The 1000 Hour Day

by Chris Bray

  ‘Yeah, I reckon so, it’ll take about a week. Is this for indoor use?’

  ‘Ummm, no, not exactly. It’s rather “outdoor”, and we desperately need these stickers by tomorrow evening if at all possible … Can you do that?’

  There followed a familiar silence, after which he took a deep breath and said, ‘Yes. We can do that.’ Thank God. I doubt our sponsors would have been very impressed with my backup plan of sketching their logos onto the side of our PACs using permanent marker pens.

  My room now resembled an overstocked warehouse—the bed, desk and even the floor was strewn with well over $30,000 worth of brand-new expedition equipment. How were we ever going to fit this all into … into … ‘Bags!?!’ We both exploded simultaneously, ‘We don’t have anything to put all this in! Shit! Mum’ll drive us to the mall; quick, let’s go!’

  We picked the four biggest sports bags in the shop, agitatedly tapping our feet as the girl behind the counter asked, ‘You guys going on a holiday?’

  ‘Yeah, Canada.’

  ‘How awesome! Snowboarding?’

  ‘Ummm …’ we glanced at each other, ‘ … yeah, that’s right!’ We didn’t have the time.

  On the way back home I got another call from the film crew. They wanted to know if they could spend another day or two filming with us. ‘But we leave in two days, guys,’ I said, more than a little exasperated.

  ‘Oh, we promise not to get in your way—you just do what you gotta do, and we’ll just film.’

  ‘But …’ There were, apparently, no ‘buts’ if we wanted to keep the documentary deal.

  The crew showed up at 6 am and shadowed us everywhere we went for the remaining two days. Every time we muttered something between us, the microphones mounted on long boom poles were hurriedly held above us to catch the words.

  ‘Have you checked the satellite phones are charged, Clark?’

  ‘Damn, no! Where are they even!?’

  They sat Mum down on the front steps, cameras rolling: ‘So how are you coping with having your son about to head off on such a potentially dangerous journey?’ She burst into tears.

  On the very last day, we were still panicking, and they were still filming. Couriers were in and out of our driveway all day, delivering amongst other things Flag #49 from the Explorers Club that we’d been given the honour of carrying. While it may sound like a simple gesture, it is one steeped in tradition. This very flag, #49, has quite a history, having been carried on several amazing expeditions over the previous 73 years, including that of the famous polar explorer Captain Robert Bartlett in 1932.

  A last-minute re-test for the cameras of our bear tripwire system in the backyard was far from reassuring—my dog, Gypsie, either simply crawled cunningly underneath the string or leapt clear over it to get to the tasty Schmackos dog-treat lying in blissful ignorance on the other side. Trying not to draw too many parallels as she hungrily crunched and swallowed the last shreds, we turned to the cameras and declared that bears—surely—weren’t that agile.

  Dinner on that last night—marking the end of a day that came and went so quickly it might not have existed—was a special occasion. It was to be our last taste of decent home-cooked food, and our last chance to thank my parents for all they’d done. It was also the last chance we had to remember anything we might need during the next three months, and—oh yeah—it was Clark’s 21st birthday. I felt a little guilty about this, but my birthday had been just a few weeks earlier, and we had scarcely noticed that one either. We had about a year of missed parties and social outings to catch up on as soon as the expedition was over. Right now, though, we excused ourselves from the table after our second slice of cake, and retreated back into my room for some last-minute, focused panicking.

  Two-thirty am saw me sitting atop the last bag, squashing it smaller while Clark slowly coaxed the cheap zipper along its track. I stood up, and we both surveyed our handiwork. Four massive sports bags, each looking like it was only a matter of time before it exploded at the seams. Every now and again, faint popping noises told us that yet another stitch had decided that enough was enough.

