The 1000 Hour Day

by Chris Bray

  Jumping the gun a little, without a completed Expedition Document, we rushed out a makeshift sponsorship proposal to every sizeable aluminium outlet in Australia. To our great joy, Alcoa—the world’s largest aluminium company—became our very first sponsor, delivering us all the aluminium we needed, including doing special production runs of extra-long sheets so we could make the hulls from one strip. ‘That wasn’t even a polished sponsorship proposal we sent out!’ Clark grinned. It certainly was encouraging, and spurred us on to start harassing companies for major sponsorship. We just had a few details to fill in first.

  One of these was what to do about the very real threat posed by polar bears. Being Australian, the idea of having to keep an eye out for hunting predators while going bushwalking was completely foreign to us. No matter how disconcerting animal noises can sound right outside your tent at night, you can always snuggle deeper into your sleeping bag and ignore it—it’s probably just a kangaroo. Unfortunately, this ‘she’ll be right, mate’ attitude wouldn’t work so well for us up in the Arctic. The idea of sleeping with only point-nothing of a millimetre of tent fabric between me and the world’s largest land carnivore—the only species of bear that actively hunts humans—was worrying to say the least. Alarmingly, polar bears can and do smell out people—sometimes from over 10 kilometres away—and hunt them down while they sleep, ultimately exploding through the side of the tent onto its unsuspecting occupants. To try and prevent this, or at least give us some warning, I designed a perimeter tripwire alarm system that we’d use each night. Basically this involved hammering in four stakes around the tent, between which we’d run our string tripwire that plugged into a simple circuit. When a bear (or, more commonly, one of us stumbling out to the toilet at night) bumped into this string, the plug would be yanked out, and an ungodly scream would be unleashed from a 110-decibel siren. While hopefully scaring the bear too, the main purpose of this alarm was to wake us up with enough time to defend ourselves.

  So what then? After you leap from the tent to confront a bear that can stand a horrifying 4.3 metres tall—that’s tall enough to look into a second-storey window, or to look you square in the face when it’s standing on all fours—what do you do then? People kept pointing out to us that while they may look big and cumbersome, polar bears can actually run at speeds of up to about 40 kilometres per hour—there was no way I would be able to outrun one. They were missing the point, though: I wouldn’t need to outrun the bear—I just had to outrun Clark. Still, there had to be better options, and we spent considerable time researching them.

  Most of the Canadian Government texts online recommended that ‘when a bear approaches too close, get back into your vehicle and drive away’. Not a lot of help when the nearest car would be hundreds of kilometres away. Failing that, they recommend that you run downhill, because polar bears have relatively short front legs and apparently can’t run down a slope. Hmm, yeah—not a great deal of help either, considering Victoria Island would mostly be completely flat. At last we came upon some practical solutions. We’d each carry a can of ‘bear spray’—similar to the pepper-mace used by the police, but with a range of up to 9 metres. A nose full of this deters most grizzly bears, but some hungry polar bears have been known to be alarmingly persistent, and have even been reported to enjoy licking off this chilli-dressing before trying again! Still, it was worth carrying.

  Polar bears primarily hunt seals, and mostly catch them as they surface at their limited set of breathing holes through the frozen ocean. In summer, however, the surface melts into countless cracks and openings, and the seals are no longer restricted in their breathing locations. This makes life hard for the bears—no longer able to simply lie in wait at a hole, they are now forced to either follow the receding ice northwards, or come ashore and wait out the summer on land, getting hungrier and hungrier. Come the end of summer, these hungry bears congregate on the coastline waiting for the ocean to freeze over once again. Unfortunately for us, this meant the only bears we’d be likely to come across in our summer traverse would be incredibly hungry ones, possibly having not eaten in months. We’d need something to back up our cans of sweet chilli sauce spray.

  The ceaseless tap-tap-tapping of keyboards around me at my work placement continued on into lunchtime. I, on the other hand, had been counting down the seconds. 12:29:59 … 12:30:00. Lunch break. I picked up the phone.

