by Mike Horn
* * *
Two foxes appeared out of the blue, practically at the tips of my skis, streaking across the landscape as if I weren’t there at all. They were chasing after an Arctic hare in total silence. The two foxes, some of the fastest animals in all creation, barely touched the ice as they ran, churning up a cloud of powdery snow behind them. After they had caught and killed their prey, leaving nothing more than a small red stain on the infinite whiteness, one of the two hunters proudly held up the hare’s head, as if to say, “I caught it!”
Later I saw two giant hares mating so enthusiastically that they were aware of nothing outside of themselves, not even me, though I was close enough to reach out and touch them.
One day, when I was struggling futilely to find enough wind to be pulled by my kite, a large red fox suddenly appeared just a yard away from me and sat calmly in the snow, observing first me, then my kite, with evident fascination. As soon as I uttered a sound, he vanished with an almost cartoonish “whoosh!”
Another fox stuck his head out of his den as I went by, then popped back into hiding. I could only make out the red tufts of his eartips, and his eyes, which seemed to be asking me, “And just what do you think you’re doing here?”
Leaning over the edge of the ice, a polar bear waited patiently for its prey. The instant a seal’s nose broke the surface to breathe, the bear sank its claws into the seal’s throat with blinding speed, lifting it like a grouper on the tip of a harpoon and dropped it onto the ice at its feet. The bear placed one paw on the stunned seal’s head to brace it and then sliced it open lengthwise with the tip of one of its razor-sharp claws. Several gallons of warm oil spilled out onto the ice. The bear repeatedly dipped its paw into the oil and licked it off until it had slurped up all of the seal’s oil. The bear gobbled down the sealskin for dessert and with lordly nonchalance abandoned the seal meat for the foxes to devour.
I felt as if I had walked into the middle of a wildlife show on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. But this was nothing more than everyday life, peaceable and cruel, funny and spectacular, flowing on uninterrupted around me, the uninvited guest. The native creatures of the Arctic and I shared one simple priority: survival.
* * *
On certain days when the snow was perfectly smooth, I would zip along over the white surface like a paintbrush over silk, with giant strides that would each move me forward the distance you might cover with a long jump on the moon. I would lengthen my gait, stretching out each lunge to the extreme limit, fully aware that inches lost now would add up over the course of a day to miles that I could have put behind me. If I extended each of my strides by four inches, the twelve thousand total miles of my journey would be covered a month and a half sooner.
The sense of euphoria I felt, which erased my exhaustion and seemed to lighten the weight of my sled and my body, came partly from the fact that I was finally getting close to Committee Bay. Soon, very soon, my interminable detour would be coming to an end. Soon I would be moving out of the path of the polar bears’ migratory route, leaving the mother bears to suckle their young in peace deep in their snowy caverns. Soon I would be setting my course westward once again.
Until then, however, I would continue to have to be on the lookout for bears, and the blinding icy haze was not particularly reassuring.
My heart made a sudden leap in my chest when a huge shadow moved furtively through the mist a few feet away from me. Then there was another, and yet another.
In this pea soup it was impossible to tell what those shadowy shapes might be—but I had a nasty hunch. I wanted to stop so that I could watch silently and try to figure out exactly what I was dealing with and find a way to reach safety. But if I were to stand still, exposed to the elements at a temperature of eighty degrees below zero, I would quickly turn into a block of ice.
I could try to escape, but in what direction? The shadows grew in number, proliferating, racing by on all sides. This many polar bears traveling all together—it was impossible! This whole spectacle must be an illusion, the unfortunate result of collateral damage to my long-suffering nervous system caused by the extreme cold. After all, humans weren’t meant to live in these conditions for extended periods of time, and perhaps there were secondary effects I knew nothing about. I had undergone just about every physical ordeal imaginable, but this was the first time that I felt as if I were losing my mind.
Finally, after several slow, terrifying minutes the silhouettes became a little sharper until I could finally see that they were … caribou. A herd of caribou. A vast horde of caribou passing all around me and heading in the direction of Sabine Island.
The presence of caribou usually attracts wolves, but with this much choice meat on the hoof, I had no reason to fear that the wolves would pay any attention to me.
* * *
On February 14, back in Switzerland, Annika and Jessica picked up the receiver even before their mother could get to the phone, having seen the number of my satellite phone appear on their caller ID. “Don’t forget to wish Mama a Happy Valentine’s Day!” they whispered to me, in unison.
* * *
Committee Bay, at the far southern tip of the Gulf of Boothia, was well-known as a focus of ice field activity. This was ground zero, where the most significant currents of pack ice all converge and create impressive stacks of giant blocks of ice. Here you could see genuine eruptions of the ice pack with fissures spreading at terrifying speed, often in many directions at once, and with full-fledged ice quakes to go with them.
During a banquet of raw caribou meat and seal liver that we had eaten on his hut’s dirt floor in Igloolik, an old Inuit friend of Simon’s told me that one day, when he and his father were on their way to Kugaaruk on the same route that I was following now to Sabine Island, the ice they were crossing at Committee Bay had suddenly begun to shatter violently on all sides. They turned around and hurried back toward dry land, but the gaping crevasses opened and expanded faster than their dogs could run. Simon’s friend made it to shore just in the nick of time, but his father was too slow and was swallowed up with his sled and dog team.