  The next morning, after just 90 minutes’ sleep, my bedside alarm screeched 4 am. Lights and noises downstairs revealed my family were already up. In fact, they probably didn’t sleep. I shook Clark awake and we sat down to a hasty hot breakfast that Mum had lovingly prepared. A quick shower—a brief chance to reflect—and then our pre-organised plan of events engulfed us. Right on cue at 4.30, the film crew turned up again. Attempting to ignore the cameras, I tried to bid everyone a sincere goodbye. It didn’t feel very genuine, but then again everything had seemed surreal for several months now. I patted my dog, and we all struggled our bags to the waiting airport shuttle bus purring outside. The crew and their cameras tumbled in, and I seized the opportunity to give a more heartfelt goodbye to my family. It was still hard to believe that this moment was finally upon us. Clark and I crammed inside the minibus and sat beside four bewildered passengers who had just unwittingly become extras in the ‘airport shuttle scene’ of Discovery’s epic motion-picture extravaganza.

  ‘So tell us,’ the director probed. ‘What are you both feeling right now?’ Without a moment’s hesitation we replied as one: ‘Tired.’

  TO THE ARCTIC!

  Alone at last in the airport, we wheeled our obscene load of baggage towards check-in.

  ‘G’day, fellas!’ It was Ben—the marketing manager from Air Canada. He greeted us heartily, waving us past the main queue to our own private check-in desk, and introduced us to the airport manager, who pulled out a camera. ‘Just for a travel industry magazine …’ She smiled and Ben produced an enormous novelty-sized boarding pass and held it in front of us. We lingered with a small farewell party of Clark’s friends and then—while doing a live-to-air interview with a breakfast radio show in Queensland on my mobile—we headed off through Customs.

  Just as we were about to board the plane, the airport manager turned up and took our boarding passes. ‘Excuse me, but I think you’ll find these much more comfortable …’ Smiling, she replaced our two hospitality-class seats with the best two in the plane—Executive First Class, front centre.

  For the entire twenty hours of flying, we just could not stop grinning. In fact, we had to form a mutual agreement not to look at each other, as it made us burst out laughing. Even if I stretched my legs out as far as I could, I couldn’t touch the seat in front. We leant back in our reclined chairs, glass of champagne in hand, nibbling away at a little bowl of nuts while listening to beautiful classical music. I flicked open the four-course lunch menu and glanced at the first option: ‘Grilled Fillet of Salmon: enhanced by Parisienne Jus and Red Onion Jam with Truffle Risotto, Green Asparagus and sliced Bacon.’

  ‘Yes, well, that would probably be okay …’ Clark commented poshly, ‘but personally, I’m going with the Ravioli—next one down.’

  Before I’d even finished my bowl of mixed nuts, a beautiful flight attendant materialised in front of me with a replacement. She smiled. ‘We think you deserve a little luxury before your expedition.’ While I busied myself trying to extend the foot-rest—curious to see just how horizontal the seat could go—the captain appeared and, crouching in the aisle beside us, chatted about our expedition for a good five minutes before going back to the cockpit. Another flight attendant delicately passed each of us a scorchingly hot wet towel. Utterly bewildered, we shifted them from hand to burning hand, until Clark nudged me in the ribs. ‘Look, over there …’ The man opposite us—obviously a veteran of first-class travel—simply wiped his brow with it before passing the towel back. ‘Aha!’ Of course. We knew that. We both followed suit. Try as we might, we weren’t doing a very good job at pretending we flew first-class all the time. Surrounded by CEOs and trillionaires, we stuck out like sore thumbs, but we no longer cared, and the flight attendants had clearly taken it upon themselves to see just how much they could spoil us. ‘And to think that just a few hours ago,’ I mused, ‘that ra
dio interview guy asked me, “Why on earth would anyone want to do what you guys do?” ’

  Our blissful journey was rudely interrupted by Hawaii—a brief stopover. ‘Why is it that a journey to the Arctic involves a stopover in the tropics?’ Clark thought aloud as he pulled off his Windstopper jacket, sweat rolling down his neck. He started filming as I announced, ‘Hey, I just got an SMS from Dad …’ I read it through again. ‘Apparently there’s some kind of trucking strike in Vancouver; he thinks we might have trouble getting our PACs from the ship.’

  The enormity of this news didn’t sink in, and I shrugged to the camera, ‘It can’t be that bad.’ How incredibly wrong we were.

  After a few more hours of heaven aboard Air Canada, we touched down in Vancouver on 7 July 2005. Thumbing through our passports, the Customs official asked us the usual, ‘So, what brings you to Canada?’

