by Mike Horn
Once again, I was marching along lakeshores, following rivers, and alternating level sections with occasional climbs up hilly and mountainous terrain. And from high atop one of those hills, in the glow of one of the first sunsets of the season, I finally caught a glimpse of the village that the Inuit call Kugaaruk and the Canadians call Pelly Bay, from the name of the inlet off the Gulf of Boothia on which the village is situated. Kugaaruk seemed to be on another planet, wedged between steep cliffs and a bay filled with craggy islands whose rocky faces concealed what lay beyond.
I descended to the village in the same time that it took the sun to set. By the time I found myself walking down the main street, most of the village’s inhabitants—five hundred people, including three hundred children—were pouring out of their prefabricated homes to welcome me loudly and enthusiastically. They began rhythmically clapping, encouraging me on for the last few yards. My friends, who had traveled ahead on their snowmobiles, immortalized the scene, cameras in hand, as I was congratulated by many generations of Inuit, crowding around me. For four months, satellite phones, CB radios, and the like had all been reporting to every corner of the Far North: “There is a guy walking from Arctic Bay to Kugaaruk via Igloolik in the heart of winter! Inconceivable!” They had been anticipating my arrival as the main attraction of the year, and when they saw my freakish silhouette and my snow-white mask, they were not disappointed.
When I finally came to a stop, Makabi got right to work. He pulled off my skis, took my ski poles from me, and unharnessed me from my sled. With hands still stiff from the cold, I shook hands with nearly everyone in the village. The Inuit are not the sort of people to indulge in insincere compliments or acts of politeness—nor are they easily impressed. Their congratulations were heartfelt, and I took them to heart.
By making it this far, I knew that I had accomplished the hardest part. And so for me, the Arctic winter thawed for me right in this remote village, even if the calendar had a different opinion.
* * *
In the Far North, accommodations are extremely expensive, and Kugaaruk was no exception. Frequented primarily by construction workers, the Residence, an inn belonging to the the Co-op, a sort of Inuit authority, was not shy about posting rates of three hundred to four hundred Canadian dollars a night, per person! For that price, a visitor would be given a bedroom a few yards square, furnished with two beds. If another paying customer showed up, he would be given the second bed, whether you liked it or not, and there wouldn’t be a discount, either.
I planned to spend three days with Sebastian, who hadn’t been able to take any pictures of the expedition in four months, and three days with Patrick, the journalist who had spent time with me on several occasions during my expedition around the equator, and once already aboard my boat, the Arktos, on this expedition. His writing showed that he had grasped the true spirit of my adventures. His face, familiar to me now, was that of a friend—and a lucky charm.
I was going to have a chance to wash myself thoroughly for the first time in fifteen days, replace the sealskins on the bottom of my skis, get some treatment for the open blisters on my feet, and restore a little life to my cheeks, ears, nose, and lips, which were completely frozen, and my thumbs, which were in nearly the same condition as when I got back from the North Pole.
All things considered, I expected to spend about ten days or so in Kugaaruk. The total cost would come to two thousand dollars in hotel bills, which would completely blow my budget. But the members of the Native Corporation—whose respect I had won by accomplishing what no one in the memory of the oldest living member of the tribe had even done—decided to adopt me. Alex, the manager of the hotel, decided to let me stay as long as I liked in a mobile home adjoining his establishment. It might have been a mobile home, but to me, after all the nights I had spent on the ice, it was a three-star luxury accommodation. Sheltered from the cold and the elements, I would enjoy the calm and serenity I needed to recuperate.
Alex wasn’t satisfied with just giving me a place to stay, either. He fed me soup, caribou steaks, Arctic char, pasta, and homemade bread. I got stronger but not any heavier. My stomach had become accustomed to processing the eight and ten thousand calories a day that I wolf down when I’m trekking cross-country, so my digestive system becomes a veritable reprocessing plant, continuing to operate even when my body was temporarily at rest. It would take time, and a lighter diet, before my metabolism would begin functioning “normally” again.