  ‘Good afternoon, my name’s Chris, I’m from Australia. I was just wondering how best to defend myself against a polar bear.’

  In the workstation cubicle opposite mine, the tap-tap-tapping stopped.

  ‘A twelve-gauge, pump-action shotgun loaded with solid-slug bullets? Fair enough. Thanks.’

  I dialled another number.

  ‘Hi, I hear you’ve done a bit of hunting up in the Arctic? … Do you know what colour polar bears’ eyes reflect when you shine a torch at them in the dark? … When my bear tripwire goes off at night, it’d be good to know if that’s a bear coming at the tent, or just a curious muskox!’

  Feeling more than a little self-conscious, I glanced around the deafeningly silent office. I couldn’t help grinning at the bewildered expressions of my co-workers, and I continued as quietly as I could.

  ‘A bright white-ish colour, okay, and wolves are orange. And muskox? Green. Okay, great. Thanks very much.’

  ‘White-ish,’ I echoed, typing one of the few remaining pieces of the puzzle into our Expedition Document.

  The keen interest from the adventure community began to beg the obvious question: has this ever been attempted before? Could it be a world first? Claims like this are often more than a little subjective, I find—I mean, if you define what you’re doing specifically enough, the chances are that yes, you probably are the first person in the history of humankind to walk from here to there, following your precisely wandering route. Failing that, you’re probably ‘the first ever Sydney-born Australian, under the age of 25, who grew up on a yacht’ to attempt it. Amusingly, you do hear claims almost as absurd as this from time to time. Why do people bother with such trivial statements? Largely because most sponsors want media exposure, and the media aren’t interested in something that has already been done before—it has to be ‘new’ to be ‘news’. Conveniently for us, what we were attempting was absurd enough that the chances of anyone else having ever bothered to try were pretty slim.

  We set to work researching the history of the island. It had been visited by some polar greats—Amundsen was there in 1903, and Sir John Franklin visited before he and his men all perished on their infamous, ill-fated expedition to locate the Northwest Passage. Actually, what happened to the Franklin Expedition was one of the most celebrated mysteries of the nineteenth century. His incredibly high-profile expedition, complete with sailing ships HMS Erebus and Terror, seemingly vanished off the face of the earth in 1845. Many subsequent expeditions were sent out in search of Franklin, and eventually some remains and personal effects—including evidence that the team were driven to cannibalism in their final days—were found at various locations, including on King William Island, just to the east of Victoria Island. It is now believed that the expedition likely wintered on the eastern coastline of Victoria Island as their ships drifted, bound by pack ice in McClintock Channel. It was even possible, locals said excitedly, that we might discover proof of this—caches perhaps, artefacts, even scribbled notes—which would be historically invaluable. We wasted no time in adding that to our ‘Interesting aspects of the expedition’ section of our document.

  So, our island had been visited by early explorers, the Inuit of course lived there for thousands of years, and in the present day there are two small permanent communities on the island: Cambridge Bay and Holman. However, much to our excitement, our research indicated that our route would take us through whole regions probably never before seen by human eyes. Even the local Inuit elders agreed, saying that there was no evidence of their ancestors ever having visited such areas, and they would have had little reason
to do so, being away from the caribou migration routes and other resources which the Inuit traditionally followed. Certainly, they would not have tried something as pointless as crossing the whole island from coast to coast in one hit. Despite ever-increasing diamond survey sites from mining prospectors advancing across the island, much of it remains virtually unexplored from the ground, and most map data is derived from aerial measurements. For some form of official confirmation on a newsworthy ‘world first’ status, I approached the prestigious international Explorers Club, based in New York.