  We pressed our mental ‘play’ button and recited our standard reply. ‘What?’ he said, incredulous. ‘The real Victoria Island?’

  I should point out here that about 99 per cent of the people we met thought that ‘Victoria Island’ was the large island just off Vancouver. That is in fact Vancouver Island, which just happens to have a town on it called Victoria. We always found it amusing the way people would try to let us down gently, explaining kindly that we really were very unlikely to come across any polar bears on our trip, ‘but there are some good cafés you can look forward to …’ This Customs bloke was one of the few people we met who actually understood where we were going. We found it slightly alarming, then, when he looked us in the eyes and said, ‘Whoa! You guys are going to die!’

  Amusingly, the cheapest way for us to get to our booked hotel turned out to be in a stretch limousine. ‘Watch yourself, boys,’ the driver warned as we drove over an invisible line, ‘we just entered the baaad part of town … and here’s your hotel.’ We found ourselves deposited outside a single, shabby, closed door fronting the street.

  ‘Well, it was the cheapest place I could find online in Vancouver,’ Clark reminded me. ‘I’ll go in and suss it out.’ He vanished inside, leaving me anxiously mentally adding up the value of the contents of the bags around me. Thirty-two thousand dollars, oh and the digital SLR camera, that’s $35,000, and—

  ‘Hey, you got any spare change, man?’ I whirled around, and my eyes met the vacant stare of a junkie standing right behind me. Positively overflowing with valuables, I assured him I had nothing. He lurched onwards down the street.

  ‘Hey, you’re not from round here, are ya?’ Two girls I hadn’t noticed before spoke up, eyeing me while leaning against the next doorway.

  ‘Umm, no—just here for a snowboarding holiday actually …’

  Mercifully, Clark reappeared, waving a key. ‘Upstairs, room 102,’ he said. ‘And there’s no lifts.’

  Once inside the dingy little room, we looked at the beds. The last time we’d slept was 36 hours ago in Sydney—and even that was for less than two hours. Just to test how cosy they were before heading out for some dinner, we flopped onto the mattresses and—fully clothed, shoes hanging off the ends—we lay there motionless until well after midday the following afternoon.

  The next day, as we wandered the streets trying to find breakfast and not get mugged, I called up our Vancouver shipping cargo handler. ‘No, there’s nothing you can do. Your kayaks are going nowhere anytime soon.’ I listened in disbelief as she continued, ‘Your shipping container will be buried beneath the thousands of others piling up on the wharves by now.’ This couldn’t be happening.

  ‘Well … when is the trucking strike expected to end?’

  ‘There’s no end in sight,’ she replied matter-of-factly, adding, ‘and, even after it ends, clearing this backlog of containers will take three times as long as the strike itself.’ Sitting in a quiet café, we attempted to keep our heads above the rising feeling of panic as this devastating news sank in.

  ‘So what does this mean?’ Clark pondered aloud.

  I started to count our worst fears on my fingers. ‘One: If we don’t get them out soon, it’ll be too late to start the expedition anyway. Summer just isn’t long enough.’ Clark nodded in bitter agreement, staring unseeing at his coffee cup. ‘Two: We’ll have about $100,000 worth of unhappy sponsors …’

  ‘Yeah. Hope they don’t ask for their money back—we’ve spent it all getting this far.’

  ‘They won’t do that, but they certainly won’t sponsor us again,’ I threw back, being less than helpful. ‘Nor will any other company. And it’s not like we can postpone it until next year either, not with uni and things …’ Our despair was rapidly sinking to new depths. ‘We just have to get them out. That’s all it comes down to.’ We downed the dregs of our now cold coffee and flicked open our notebook, waiting for inspiration.

  I called the only contact we had in Vancouver: Nancy at Diamonds North Resources—a mining company looking for diamonds up north—one of our smaller sponsors. Her office, as it turned out, was less than 100 metres from where we sat. As always, she was full of energy. ‘Come right over! Finally we get to meet, eh?’ She toured us around the office.