Ron, the policeman, continued to be immensely helpful, inviting me to dinner, helping me find or repair pieces of equipment, and gathering information that would be useful on my journey. Members of the community—especially the older ones—came in droves to ask me to teach them how to use their GPS devices, to read certain maps, etc. It felt like I was constantly holding court. Someone would come in, ask for my advice on this subject or that, share a mug of tea with me, and then leave as the next visitor entered. Others used their lunch breaks to come and sit in a circle around me—for no apparent reason. I became a real attraction for the town’s residents, and not only because of my exploits. Kugaaruk is totally isolated for most of the year at the very end of its little frozen cul-de-sac, which even the icebreaker that links it to the rest of the world can’t reach except for a few months of the year. So, in this place where life, based on subsistence hunting and fishing, hasn’t changed in centuries, residents appreciated the infrequent visitor from the outside world.
Whenever I showed even the slightest inclination to start out again, my new friends would beg me to stay for just one more day. And I allowed myself to be persuaded by these people whom I found so immensely likable. After all, the time I spent here recharging my batteries was hardly a luxury.
Every day I explored the area around the village, and I pushed a little farther each time—to get new and more panoramic views of the bay and the mountains. I gradually became consumed by an ever stronger sense of longing, longing to go and see what was on the other side of those mountains—to pursue and experience the next stage of my adventure. I imagined myself battling for survival in a spectacular setting, bathed in the early sunlight of spring that was such a novelty after having walked in total darkness for so many weeks, staring at the narrow beam of light cast by my forehead lamp!
* * *
One morning I woke up with a feeling of urgency mingled with guilt, which clearly indicated that the time had come. On the evening before I left, the people of Kugaaruk threw a party for me in the building that serves as city hall, school, and gymnasium. Knowing that my next destination would be Gjoa Haven, everyone I spoke to offered me advice on the best route to follow. We devoured a banquet of cookies and tea (alcohol was forbidden) while musicians dressed in caribou skins warmed up the crowd and played musical accompaniment for the Inuit dances. Children chased one another in all directions as I moved from one group to another, thanking everyone for their help, kindness, and generosity.
Pat, who ran a convenience store in town where you could rarely find what you were looking for but where you would always find the most unimaginable items, gave me pounds and pounds of Kit-Kats, Mars bars, and other chocolate candy bars. Someone else gave me a pair of sealskin gloves and a pair of reindeer-hide mittens. Makabi’s wife, an Inuit artist, gave me a bearskin key chain and a card.
If I had not been forced to trek around the Gulf of Boothia, I would never have come to Kugaaruk, and I would have missed this very special town. I was happy here, and not only because I was emerging from four months of terrible privations and suffering. The people I met here had offered me everything they owned and had given me even more in human fellowship. I carried these treasures away with me when I left, and I promised myself that I would return to Kugaaruk someday.
* * *
One hundred and eighty-five miles from Kugaaruk, on the other side of Pelly Bay and the Boothia Peninsula, there was a little village on King William Island called Gjoa Haven. Like Upernavik in Greenland, the town was legen
dary because Roald Amundsen lived there for two years, hemmed in by the ice, before becoming the first man to explore the Northwest Passage. The name Gjoa Haven is Norwegian for Gjøa’s Harbor, and was named by polar explorer Roald Amundsen after his ship, the Gjøa. The year I visited was the hundredth anniversary of Amundsen’s expedition. But I must admit that if I was in a hurry to get to Gjoa Haven, it was only because Cathy and my daughters were going to meet me there.
I left Kugaaruk in a blizzard that reduced visibility practically to zero, with squalls and gusts of wind blowing straight into my face. Following my recuperation, it was a brutal reentry into the icy inferno. My nose began to refreeze immediately, and I was soon in the same physical state—without the fatigue—of ten days before.
I was in such a hurry to get to Gjoa Haven that, on the very first day, I froze my pulmonary alveoli by breathing too fast and deeply with the air temperature at fifty degrees below zero. The symptoms of this condition were painful and distressing; it became impossible to completely fill my lungs, thus producing a horrible and constant sensation of being asphyxiated.
