'On The Land' in the High Arctic

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection

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Willie and Gus attempting to make repairs to my Skidoo.

Chapter 4

We started off, but after a short ways my skidoo just stopped of its own accord. I got it restarted, but hadn't gone very far until it made a loud, unnatural noise. It kept on going, but my arms were starting to ache, from trying to stay on course, since the skidoo always seemed to want to turn left. After a little more traveling, the skidoo started to make a constant terrible noise, and I decided I'd have to stop. Willie came up and starting studying the undercarriage and discovered one of the track wheels was missing.

This was the replacement skidoo we gotten from Roger Gruben and I knew we had no spare parts for this model. Willie was rummaging through the small storage compartment on the skidoo, and came up with a spare track wheel. Hooray I thought, we're saved, but that was just another example of my faulty thinking. Gus and Willie turned the skidoo on its side, to replace the track wheel, and started inspecting the undercarriage. They discovered one shaft had no bearings left and one aluminum undercarriage rail was almost worn into two pieces. They put on the new track wheel, but decided we'd be lucky to get back to camp, considering the shape of the skidoo.

We started back to camp, but in short order my skidoo was again making terrible noises. At that point I traded my ailing skidoo for the big Yamaha that Gus was driving. I then discovered, that at least some of my slow driving problem was related to the shorter lighter skidoo, I had been driving. With the longer heavier Yamaha I didn't have any problem keeping up on our drive back to camp.

Back at camp, Willie tried to reach Roger Gruben by SSB radio, but he couldn't raise anyone in Tuktoyuktuk. He did talk with a woman who was about half way between us and Tuk, but she couldn't raise anyone in Tuk either. Gus and Willie talked it over and decided it was just to risky to continue on with our hunt for Musk Ox. They were afraid all the bare ground would disable another skidoo, and we'd be left with one skidoo, to get the three of us back to Tuk. They also decided the distressed skidoo would never make it the 130 miles back to Tuk. Thus was the inglorious ending, of my hunt for Musk Ox, at Tuktoyuktuk. I hadn't seen a single Musk Ox or taken a single photograph of a wild animal in the Arctic.

The next decisions to make were the arrangements for the trip back to Tuk with three people and two skidoos. The next morning they tried the SSB radio again, and by relaying through a group camped at Anderson River, were able to talk with Roger. He told them to leave the disabled skidoo, at the Mason River camp site, and for one of the guides to ride in a sled. Gus and Willie discussed covering the disabled skidoo with a big tarp, but decided the tarp would just be an invitation to a Grizzly Bear. They ended up leaning a couple of long drift wood boards across it, and letting it go at that.

Roger didn't have the nerve to suggest, that I, a paying client, be down graded to sled rider. Gus and Willie, however, had no such reservations, about me riding in a sled. They presented the argument, that with them driving, they could get us back to Tuk in one day, rather than the two days it took us coming out. I agreed with them, that I probably couldn't keep up a pace that would get us back in one day. But, I was apprehensive about riding in a sled, for all the hours it would take. The sleds don't have nice shock absorbers like the skidoos, and from watching them I knew how badly they bounced.

I decided I had to at least try the sled, and they rearranged the gear, to make a tiny padded space I could wedge into. I soon learned, the tight fit was a blessing. It prevented me from rattling around in my space, during the constant bouncing. I found it was a lot colder, riding in the sled, than when I was constantly working at driving the skidoo. I also learned, that the tracks on the skidoo, threw up a fine mist of snow that settled down to just where I was positioned in the sled. I spent most of my time, with a coat over my head, to protect my face from the wind and snow.

I had lots of time to contemplate my situation, and at one point decided to count the bounces. I timed it for a minute, and counted 27, 'leave the ground jolts', or about an average of a bounce every two seconds. On the way back, I was trying to think of something to compare with my skidooing experience. I decided, driving around an empty parking lot at 15 MPH, and hitting a 4" high bumper stop every two seconds, might be comparable. Then, you add to the experience, by occasionally adding an 8" high bumper stop, and you do your driving in the fog where you can't even see the the bumper stops, to simulate the whiteouts. Finally, you make the temperature 10° F, and take the windshield out of your car and you have skidooing on the tundra.