I had heard plenty of stories like that about many different places in the Arctic. But Committee Bay had an especially terrifying reputation among the local population.
I was especially happy and relieved to reach the end of the bay on February 17, 2003, in the midst of an ever-so-slight mild spell. I solemnly regarded the spot where a very small stream ran out from the mountains. It was an unremarkable place that held all of the significance in the world for me. Finally! Ever since the month of November I had done nothing but tramp south on a detour along the shores of the Gulf of Boothia. This was the exact spot where I would finally be able to start heading west again—toward my goal. That day would remain one of the most important days of the entire expedition, and possibly one of the more significant days in my life.
Making it this far during the Arctic winter had made me happier and prouder than if I had made it to the North Pole. I had crossed the most hostile region on earth, in the most challenging time of year, in the most inhuman conditions that could be found. Moreover, the only previous knowledge that I had of the Arctic winter was from tales of bygone expeditions.
* * *
That day I turned my course westward and did my best not to dwell on the fact that the ice blocking the Bellot Strait back in October had transformed a short, seven-day sail into a four-month-long detour.
The icy fog lightened slightly. The temperature was almost imperceptibly less harsh. After a few days, the pale winter sun skimmed just over the horizon, a little less timid with each day’s appearance. Along my course, which ran north past Sabine Island, the ice was completely smooth and practically free of snow. A veritable freeway lay ahead of me across the frozen solid southern tip of Committee Bay.
But it was still a long, long way to Kugaaruk, and the route was full of potential hazards. I decided to stick to my old practice of relying upon the experience of my eld
ers, and so I consulted one for guidance. Through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police I was able to reach Ron, a policeman in Kugaaruk, who made a special effort to help me out—thus making up for the bad impression that his colleague from Igloolik had made. He put me in touch with Makabi Nartok, a full-blooded Inuit familiar with travel in this area. I asked Makabi whether I could head north-by-northwest across Committee Bay to get to Kugaaruk along a more direct route.
“Every season Committee Bay is different,” the Inuit elder said. “But one thing always true: further north you go, bigger risk meet bear, open water, ice mountains.” In short, he recommended that I go to the south of Sabine Island and keep heading west until I reached the western shore of the bay. Only once I was over dry land should I head north.
I was having a hard time accepting this, despite my respect for those with local expertise. It’s hard to change one’s basic nature. Until I had bashed my own head against a wall, I couldn’t accept on faith that the wall was there.
With the frustration that I had built up over the last few months and the certainty that, after the mountains of the Melville Peninsula, I was going to be traveling across flat terrain without any obstacles to block the wind, I decided to listen both to Makabi and my own instincts. I would continue north of Sabine Island and then cut over, heading slightly north of due west.
On the satin-smooth skating rink of southern Committee Bay, I zipped along at ten, even twelve miles a day with a dexterity and speed enhanced by the slight rise in temperature. It was dark out and visibility was low, but the icy fog had lifted. Twenty-four hours later, the weather had cleared up completely. The clear visibility allowed me to gaze out and see in great detail the immense clutter of giant ice obstructing the horizon—directly in my path.
There was still time to pay heed to the voice of wisdom—Makabi’s voice, in this case—and to turn back to the South. I never considered it for a moment and continued toward the obstacle in my path.
I spent three full days in the midst of that giant’s game of dominoes, sweating blood and water to haul my sled over ice blocks of all shapes and sizes. The clearing weather was accompanied by a plunge in temperature, which made the ice dry, rough, and as sticky as sandpaper soaked in resin. Like a stubborn mule, my sled refused to move forward. I pulled, I pushed, I shouted at it. I was painfully aware of all the time I was wasting in this labyrinth, and I cursed myself at the top of my lungs: “Makabi told you not to head northwest, didn’t he? Next time you’ll listen to people who have lived here their whole lives, instead of doing everything your way!”
But I couldn’t bring myself to turn around. I would stick to my decision, even if it meant spending the next month climbing over huge blocks of ice, hauling my sled up behind me.
* * *
At last I made it to the other shore, and on February 22, five days after I finally turned west, it was with a feeling of triumph that I set foot on the peninsula that separates the Gulf of Boothia from the inlet of Pelly Bay, beside which stood the town of Kugaaruk. From here on, there would be no more obstacle courses through pack ice, just the terra firma of the Canadian continent and rolling expanses of tundra.
From this shore of Committee Bay, I was just fifty miles to Kugaaruk. With daily mileage of about ten to twelve miles, I would get there in about four or five days.
And only about six weeks from now, spring would timidly begin to emerge. If I could just keep going until then, I would have conquered the Arctic winter! In my eyes, this victory meant that I was clearly capable of completing my expedition.
* * *
A little cabin whose location Makabi had told me about was even more rudimentary than the cabins I had found along my route to this point. There were four sheets of plywood for walls, a fifth plywood sheet as a roof, and a door that had been shoved in by bears, so that I found the cabin full of snow. I cleaned it out with my shovel, pitched my tent inside, and enjoyed a well-deserved day of rest.