In my medical bag I carried a drug specifically for this problem, but it was slow to take effect. The iron fist crushing my lungs was reluctant to release its grip easily. I tried to fight against it by a method I developed: I would take three of the deepest breaths I could manage, and then I would march forward for about ten yards, stand still for a moment, breathe again, march another ten yards, stop, and so on. In this laborious way I managed to cover seven miles in a single day, but I continued to suffer from severe shortness of breath. I would open my mouth, gasping in an effort to capture the smallest amount of oxygen. I felt a bit like a fish flopping on the deck of a trawler. I felt like ripping off my clothes to breathe a little more deeply. I was ready to do anything in order to fill my lungs with air.
When I settled in my tent for the night, the feeling that I was suffocating was made more intense by the onset of a wave of claustrophobia. Still, it never crossed my mind even for a second to turn back.
Three days after leaving Kugaaruk, I arrived at Simpson Lake, whose elongated shape reminded me a little of Saputing Lake, where the pack of wolves had given me a scare. Wedged between two relatively low mountain ranges, Simpson Lake offered me a flat track some twenty miles long, where I could ski comfortably between respiratory breaks. My frostbite was not improving, but the temperature rose to thirty degrees below zero. The wind died down, and the medications finally kicked in, which allowed my lungs to gradually recover their function.
I covered fourteen miles in one day. I went nineteen miles the next day. But the slight warming of the atmosphere also brought with it a snowfall that slowed me down and demanded a greater output of energy for each step I took.
According to Makabi, not far from this place was a valley that constituted the only known passage to Gjoa Haven. No one had traveled through the valley so far in the year, and no one could tell me its location in any detail. I would have to leave Simpson Lake to look for it, but in the darkness and with snow this deep, there was a good chance that I would tire myself out trying to find it. Since I couldn’t run that risk, I decided to stay on course and keep going straight ahead, in what I believed was the right direction.
Suddenly I found myself atop a hill, and there stood an inukchuk, one of those mysterious rock piles that indicated the direction of the next village—just like the ones that Annika and Jessica had drawn on the backs of my skis. The inukchuk pointed toward Gjoa Haven, which meant that I had found the mysterious valley without even having really looked for it!
At the far end of the valley, the slopes grew flatter. I kept on marching forward, head down, stubbornly pushing ahead into a terrain of snow and ice where water and land blended together, where the snow that fell incessantly grew deeper each day, concealing the landmarks that would guide me to my destination. The wind blew straight into my face, and my body temperature began to drop again. The deep snow, my continued breathing troubles, and the frostbite on my face were all outweighing the advantages of the relatively flat topography. In theory it was supposed to be easier to make headway than before, but that was not proving to be the case yet.
Once the snow stopped falling, the wind weakened a bit and veered to the northeast. I got out my kite, which I had not been able to use even once since leaving Arctic Bay. I had only kept one kite with me—the smallest one that harnessed the least amount of wind power. At frigid temperatures I had to be careful of my speed because traveling too fast would have a chilling effect on me that might well prove fatal.
I rejoiced that my kite and I would finally be able to make up some time in this heavy snow. And yet my kite had only been in the air for a moment when a sudden squall battered against it, gusting so hard that all the struts broke. To think that I had lugged this kite all the way from Arctic Bay for a day just like this one, and then the first gust of wind destroyed it, turning it back into deadweight on my sled. I would have it repaired on the next stop I made in civilization.
* * *
A slight downhill grade—I could tell because my sled suddenly felt much lighter—helped me to make progress. Soon I set out again on the frozen ocean to the east of King William Island. One day’s march later, I could see in the distance the lights of Gjoa Haven, glittering faintly about thirty miles away. If all went well, Cathy and the girls would be landing at the village airport in just three days. But in the meantime, I spotted Jean-Philippe and Raphaël, the filmmaker, riding toward me on snowmobiles. They would accompany me for two days, which would give us a chance to get some more footage of the trip. Then they would leave me and head for Gjoa Haven to tell my wife when I would be arriving.
