a lot like sailors going to sea. The women come to see their men off, and there are semi emotional good-byes. This is because every once in a while the men, Going On The Land, don't come back. Women don't go on the land. I asked my guides if the had ever taken a woman out and their answer was No. This No was said in fashion that I took to mean they didn't intend to take a woman out either.

Our first night's campsite, was tentatively, to be around Turnabout Point, which they'd estimated would take us about 8 hours to reach. Roger Gruben and another man were planning to leave a couple hours after us, with a 35 gal. rubber bladder of additional gasoline. They were planning to link up with us, around midnight, at our first night's camp site. The bladder of gasoline was to be left at Turnabout Point as an emergency reserve supply.

Our route took us across the Tuktoyuktuk Peninsula that literally has 10,000 lakes. We crossed Husky Lake and from there we were into an area they call the fingers, which are a half dozen long peninsulas. From there we were into the large, 10 miles wide by 50 miles long, Liverpool Bay off the Arctic Ocean. We crossed over Campbell Island and then we were off the beaten path as we made our way toward the eastern shore of Liverpool Bay. There no longer were any skidoo trails to follow, and this large body of ice had formed small pressure ridges, that had thawed and refroze into a truly awful surface.

I had told Gus and Willie that I wanted to photograph a Snowy Owl, so our route was supposed to take us through an area with lots of Snowy Owls. We had seen a couple flying, off in the distance, but were never able to see where they landed. I found that trying to locate a white bird in a white landscape wasn't an easy thing to do. We finally spotted on Owl on the ground, a couple hundred yards ahead of us, but way too far away to photograph. I got off my skidoo and starting walking toward the Owl, but before I got anywhere near photography distance, it took off an flew away. When I got back, Gus informed me that Snowy Owls tasted a lot like chicken. Then I understood why I wasn't able to get very close to the Owl.

It had gotten cloudy, late in the afternoon, and without any sun to create shadows, it was almost impossible to see all the bumps we were constantly running into. It was exhausting driving the skidoo, because most of the time I had a death grip on the handle bars. This was more to stay on the skidoo, than it was for steering. When we finally got to Turnabout Point, it was about two hours past when I was ready to quit.

A mini disaster struck just as we were getting to our campsite. An elaborate cast aluminum bracket holding the handle bars on my skidoo broke in two, completely disabling my snow machine. I hoped that Roger Gruben was going to have a fix when he arrived later. Gus and Willie pitched their tent on a small patch of bare sand and fixed dinner. Dinner consisted of Caribou stew, banick and coffee. Caribou meat is as common to the Eskimos as beef is to us. Banick is sort of an Eskimo bagel. The coffee was prepared by carefully measuring out five palms full of coffee. Small chunks of ice are placed in a pan, the coffee dumped in, then the ice is melted and boiled on a Coleman Stove. It was surprisingly good, but I suppose you had to be there.

Roger and his friend showed up a little before the 12:45 AM sunset. Roger decided that I would take his friend's skidoo and they would get the disabled skidoo back to Tuktoyuktuk in the morning. They set up a very small tent for the two of them. No one used lights because it never really got dark at night, just a bright twilight, at the darkest.

I and my two guides went to bed in our spacious 6'x9' tent. We had an Eskimo shower which consists of a couple of wet wipes. Gus put his rifle next to the tent flap, for the unfriendly Grizzly Bears that lived in the area. I made the mistake of putting my sleeping blanket so my head was next to the outside of the tent. I woke up in the night with my head so cold I got up and put on my fur hat. Later, Gus was semi surprised that I wasn't sleeping with the blanket over my face, like the Eskimos did.

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This page was last updated: March 15, 2008