  Founded in 1904, the 3000-odd members of this exclusive club have been responsible for many of the world’s most famous expeditions. Chaired at the time by Sir Edmund Hillary (who, together with fellow Explorers Club member Tenzing Norgay, was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953), other members past and present include the first person to reach the North Pole (Robert Peary in 1909), the first to the South Pole (Roald Amundsen in 1911), the first to the deepest part of the ocean (Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in 1960) and even the first to the surface of the moon (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969). The club’s research division pondered my question for a few days, and ultimately informed me that, no, as far as they knew, no one had ever attempted something even remotely similar to our proposed expedition. Bingo! I opened our document: ‘Edit’ … ‘Search & Replace’ … ‘Expedition’ with ‘World-First Expedition’. The email from the Explorers Club didn’t stop there, however; they suggested that with my background, I apply for membership. It really was an honour, and I wasted no time sending in my application. A few weeks later I got a phone call informing me that I had just been elected as their newest member—by far the youngest of the 30 members in Australia, and the second-youngest in the club worldwide! I felt like a total impostor—absolutely amazed that they accepted me—but it certainly added to the credibility and prestige of our expedition, and I proudly entered it into our now almost complete Expedition Document.

  The final touch required coming up with an interesting name for our journey, and an accompanying logo. We agonised over this seemingly trivial detail for days, coming up with every cheesy name under the sun. The sun, as it turned out, was actually the deciding factor in the end. I worked out we’d experience just over 1000 hours of perpetual daylight on our trip before the sun first dipped briefly below the horizon, and so we christened our undertaking ‘The 1000 Hour Day Expedition’. The logo simply became the silhouette of a stick figure hauling the words ‘1000 Hour Day’ over some ‘tundra’ that was formed by the sentence ‘Unsupported across Victoria Island—the High Arctic’. We proudly printed our logo onto every document we could find, and that was that.

  Over the following days, a total of 56 large, imposing manila envelopes found their way onto the desks of marketing managers all around Australia, and even several offices overseas. Our love–hate relationship with ‘The Document’ now spanned 48 concise colour pages comb-bound with a black cover. We hoped it would have been a pretty formidable sight as it slid out of its envelope along with a sponsorship proposal uniquely tailored for each company. But would it do the trick? Was it enough? Some of these companies receive literally dozens of requests for sponsorship every single week.

  Back at home, Clark and I held our breaths. Absolutely everything depended on what these companies decided over the next few weeks. Everything. It was genuinely terrifying, especially as we’d already spent far more money than we had between us, and were now sinking handfuls of money into building our wheeled kayaks, or PACs (our acronym for Paddleable Amphibious Carts), with every passing day. We were pretty stressed, and on top of all this pandemonium, I was still engaged in full-time work placement, and Clark’s first batch of university exams were hurtling towards him at an alarming rate. The days merged into one continuous blur of delirium, punctuated only by the occasional moment where time stood still—when the post arrived each day. They were easy to spot—the replies to our sponsorship proposals—neat little envelopes branded cleanly with the company logo. ‘Nestlé’, ‘Nike’ or ‘Cadbury’, for example. They looked so innocent lying there on the kitchen table, but the sight of them struck fear into our hearts. What if they said no? Pretending we didn’t really care, we’d leave them as long as we could, and then eventually cave in and tear them open:

  Dear Mr Bray,

  I would like to thank you for your proposal to [name of company], offering us the opportunity to support your 1000 Hour Day project.

  As you will appreciate, [name of company] receive many requests for sponsorship and support and we have had to develop strict guidelines by which these submissions are evaluated.

  …

  It is always difficult for us to decline opportunities such as the one you offer and we appreciate the time and effort taken to contact us. Unfortunately our sponsorship budget and resources are fully commited and we are unable to assist on this occasion.

  ‘Yeah, oh well,’ Clark muttered, reading over my shoulder. ‘We never really expected them to agree.’ Rejection letter followed rejection letter, and we laughed them all off, trying not to see the obvious trend.

  ‘Of course we’re getting all the “No”s first,’ I said, trying to maintain confidence. ‘The ones that are interested will take longer, they’ll have to run it past higher management.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. Come on, let’s get back to work on the kayaks,’ Clark mumbled, ‘your dad’s already out there.’