* * *
When I finally landed on King William Island, I climbed a gradual uphill slope about half a mile in length leading to the village. I looked everywhere for my daughters, whom I had not seen in six months. And then I caught sight of them, standing next to their mother by the airport runway. Their silhouettes became clearer as I got closer. I imagined that from the point of view of the little group that surrounded them, jumping up and down to stay warm (it was thirty-two degrees below zero), I was also just a dark spot against the frozen sea and then a shape growing larger as I climbed up the slope of the mainland.
Annika and Jessica hurried down the slope and through the snow in their haste to be the first to throw themselves into my arms. Their mother followed close behind them. The family was back together. My daughters climbed onto my sled—practically empty by the end of the stage—to enjoy a ride to the “finish line” on a sleigh pulled by their father instead of a team of horses.
Surrounded by the locals who had been alerted by the townsfolk of Kugaaruk to the arrival of “the hiker,” I recognized my friend Vincent Borde and a few journalists. There were also two representatives from one of my chief sponsors, the private bank Mirabaud. Every month or two, a lottery was held to choose two bank employees—the entire bank staff was following my progress with enthusiasm—to travel to “cheer on Mike at one of his supply points.” These two must have been this month’s happy winners.
I planned to spend five days in Gjoa Haven, and I had plenty to do. I needed to get my equipment back into shape, restock my supplies of benzene and other provisions, and recover my strength before setting off for Cambridge Bay. Since it had taken me eleven days instead of fifteen to get to Gjoa Haven from Kugaaruk, I was ahead of schedule. I would be able to rest up and take advantage of the extra time.
I helped the Mirabaud bankers put together a slide show that they would present to their colleagues when they got back home. Between interviews and photo sessions, I went out on long snowmobile outings with my family. I taught my daughters to build an igloo and took them to visit three old women who still lived in igloos. These Inuit spent their time softening the animal hides from which they made their clothing by chewing on them interminably. My daughters could scarcely believe their eyes. They had played hooky from school to be able to co
me visit, but cultural encounters like this one were rich experiences that no school could ever have taught them.
“Rich” experiences were required to justify the cost of this visit, since our family’s hotel room cost eight hundred dollars a night! The only hotel in Gjoa Haven was run by a married couple—a Canadian woman and an Englishman—who took advantage of their monopoly to charge scandalously high prices for a tiny, bare room with two beds and a television set, where my daughters slept on a mattress on the floor. And looking for hospitality in town was out of the question, since the Inuit were already crowding ten or fifteen people into each room of their tiny houses.
After just five days, our hotel bill had soared to almost twelve thousand dollars for me, my family, and my team! When I asked the owner of the hotel for a discount, she very graciously agreed to deduct the two hundred dollars for the children’s meals.
There was clearly no way of avoiding this pendulum that swung wildly from brotherly love to outright swindles, from generosity to extortion, from my hosts in Kugaaruk to the innkeepers of Gjoa Haven.
* * *
Just before my family was scheduled to leave, the village organized a drum dance for us, an event that was certainly the most remarkable ceremony that I witnessed in my time in the Arctic. The drum dance was at the same time the Inuit’s only form of public entertainment and the demonstrative language of their storytelling ancestors.
We watched in fascination as the men beat on sealskin drums strapped to their bellies, while telling stories in strange guttural chants of the invasion of the village by a bear, a famine during which their shaman demanded the expulsion of one of the tribe in order to remove a curse and bring back the caribou, and many other legends as well. Then they turned to me, asking me to tell the story of the journey that had taken me all the way from Arctic Bay to this town. With the drum on my hip, I walked around the town square, beating away and chanting into the night. Variously walking bent over or upright, legs spread wide or standing as tall as I could, I imitated the loping gait of the caribou, mimed the menacing silhouette of a bear rearing up on its haunches and the pack of wolves that were following close at my heels. I recounted how I had climbed over mountain passes and crossed lakes. I let loose the performer and child within me, and I had a fantastic time. The Inuit applauded, shouting with joy. I was a hit!