The frostbite-induced blisters that had grown under my fingernails had become so painful that I couldn’t stand it any longer. I used a very fine drill bit to pierce my nails and drain the blisters, which gave me a modicum of relief.
An icy wind continued to blow, and I decided to extend my stay in the hut for another twenty-four hours. To warm myself up, I decided to stow my sled and the rest of my gear and take a little cross-country ski excursion through the surrounding countryside. It would also give me the opportunity to scout out the terrain on the route to Kugaaruk. As expected, the land was rolling, monotonous, and icy.
* * *
“We are not there often,” Makabi had told me. “But if you straight ahead with hills on your right, you arrive Kugaaruk for sure.”
While climbing up one hill to get a better view of the surrounding landscape, I happened upon a magnificent snow-white wolf, majestically poised looking out over the landscape from a promontory, like the Lion King surveying its domain. The wolf’s fur glittered silver with reflected light. I was fascinated and could not resist the temptation to try to get a little closer—just to see how close I could get. Step by step, I crept nearer to him in absolute silence. The wind blowing in my face reassured me that he hadn’t scented my presence. I couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen feet away from him.
Suddenly it dawned on me that I was completely unarmed. What if the wolf attacked me? In a short fit of paranoia, I even imagined that the wolf might be rabid. After dispelling these wild notions, I stood still and admired the wolf for a long time, forgetting all else. Then I whistled very softly. The wolf turned its head in my direction and took off like a shot from a cannon. To my astonishment, he buried himself under the snow and—like a cat under a blanket—burrowed away from me, making his escape through a tunnel in the snow.
I started off again with my sled in tow. I was buffeted by a north wind, icier than before, blowing straight into my face. This was the main problem with the direction I had chosen for my journey; I was traveling against the winds and currents nearly the entire trip. The frigid breeze rendered me far more vulnerable to frostbite, especially when the squalls regularly drove the thermometer down below fifty-eight degrees below zero, as they regularly did between the Gulf of Boothia and Kugaaruk. Whenever the tip of my nose began to freeze, I would rub a little snow on it because the snow was much warmer than the ambient air.
Ice helped keep me warm, too. Whenever I encountered a shallow pond or running stream that was impossible to go around without a lengthy detour, I would simply wade across as quickly as possible. The layer of ice that quickly formed on my boots and the lower section of my clothing would serve as a windbreaker until evening—sort of like the snot that I smeared on my face every morning.
* * *
I was beginning to suffer profoundly from the physical fatigue this expedition had entailed. So it was with inexplicable joy that, about twenty-five miles away from Kugaaruk, I saw Jean-Philippe Patthey; Patrick, a Swiss-German journalist; Sebastian Devenish, my expedition photographer; and Makabi Nartok coming toward me. Of course, they weren’t coming to help me trek or rescue me. Rather, like the first seagulls announce landfall after a long sea voyage, my friends and colleagues heralded my approach to the shore.
Since leaving Igloolik—that is, in the past five weeks—I had not glimpsed another living soul. I was somewhat shocked to realize how the planet could so easily do without our presence, just as it had for billions of years before us—and as it continued to in remote locations such as these.
Although I spotted my companions immediately and saw them as symbols of hope, they, on the other hand, failed to see me at all. Racing along on their snowmobiles, they sailed past me without noticing me and only found me afterward by following the instructions that I had given them—to follow my tracks from the coordinates of my last campsite.
Our reunion was one of those moments when words are inadequate to convey one’s feelings. Jean-Philippe, Patrick, Sebastian, and Makabi were shocked to find themselves face-to-
face with a sort of Yeti with a bandaged face covered in layers of snow and ice that almost obscured its eyes. In the course of a few weeks, the cold and the elements had turned me into an unrecognizable, mummified survivor, barely able to stand on my own two feet. My legs were still working, by a miracle of conditioned reflex, but I was on the verge of being totally frozen.
Makabi walked toward me, drawing so close that his face almost touched mine, and stared at me, intensely, interminably, to the point that I began to feel uneasy. He never said a word. When I stretched out my right hand to grip his in a handshake, he seized both of my hands, and then he tore off my mittens, replacing them with his own bearskin gloves. Encased in those sheaths of leather and fat, my hands felt as if they had been thrust over a wood fire. Makabi, in turn, slipped on my mittens. Once his own body heat had warmed them up, about twenty minutes later, he returned them to me, and he repeated this operation over and over, never saying a word, except, “You are very strong man.” Embarrassed, I replied awkwardly. How could I explain to him the motives that were driving me?
* * *
Makabi returned to his village, and the others accompanied me at a temperature of forty degrees below zero for the last two days of my trek, as far as Kugaaruk. Even though they were perfectly well-equipped, Jean-Philippe, Sebastian, and especially Patrick, who had come straight from the well-heated offices of his magazine, suffered terribly from the cold. Sebastian took photographs and Jean-Philippe shot some video, which would keep me from having to backtrack later to reenact the various phases of the journey, as I had been forced to do after my trip around the equator.
* * *