For complete authenticity, you need to find a parking lot a 100 miles away from the nearest living person, and pretend their won't be any AAA, if you break down. Of course, to completely simulate my conditions, you have to keep driving over the bumper stops for ten straight hours. If you have the impression that I wasn't having any fun, you're probably right. Anyway, ten hours and 18,000 bumps later we got back to Tuk, at 10PM. The first thing I did was head for the shower. I found that wet wipes didn't really cut it.

The next morning, which was Wednesday, I sat down with Roger Gruben to discuss my options for photographing Musk Ox. Other than giving up, it appeared my only hope was Banks Island. The problem was Aklak Airlines only had flights to Banks Island on Mondays and Thursdays. I had a non refundable ticket on Canadian Airlines and a free ticket on Continental Airlines that would have to be changed if I was going to stay over and go on to Banks Island. It looked like an expensive change of plans, and a lot of hassle. Roger said he would take care of rebooking me, which he did. So, it turned out to be an expensive change of plans, with no hassle.

Roger's wife Winnie, told me Roger and his friend would be leaving the next day, with repair parts for the disabled skidoo. She said they had left another disabled skidoo at the same Mason River site a few years before. When they had arrived to retrieve it, a couple of weeks later, they found it had been practically destroyed, by a Grizzly Bear. The bear had torn apart everything it could get at, including biting holes in the gas tank. Apparently the bear just didn't want any strange thing, like a skidoo, in his territory. That gave me a little better understanding, about Gus and Willie's concerns over the Grizzly Bears.

I caught the afternoon Aklak flight, from Tuktoyuktuk to Inuvik, and spent the night in the Mackenzie Hotel. I went shopping the next morning for a pair of skidoo goggles, as a solution to my 'fur in the eyes' problem. The Aklak van picked me up at the hotel, and got me to the airport on time, for the noon flight to Sachs Harbor. At Aklak Airlines the pilot and co-pilot are also the baggage loaders. Aklak never charged me for excess baggage, even though, according to their posted weights, I was always overweight. Maybe I never got charged, because the flights were never near full. When we were coming into Banks Island, the pilot asked me if there was anything I'd like to photograph from the air. You don't get much of that from airline pilots.

Banks Island has 95,000 Musk Ox, roaming its 27,000 square miles of tundra. It has only the one tiny community of Sachs Harbor on the island. No one lives anywhere on the island, except in Sachs Harbor. At 72° N Sachs Harbor is further north than any point in Alaska. I assume its treeless rolling tundra, with its 1200 foot thick permafrost, is a lot like the Alaskan North Slope. To a tourist from Florida, it looked like a place where the 'wide open spaces' thing had run amuck.

Roger Kuptana: My guide on Banks Island.

My guide on Banks Island was to be Roger Kuptana. He and his wife Jackie met me at the airport with their pickup truck, that they use on the six miles of roads on Banks Island. Roger was born and has lived most of his life in Sachs Harbor, but his wife Jackie is originally from London, England. The weather was low overcast with light snow and a little below freezing, wind breaker weather for the locals. Roger told me, this was the right time of year to visit, since the weather was so nice. There was more snow, then there had been around Tuk.

The Kuptanas run a new, very nice, five bedroom guest house, that is the only place for a tourist to say in Sachs Harbor. Except for the six week tourist season, most of their guests are government employees, arctic researchers, hunters and Northwest Territories locals. They live in the house next door with their two children, a girl 9 and a boy 13. When I got to the guest house, it turned out I was the only guest. Roger told me to be ready to leave by 9AM in the morning, so I thought to myself, we'll probably leave by noon. He spent the afternoon fixing skidoos and packing sleds.

I setup my tripod, with the Nikon F5 and 500mm Lens. I wanted Roger to have an idea of the gear I'd be using. I could tell my long lens looked like a canon to Roger, and he had visions of me taking Musk Ox pictures from a mile off. He had a Musk Ox skull on a shed near his house, that I used to position my tripod. I showed him the approx. 50 yard distance I'd have to be for a full frame shot. He got this skeptical look on his face and said he'd try.

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This page was last updated: March 15, 2008