  ‘Yeah, this strike is no small stop-work meeting, boys,’ she said. ‘It’s costing British Columbia $30 million a day. Businesses are running out of supplies, millions of dollars of perishables are going to waste in those containers each day, internationally touring concerts can’t get to their instruments; it’s affecting a lot of people.’ Smiling in spite of her words, she picked up her phone and said, ‘But now it’s stopping two young Aussies pursuing their dream, and we can’t have that!’ She turned her attention to the phone. ‘Yes, hi, Terrie, I have two Australians here you’d like to talk to …’ Handing the phone to me, she explained that it was Canadian Press—Canada’s news-collecting centre that feeds all newspapers, radios and TV stations.

  Minutes later I wrapped up an interview, and now armed with the mobile number for the lawyer representing the striking truckers, we were escorted by Nancy and the rest of Diamonds North to a pub across the road where they shouted us a beer or three. In between rounds, I nipped outside into a quiet alley and gave the lawyer, Craig, a call. I came back to the table grinning like an idiot. ‘He’s going to help us out!’ More beer flowed as I broke the news. ‘They’ll hunt down our container from amongst the thousands, pull it out with a crane and allow our trucker to collect it first thing Monday morning!!’ Mugs clinked, and our spirits once again soared.

  Quite a few people had joined our table by this stage, including a quiet, stern-faced geologist. ‘I’ve been to Victoria Island,’ he said, hesitating. ‘So you two boys are going to try and travel, alone, on foot?’ We nodded, bracing ourselves for another reality check. ‘I’ve been out there,’ he repeated, ‘ … and to be honest, boys, well, I’d be surprised if either of you make it out alive.’ The more he heard of our plans, however, the more animated and interested he became, and when we got up to leave he shook our hands heartily and wished us luck. ‘Well, good on you for trying, anyway. You’ve got courage—maybe you won’t die after all.’

  Later, hungry for dinner, I was about to swing closed the peeling door on our hotel room when I paused. ‘Do you reckon it might actually be safer to take our valuables with us, rather than risk leaving our video cameras and stuff here in the hotel?’

  ‘That’s a good point, actually,’ Clark agreed, ‘besides, we should film us “soaking up the last of civilisation”.’ This decision almost cost us dearly.

  Not five minutes after we left the hotel, a voice croaked up from right behind us. ‘Hey, they look like pretty special backpacks, boys, whatcha got in them?’ The junkie stood tight beside us at the traffic lights. We ignored him. ‘I said, what’s in the bags?!’ he demanded. I decided against admitting ‘Two satellite phones, a GPS chartplotter, a digital SLR camera, a $3000 lens, a portable hard-drive, two $7000 video cameras, wads of cash, passports and some airline tickets.’ We needed to defuse this situation fast. Our two grey waterproof camera b
ackpacks stuck out like sore thumbs.

  The lights changed and we walked off. He followed. We began to wind around a few streets trying to get our bearings—finding ourselves ever deeper in the ‘baaaad’ part of town. The junkie quickened his pace and once again drew level. ‘Where are you guys from, anyway?’

  Clark had a brainwave. ‘We’re just over from Australia to compete in the inter-college kick-boxing championships.’ With that, the junkie melted away into the background.

  First thing Monday morning I called our cargo handlers. ‘Fantastic news,’ I told our contact. ‘The striking truckers have agreed to let your truck pick up our shipping container!’ Silence. ‘They said they’ll let your driver through the strike picket line …’

  Clearly she didn’t share my excitement. ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘Why should my driver believe you?’ She had a point.

  ‘Well, I can get the truckers’ spokesperson to confirm it. I’ll get him to call y—’

  She cut me off. ‘It doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m not going to ask one of my drivers to go in there. Shots have already been fired at trucks trying to cross the picket line.’

  She didn’t care. I was desperate. ‘Okay, fair enough. I’ll find a trucker who’ll do it, and then—’

  Again, she interrupted me. ‘It doesn’t matter if you do. We are the handlers for your container, and it’s a lot of paperwork to transfer it over to some other company. You’ll just have to wait, like everyone else.’

  I was stunned at her attitude. ‘Yeah, thanks, you’ve been a great help.’ I spat the words and hung up, fuming.

  ‘God, what a rollercoaster this is,’ Clark muttered, as our spirits once again took a dive.

  ‘I’ll call the lawyer chap, and dob on them: “Daddy—our cargo handler’s being mean to us … ” ’ We laughed, but it really was our best option. I dialled the number.