  On weekdays, I’d come home from work, change my claustrophobic business attire for something more practical and head straight into the garage where our PACs were gradually taking form. It was a painful and slow process. Our hands were lacerated by jagged metal edges, punctured by broken-off pop-rivets, and smeared with Sikaflex sealant which—even after scrubbing with turps and steel wool until our eyes watered—never quite washed off. During the week, my dad would help out too, devoting countless hours in the garage. Clark would work with us all weekend, every weekend, and all three of us gave it everything we had, trying desperately to get them finished in time.

  A typical day would see us wake early and deal with quieter To-Do tasks until 9 am, by which time we figured our neighbours would be up, allowing us to return to noisily cutting, grinding, drilling, riveting, welding and hammering our PACs together. Breaking only for hasty meals we’d be back out there again, even after dinner. Just as delirium set in around 10 pm, my mum would invariably appear with mugs of hot chocolate and lovingly baked muffins to keep up morale. Long after everyone else had gone to sleep Clark and I kept at it, trying to be as quiet as we could, until, CLANG!—one of us would accidentally drop something noisily against the enormous metal war-gong that was our PAC hull. Seconds later a bleary-eyed Dad would swing open the garage door and command, ‘Christopher! That’s quite enough! We need to get some sleep, and so do our neighbours!’ We’d then slink inside and busy ourselves again with the silent To-Do’s until the wee hours of the morning. When finally we could no longer keep our eyes open even with coffee, we’d sleep like dead men for as little as three or four hours before our alarm clock would jerk us back to life, ready for another day of the same. We just couldn’t keep this up. Despite our herculean effort, we were falling further behind schedule each day—at the current rate the last possible cargo ship would leave for Canada weeks before the PACs would be finished. It was hopeless—we were fighting against a deadline that we just could not meet. We simply couldn’t work any faster, or sleep any less.

  Slumped forward in my chair at work, I didn’t hear my boss stride up to my cubicle. ‘Chris?’ I jumped, my eyes focused, and my mind—which had been a squillion miles away—now wound itself back to the present.

  ‘Hi. Oh … ummm … AutoCAD drawings, where was I? I finished them, that’s right. Do you have more?’

  I’d been caught napping on the job, and we both knew it. However, he kindly pretended not to notice, and continued, ‘Chris, as promised I asked management if they’d sponsor your trip, but apparentl
y they can only sponsor teams, not individuals, I’m sorry.’ This was a common catch, and I nodded in understanding.

  ‘However,’ my boss went on, ‘I may be able to help you in another way.’ I looked up, eyebrows raised. ‘Would some time off work help?’

  I could have hugged him—right then, time was even more valuable than money. ‘You’ve done more than enough AutoCAD drawings,’ he said. ‘We’ll call if we need you to come in next week.’ When my expression revealed just how much this meant, he added, ‘Actually, you can go home now if you want.’ The dull glow of hope that had nearly extinguished inside me now burst back into flames, and I was out the door even before my computer had finished logging off.

  ‘Yes?’ My neighbour came to his front door. ‘Oh, Chris, hello! Come in, what can I do for you?’

  I didn’t have time to beat around the bush. ‘I’m really sorry to have to ask you this, but would you mind putting up with a bit of late-night garage noise for the next week or two?’ A faintly pained look flashed through his eyes. Come to think of it, his eyes looked almost as bleary as mine. Perhaps I should have asked this question several weeks earlier.

  ‘No, no. That’ll be okay,’ he replied. ‘I read about it in the paper the other day, actually—extraordinary. Good on you.’

  Left with no excuse to down tools even as midnight came and went, Dad, Clark and I redoubled our efforts, and various friends started dropping around to lend a hand. Ever so gradually, the idea of getting the PACs finished in time began to creep back into the realms of possibility. I skimmed over the final few days’ schedule Dad had put together: