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Gail Ferris www.nkhorizons.com/ArcticBay.htm |
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Chapter 1: Flight and Arrival at On The cost of flying there was amazingly inexpensive less
than 1000 dollars from Flights in and out of Nanasivik are at least two times a
week and it is easy to book a seat or change flight dates without paying much
if any penalty because they do such a high volume of flight business on that
route. This is completely the opposite situation from trying to
fly to Pond Inlet, because in Pond Inlet, which is just a few hundred miles
to the east, the service is once a week with a fifty-five seat turboprop
plane. The seats are often removed and baggage is flown in place which
renders mail and cargo service in Pond Inlet very expensive, limited, and
often erratic. On the way up, as usual, I always find myself engaging in
a lively exchange and so I had an interesting talk on the plane with a
Chinese Canadian lady from The weather was clear all the way up, once we were beyond
Iqaluit. Generally speaking rarely is there a sunny day at Iqaluit, because
Iqaluit has the dubious honor of being the collision point of numerous
weather patterns via the local topography, being more or less at the juncture
of Hudson Strait, Davis Strait and Arctic atmosphere system. From my window at about 24,000 feet, I saw the amazingly
flat terrain of the western side of |
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I couldn't believe seeing islands such as Prince Charles
and I remembered Captain Bill Bartlett's description of
sailing horrors in |
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As we approached Iglulik, which is on the bottom of |
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From the bottom of the bay north to our destination I
could see nothing but endless pans of last year’s ice. |
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Some of this annual ice was evenly distributed and other
areas had a few gaps here. I studied the ice configurations intensely from 24,000
feet although I had no idea what this world dominated by pan ice would later
be like, which I was to experience directly in my little kayak. Padding in such massive amounts of annual pan ice was
almost entirely new to me, even though I had dealt with small amounts of pan
ice in Pond Inlet and icebergs in |
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In the photo below you can see just endless ice, |
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I hadn't thought about how to deal with meter thick, two
to three meter diameter clusters of ice. However I knew that the first thing I had to
do was to find somebody to ask how do I safely do this? When I visit a new area I always ask what should I look
out for and how do I handle the potential situations. It has saved me many
times and I always value those people who so kindly offer their knowledge
from experience. There is no substitute for local knowledge. From the airport it was 25 miles by road to With great luck Rubin and his friend happened to be going
to |
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This drive was just a routine for Rubin but to me this was
far from routine but rather an escapade in experimental driving. This drive
was an adventure in integration of constantly fluctuating mechanical
functionality and the laws of physics as dictated by topography gravity. The
road was gravel with steep embankments and the truck was jumping in and out
of gear while violently lurching forward in those moments when he tried to
slow it down for sharp turns. The combination of this rickety feeling pickup
truck with its tricky transmission and the precarious nature of the road made
the drive definitely an adventure with some risk involved. This is the type
of risk where one can only trust that all will go all right. But I can assure
you that I truly hoped that this driving was not to be the type of driving
that I had experienced in Magadan Siberia when I visited there in 1991. In Magadan I could feel myself visibly pale as we approached blind corners at the top of hills only to find that our driver was accelerating more and more aggressively suggesting that we were far behind schedule in arriving at our destination, the hotel. Then to my complete horror our intrepid driver was unflappably proceeding to pass in a two and three lane highway any vehicle in his way. Our unflappable driver seemed to delight in specializing of passing on blind hill top corners. He also would hug up to the bumper of some huge truck and zip out and around with barely enough time or length of vision to even imagine passing among his other passing maneuvers. |
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In my earnest desire of self-preservation so as to not in
any way pose as a distraction I pretended as though nothing was the matter. I
succinctly tightened every muscle throughout my body, bracing myself in the
back seat in dread fear that we were eminent going to become totally wiped
out in one fell moment furious crash at any moment. This was especially
amplified when we passed the recent fatal accident of a motorcyclist and my
new Russian friends pointed out the dead guy along the road. He was just
lying there, not covered with his motorcycle standing beside him, and it
appeared as though his body had merely been dragged off to the side like just
another obstruction pulled off to the side. Such a shocking revelation frightened me and I began to
realize that although Russians are very gracious and hospitable people that
we were taking much more of risk on this trip in My journey with Rubin went well because Rubin, who is an
Inuit, is a very patient resourceful man, was an especially good driver. He
drove the unpredictable truck with great care and we arrived at Glen
William's office in time to catch him there and stow my luggage. Glen Williams is the Reneweable Resources Officer in Then we moved onto the illustrious subject of the polar
bear. Polar bears are not just cute little furry white things. They are
highly intelligent creatures who adapt their behavior very readily. In this area, Glen warned me, that contrary to In this area, |
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Polar bears specialize in being great opportunists and
these bears have found that it is beneficial to hang around hunters because
they might get some easy food. This stems from the practice, which Glen
advised me to follow, of setting some food down wind to entice any polar bear
to go for that rather than me. We discussed bear controlling via alarms, scare tactics
and the mandatory gun and ammunition. In this area from both his own and
others practice in the field he recommend triple X
12 gauge buckshot. I hadn’t brought that kind of ammunition so Glen
very kindly supplied me with both some bang shots, some rubber rounds and a
dozen XXX buck shot rounds. I had brought slugs with me because that had been the
recommended ammunition in Pond Inlet in 1989 but at this time in 1994 Glen
explained to me why XXX buck was preferable. He said that in an attack
situation when you have to defend yourself with a shotgun if you don’t
mortally wound the bear with a slug, you are in big trouble, where as with
XXX you are better likely to do enough damage to at worst disable the bear. I had no problem bringing a regulation shotgun with me from the States and crossing the border where questions are asked. I didn’t have the slightest reservation in telling the border agents that I was going to an area where this was a mandatory firearm. They understood my rational but then looked a little horrified interjecting "couldn’t you go someplace less risky" and wished me well. |
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Not wishing to risk being "guess who is for dinner"
I followed sage advice from good sources. I had also considered a 306 rifle
because of its accuracy but for real damage close up and the least amount of
weight a 12 gauge shotgun was recommended. Because I was using this in a
marine situation possibly even from my kayak I brought a Mosberg
12 gauge, 5 round pump, 20 inch barrel, marine model shotgun. I had rigged an
on deck waterproof gun bag with a lanyard on the not only the gun bag but
also on the shotgun itself because this model for some reason does not float.
It must be all the lead in that ammo. As is always very exciting to do, Glen and I sat in his
office and compared our Arctic experiences as all the while I was glancing
out the window to check out the ice and the wind. I already knew that visiting Glen described to me an intense windstorm of 70 knots that
occurred just a week earlier on an innocent looking, blue skied afternoon.
The storm did a lot of damage all over town by picking up and smashing all
sorts of objects like lumber and including his ultra-light aircraft
. Winds of this intensity had come completely unexpectedly so things
even if they were tied down hadn’t been tied down well enough to
withstand winds of 70 knots. He advised me that these windstorms could not be predicted
and at the airport in Nanasivik that particular windstorm was only blowing at
30 to 40 knots, but down in I could easily see that the straight off the water,
dropping in elevation, funnel shaped topography this area seemed to
accelerate the speed of the wind to double the speed of the wind elsewhere. When I described my somewhat similar experiences in Barrow
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Glen mentioned that To date, 1998, whales slaughtered in Upernavik commune are
utilized for matak but the remainder of the carcasses is mostly abandoned.
Within Glen is an exciting person to talk with because he is not
only well informed but he is highly innovative. He discussed his world of
travel that is available to him when he flies his ultra-light airplane. I
felt amazed when he described how to travel when the ice is too thin and
broken up to travel over with dog sleds and impenetrable for boats. He uses
an ultralight airplane. With an ultralight he has the range and versatility
to travel quickly for long distances. Where he is located distances are large
and time is critical when sighting moving animals such as pods of whales. He told me about pan ice what it means to dry out and
really it is not too different from the fate of an alcoholic, with the only
essential difference being that its the water that
is involved. Drying out is rather boring, annoying not fun because what
happens is that you pull into shore for a stop and next you find that the ice
has filled in the shore, cutting you off from the open water and you
can’t leave until the ice has left. You can’t just push the ice aside and make your way
to the open water, even in a motor boat. The weight of the ice pans individually
is too much to push and when you combine this with a whole pack of pan ice
you are definitely out of business. So there you are sitting there drying out waiting for the
wind, tide or both together to take the ice away. That’s what it means
- drying out. |
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Glen has had several of his photographs published and he
informed me that he uses only Kodak slide processing because he gets the best
most consistent results, which I later located as Kodalux in We also discussed video cameras relative to diving. He
told me that the three chip Hi-8 video cameras are the best because they do
not require any corrective filters for underwater video. The chips are each
for the three primary colors. Then he told me about the break through in
digitization of photos as the way to go for the future because the digitized
images can be put on computer floppy disks and CD's and then transferred to
other locations anywhere in the world by E-mail. I thought that was
especially exciting. In a matter of a few minutes he had answered questions
that I couldn’t find the information to down where I lived in We discussed what is happening with kayaking in Arctic
Canada. Glen told to me about his own initiative into teaching anybody,
especially children of We discussed our mutual interest in the diversity of Inuit
kayak design. Among his collection of kayaks, he had bought a George Dyson
Baidarka with three holes, and in addition he had a Greenlander build him a
kayak. The kayak was built to Glen's dimensions and appears to me to be the
southwest The Greenlander was from Griesefjord. He built the kayak
in trade for funds so that he could fly back to Glen very kindly let me stay in the Renewable Resources temporary equipment shed rather than my having to bother with breaking out my tent and dealing with setting up my tent in town. He closed his office and I set to work on making dinner and preliminary preparation for assembling my Klepper. Instantly I was the grand source of entertainment and typical of any Arctic town, the kids watched me with the greatest enthusiasm. |
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As the afternoon began to close the wind changed and, true
to form, the ice was not stationary either. Only a few hours earlier when I
arrived I did think it was a little strange that the harbor was so
miraculously free of ice. Now the wind had changed and was bringing the ice
into the harbor. Oh boy I thought to myself do I make a last minute
desperate scramble to put my boat together and get out of here. Then I
counseled myself that I should not pass up my opportunity to visit with Glen
because this might not be possible again since he is leaving in a few days
for a vacation in the south. After my relaxing dinner of dehydrated food which I had
brought and some matak I had purchased at the hunters co-operative, I went to
Glen’s house that evening when |
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Chapter 3 July 22,
A day in town preparations and paddling to the point. The day at Oh! What to do? From what had been deemed to be a casual
previous afternoon now everything was to be "Chinese fire drill" if
I wanted to get out of here today. And unavoidably my first order of the day was to go buy
gasoline for my stove. I had no problem buying high quality fuel because they
had stocked Coleman Fuel anticipating customers such as myself. I greatly
appreciated their very kind and thoughtful choice because if they didn’t
care about visitors they would just say go buy gasoline at the pumps. This was a relief because I have bought some very dirty
fuel in The |
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The keel is 3 inches wide laid flat whereas the |
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The deck was completely flat like a big coffee table both
fore and aft. |
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Not even a |
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The bow and stern decks are not raked extending level from
the bow. Thick boards made the deck structure and for the hull, wide thin
wood made the stringers and wide laminated wood was used for the ribs. The
frame was lashed in individual units and not mortised where I could see. Then the next project was to put my kayak together, pack
it and set off. Although I might have assembled my kayak the night before I
was too tired then to undertake the project. I hate to make a mistake just
because I am tired so I prefer to assemble my kayak with great care to reduce
the risk of potential mistakes because so much is dependent on my kayak. I assembled my kayak without any problems but all the
while ice pans were insidiously invading the beach. I knew this was going to
be tricky. Either I was going to get stranded in town or I was going to
manage an escape only if I was lucky. I knew from past experiences that it
only takes a few strategically placed ice pans. When I was in town the typical entourage of children had
just the best entertainment helping me go through the challenging process of
assembling and loading my kayak and then later when I arrived out at the
point the same wonderful fun continued. My initial ordeal of loading my kayak was not so demanding
because this time I had gone to the trouble of labeling every bag externally.
What a difference, and in addition I had numbered the replicate bags of food
which also was a very good idea. I
found that essentially all my dry bags do look the same and the only way to
tell one from another is to label them. I devised a method by cutting out
pieces of light colored nylon or white "tyvek" into a tag shape,
writing on them with a permanent laundry marker pen or a sharpie waterproof
pen may be used and tying them onto the closures clips |
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Although this day at I had to use assistance of my helpers to launch because
there was now so much ice in the bay Then I had work the kayak between ice pans, push pans
apart to make room and as a last resort, I had to drag the fully loaded kayak
over the ice in places. In these shallow waters I found that it was
surprisingly easy to jump out on the ice chunks. From having done all these
logistical balancing acts to get through I can see how |
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Oppositely the Greenlanders’ kayak designs south of |
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Finally I much to my relief I came to a half mile of ice
free water but I couldn't stop for a moment because the wind was constantly
feeding more and more pieces of ice into the bay. The bay was filling behind
me as I made my way toward the mouth of the bay. The wind was fifteen knots and the tide was very high
because there happened to have been a full moon that day, July 22nd. I found it quite interesting to see the effect topography
has on wind pattern because where I started out at This same wind that originated from the south or southwest
was veering west at a right angle heading eastward into the opening of Adams
Sound. Here the wind followed the contours of the bay and changed
its course veering northward into Essentially the wind was making a zigzag following down
inside the openings of the bays bringing the cold heavier air from open water
to replace the warm lighter air in the bays. This takes place in I scanned the sky and noticed that there were clouds
showing on the horizon and the wind was coming in from the west with high
cirrostratus. However I noticed that low altostratus (middle layer) clouds
coming in first in greater numbers. |
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This slow moving front was probably bringing rain and had
not developed yet, but by 2000 the sky was mostly overcast. Then an hour
later, at 2100, the wind stopped. In this area at the end of the point, last year's sea ice
had now broken into pans 6 to 10 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet thick and has no
salt in it. My first day on the water was an idyllic arctic summer day, warm,
sunny and slightly breezy. I pulled into shore on the point at 73°00.61'N, 85°08.93'W
I brought my boat into shore and got it above the high
tide line without too much of a struggle. There were some convenient rocks to
tie off to so that I could unload as much as possible before bringing my
kayak above the tide line. I had brought some 1 _ inch diameter, wooden broomstick
handle rollers to use as rollers under the hull. The following year, 1995,
three inch diameter foam rollers were marketed as swimming pool toys. These
were much better and I use that system now to get my boat up sand beaches and
boat ramps rather than carry the boat on my shoulder. The weight and width of
a Klepper Aerius I makes it just at my limit to
handle. This point on the western side of A couple hours later the tidal current whirlpools had
dissipated but the waves down in Adams Sound from the wind looked
threatening. The waves were white caps in ink blue water. |
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I had been told that if Adams Sound looked dark and
threatening when viewed from So far, from my simple excursion from town out to this
point, this area seemed to be not threatening to paddle in because there were
plenty of places come into for a landing close by. Standing on the point I looked east and a little shiver
went up my spine when I noticed that there were pans of ice out on the water
off Holy Cross Point. This rip happened at 1700 - 1900. This craggy, basaltic
rock peninsula at the head of Adams Sound appeared ominous and forbidding. It
was the nearest land to the east. Directly off slightly behind this peninsula
were pans of ice whirling around madly revealing that this was a whirlpool. I wasn’t quite sure what was the
major force the wind, tides and or currents driving them but this ice
was revealing these surface currents very clearly. With a whirlpool situation the current is likely to be
moving faster than you can paddle. It is tricky to judge where a mass of ice
pans is going. On such a fast moving and transient tidal current situation it
is hard to plan where you might be able to put ashore or where you can safely
paddle through the ice during a crossing because everything can suddenly
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Mine was not the only tent on the point, which I had so
long wanted to experience because I never had the opportunity to be out on
the land with the people. In Pond Inlet typical of the Canadian and American
Arctic, just as soon as it is possible to get motor boats on the water most
of the people go out on the land. Usually in July in Pond Inlet people go to
the fish camps but others go to hunt caribou. In A quality special to the people of the The tent I saw was a traditional bottomless tent used in
the Canadian Arctic, large and high enough to easily accommodate a family of
a dozen people. On the point I met with the sister of Rubin's wife, Unis and her sister who prepares seal skins with great
perfection and her 74 year old, delightful mother. They were staying in their
tent being traditional. They invited me into their tent after I watched Unis preparing a seal skin scraping the fat off and
cutting off any irregularities transforming the skin what was to a perfect
piece of leather for kamiks. She was very highly skilled at making kamiks
being very careful to take all things into account with each pair she makes. Her mother tended the lamp which was the traditional
arctic oil lamp with multiple wicks she adjusted as needed, gently prodding
and pushing them so they burned just so. This lamp is the center of life in a
home all light and heat comes from this lamp. The lamp has its stool and the
cooking vessel are suspended over. We all had a good time and many children came out to visit
on foot from town that had helped me launch and were teaching me some Inuktit. English was difficult for some of them and many
of the adults could neither understand nor speak any English. I am always
very grateful for those who can speak some English because I have no command
of the Inuit language. In the bright sun the ice was melting melts quickly, which
was especially handy, since this area on the point does not have water
nearby. |
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I had to gather chunks and leave them to melt in my
collapsible wash pan to supply myself with water. I was very glad that I
happened to have thought this time to bring a collapsible wash pan because it
is a very handy piece of equipment. |
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Unfortunately later in the trip it started to leak and I
would suggest a large diameter, round bottomed vinyl dry bag in its place.
Vinyl drybags do not close in cold weather and bind when being slid into a
kayak. However as a large diameter open-topped sack
you can melt ice and hold enough water to wash your hair. I thought about using a sun shower bag to warm up the
water but the down side of sun shower bags is that the water is not drinkable
and I am not going to be taking any sun showers out on the tundra. Sponge
bathing in the comfort of my tent is just fine. Soap is not necessary because acidic bog plants work even
better. Here on the point the colors of the rocks were dark
charcoal gray. The rocks were a combination of metamorphosed gneissic rock
and sediments of mudstone, limestone, and quartzite. Chapter 4 July 23,
1994 It was a quiet morning with light rain when I awoke and
looked out of my tent. With my usual curiosity I looked at the water to see
what was in store for this day and noticed that once again that same tidal
rip off Holy Cross Point was occurring again with waves breaking west in the
entrance to Arctic Bay on the eastern side. These mixed breaking waves
occurred for three hours at 0500 - 0800 and high tide was at 0200. Tide going
out at 1100 on this side the western side of the inlet to I planned that my next destination in Adams Sound would be
the waterfall, which was about 16 nautical miles away at 125° true. During the night, rain arrived at 0300 slacked at 0800 on
the tide change. The sun shown slightly and the rain continued at 1000. The
sun returned at |
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And curiously enough all that ice which the wind had
filled completely up On this point there were several remains of houses. These
house structures were round structured walls made of a single thickness of
stones and for insulation flanked with sod. The diameter of the houses was
the largest that I have ever seen in the There were also a few large pieces of whalebone as skull
and other bone remaining on the ground. One piece had been recently sawn with
a modern saw suggesting that it had been used for making sculpture. |
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The geology here is interesting. There was a small patch
of brilliant green copper leaching out of the surrounding dark gray mudstone.
I thought that this was an interesting geological deposit of what might be
green malachite. |
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Just for fun even though it was a foggy I recorded it on
video because I enjoy seeing what the video camera will show for colors even
on a very gray day. Usually a video camera will capture the color on a foggy
day often better than a bright day. There is also gabbro here, which is a
granular quartzitic granite without mica. Just beyond this point are the Society Cliffs. These
cliffs are very beautiful plunging straight into the sea for a distance to
the west into In the map below the orange band left to middle is a gabbro dyke with the number 9. Number 4 in pink is part of the Arctic bay formation with black shale. Area 3 in pale green is quartzite. This was just the beginning of exciting geology. |
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I found some rocks of red sandstone, deep red feldspar
with black mica which reminded me of the geology of the mafic stones on the
upper |
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In the quiet fog I stalked plants on the point,
73°00.61'N, 85°08.93'W and they were a diverse sampling of alkaline soil
plants and Cassiope tetragona (acid soil plant) and several lovely types of Saxifraga, lots of Minuartia or
Stellaria. Flowers are Saxifraga rivularis in a south facing undercut rock moist the dry,
dark colored gneiss. Saxifraga foliolosa,
Taraxacum phymatocarpum, Potentilla nivea ssp. nivea, Pedicularis lapponica, Cassoipe tetragona ssp. tetragona, Pyrola grandiflora (no flowers yet), Vaccinium uliginosum var. uliginosum, Stellaria monantha,
Papaver radicatum, Salix cordifolia var. callicarpea
(gray fuzzy), Salix herbacea (not sure red stem
gray dull green not hairy backs, shiny brown stem, catkins small very fuzzy),
Astragalus alpinus called
Milk Vetch with blue magenta and white 16 alternate green white strigose (hairy) back, folds to hairy stems eight
alternate flowers on top), yellow flowered larger plant with dark green hairy
on both sides, hairy stem, dark yellow flowers in a ball on the top, Dryas crenulata (? no flowers), Stellaria laeta,
Stellaria longipes, Saxifraga aizoides,
Epilobium latifolium, Pedicularis lanata, Cochlearia officinalis ssp. arctica, Draba cana and Antennaria canescens. |
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Cardamine
bellidifolia |
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The previous day I had watched Rachel preparing of seal
skin wet with her sharp ulu. She frequently stopped to resharpen her ulu so
it must have been razor sharp. She worked over a solid flat board raised like a lap desk
surface at her knees. She cut away any material but the true skin itself even
the pigment cells of the hair follicles. I forgot to ask what would be done
next with this wet hide. Late in the afternoon she worked on the insides of pieces
of dry caribou legs with special scrapers scraping off anything but the skin.
She positioned herself in a slightly contorted manner using the ankle of her
leg to clamp on the end and kept her other leg folded with under her while
she sat on a piece of plywood. Her scrapers were 4 inches flat edge with a
square palm handle for heavy pushing and her other scraper was 3 inches
slightly scooped with rolled up edges and a straight handle that rested in
the palm. The caribou legs were to be the tops of the kamiks. She used the
caribou leg where the hair is densest down the middle for the front of the
kamik. This is likely to be where there is most likely to be the greatest
wear. I was invited to have tea and visit the tent of Rachel and
her mother. There I watched the two ladies sewing. They come to this place
every summer because, as children, they lived on the land, not in houses.
Rachel and her mother come here so that they can prepare hides to be used for
sewing. This area is ideal because it has an area large enough to stake the
hides with full exposure to the sun, good drying conditions and a dry stone
area for working on hides. This is not available near the houses in town and
just outside town the ground is boggy and also there are always a few loose
dogs about. I watched as Rachel's mother worked on felt mitten liners.
The mitten liners are cut out and then stitched with surfaces on seams butted
together. To finish and protect the seam she stitched the edges together with
an overcast stitch in bright colored yarn to protect the structural thread of
the inner seams. The stitch used on the outer leather seams of kamiks and
mittens where the seam goes around the toe and finger area is a gathering
stitch. To get the larger surface to fit, it is stitched with the gathering
being twice the length of the opposite side. The stitch is with the two
surfaces bent back and against each other over under with what is called
waxed thread. The gathering is stitched twice in place with a running stitch
through just the gathers to keep them in place and flattened down. It takes some judgment and estimation to make the two
dissimilar pieces fit together even and proportionally. But when it is done
well it looks so easy. We enjoyed our tea together and then the real excitement started as boats filled with parents and children began to arrive. The ice had just gone out and many were rushing to get their boats ready for the water. Just as soon as their boats were ready everybody in their family jumped in and off they went out to the point to visit. All was a festival. I had such a wonderful time. This was the arctic in the height of its summer and its’ people being as they truly are. This is the ice as it is going out into |
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The last of the ice, which had been recirculating in No one had any seal when I arrived a couple days ago
because there was still too much ice inside Later during the evening at 2000 the fog gave way to light
rain on and off. A light wind had been blowing since 1400 at a moderate 5 -
10 knots from the west, which was probably just air circulation, cold air
replacing warm air. |
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Chapter 5 Paddling
down Adams Sound I had another restful evening on the point, even though in
reality it is not quite true that I would be safe there from any wandering
polar bears because of the number of people in the general area. I woke up and went through all my routine of the usual cup
of espresso and breakfast of powdered eggs mixed with various dehydrated
meats and flavors. I always enjoy the omelet mixes some of them have some
very good taste especially the Mexican omelet mix. The dehydrated meats are a
choice of chourico or linguisa from Amaral’s in |
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I could see that today was a benign gray day, which would
be just fine for making my run down Adams Sound to the waterfall. There were
clouds at 0630 there are clouds on the west horizon over Later during the evening at 2000 the fog gave way to light
rain on and off. A light wind had been blowing since 1400 at a moderate 5 -
10 knots from the west, which was probably just air circulation, cold air
replacing warm air. I could see that the last of the ice, which had been
recirculating in |
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No one had any seal when I arrived a couple days ago
because there was still too much ice inside Chapter 5 Paddling down Adams Sound I had another restful evening on the point, even though in
reality it is not quite true that I would be safe there from any wandering
polar bears because of the number of people in the general area. |
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I could see that today was a benign gray day, which would
be just fine for making my run down Adams Sound to the waterfall. There were
clouds at 0630 and also I noticed that there are clouds on the west horizon
over Conditions looked fine for me to paddle down Adams Sound
so after breakfast I broke down my camp and packing everything into the dry
bags. I put my numerous dry bags into my shoulder carrying bags. These bags
are simple box shaped bags with soft nylon shoulder straps that I
specifically designed to carry about 35 to 40 pounds of gear in each. I just
stuff into them what I can jam into them and swing them up onto my shoulders.
This enables me to carry as much as possible in one trip but also have my
hands free for such things as the necessary protective availability of a
shotgun. I bring my shoulder bags down to the beach and then to
make launching least stressful on both myself and my kayak, I load my kayak
while it is floating. If the tide is advancing I can easily just move my bags
above the tide line. And also by using these shoulder bags I have to make
fewer trips to load the boat. The limitation is more how much weight I can
carry rather than how many slippery nylon dry bags can I juggle and still
keep track of where my feet are stepping over the slippery irregular surfaces
of seaweed covered boulders. |
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After I had lined up all my gear at the boulder strewn
beach I looked around and thought of what might be the least demanding way to
launch my cumbersome kayak. Carrying a Klepper is demanding and awkward and the
thought of dropping this kayak which is my life support system or sustaining
an injury is not pleasant. But as a miracle of miracles, I noticed that the boulders
were so thickly cloaked with seaweed, that, indeed if I were careful not to
slip up or accidentally wedge my kayak between, I could take advantage of to
launch my empty kayak. I was delighted to find that I could very easily slide my
boat, which was not only minimizing the stress on my hull but even better was
that I could for myself as well. Mindful of how incredibly slippery seaweed is, I very
carefully balanced and braced myself using my kayak as my stability point. I
very carefully positioned myself step by step strategizing every move like a
cat that is avoiding getting its paws wet. I was just delighted as I found
that I could, with artful strategy, slide my empty kayak along over this
conveniently slippery lumpy ramp of sea weed. Here and there where there were a few gaps in this cover
of wonderful seaweed but the fronds were long and dense enough so that I
could rearrange them atop the granitic boulders as need be. The last thing I
wanted to do was accidentally scratch or worse yet slice
open my Hypalon hull on this jagged, sharp granite. I thought of some of the sage suggestions and the tricks
Frank Goodman mentioned for |
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In the Arctic regions it always amazes me that sea weeds
can survive through the winter attached to rocks. I have thought that the
seaweed would become frozen into the ice and when the ice goes out the
seaweed would stay with the ice becoming detached from the rocks. I imagine
them being just yanked off the rocks as the ice goes out. I wish I had
watched to see what actually happens when I had the opportunity in Upernavik.
To load my floating kayak I waded back and forth
retrieving my bags from shore and stowed their assorted myriad of shapes and
weights beneath the decks of my kayak. It is moments like this when I cannot understand how
anyone who might paddle in frigid waters such as these would not
automatically be wearing a drysuit especially when I am squatting in the
water to adjust positions of my bags beneath the decks. The water was completely calm as I packed my floating
kayak, hoped in and set off to the east down Adams Sound. I didn’t
really think about it until I was underway but I was amazingly lucky because
the tide was incoming tide with a touch of wind just 5 knots pushing me
gently along. The waves were just soft riffles. No ice anywhere in sight. I
had to make one short crossing of just a mile or so to Holy Cross Point. The fog didn’t amount to anything and it was just a
gray day. I leisurely passed Holy Cross Point not taking the time to observe
any of the details in the area because I was focused on attaining my goal
about 14 miles away. I headed straight down the sound. Just as if I were in a sailing race to both conserve my
energy and gently accustom myself to the rigors of propelling a loaded kayak,
I strategized my paddling to take advantage of the wind and current. One trick I like to use when running down wind is to take
advantage of gravity waves the wind in generating. Essentially what I do as
my hull begins falling down the face of a wave, I at that moment add power to
my paddle in synchrony with my falling down the wave face. I am building up
speed and this speed momentum I use to carry me up the other or back side of
the wave. This is especially easy to do with a heavily loaded Klepper. |
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So I essentially surge down the face of each wave and
carry up the backside of each wave. I apply a rhythm to my paddling that is
natural for me but I vary the amount of force I put upon each stroke so that
I can establish a synchrony with the waves. Funny thing but Sikorsky helicopters do exactly the same
to increase power. They don’t change rotational speed of the blades or
engine revolutions per minute instead they change blade pitch. I just dig in
or lean on my paddle a little bit harder or a little bit lighter as
necessary. I never change paddling speed or alter the rhythm. Another way I take advantage of the weight of my loaded
kayak is that I use this weight momentum in such a way that this moment of
thrust actually makes the paddle shaft flex. I cause the paddle shaft to flex
by putting extra thrust on the stroke at my best angle to apply thrust during
my stroke. I use the weight of my body behind my stroke. I lean into my
stroke pushing on the paddle shaft at shoulder height. I am using my lower back muscles to power
my trunk rotation. If need be I use the lifted knee paddling technique
especially heading into the wind. The paddle shaft flex in the first part of the stroke is a
lag of the paddle blade behind the shaft. Then in the latter third of the
stroke, the flex of the shaft causes the blade to catches up to and surpass
the shaft. I get an extra wag or a little extra push from the paddle blade as
it is flexing slightly ahead of the shaft in the last portion of the stroke.
Which means that it is less work I actually have to do for this little bit of
push in the latter part of my stroke. This is like starting my stroke smoothly at the beginning
and toward the end putting sudden thrust at the end of the stroke. But trying
to paddle this way is very awkward because putting this sudden thrust in the
latter part of the paddle stroke is physically difficult to do, quite
tiresome and doesn’t give much speed gain. However I do enhance my
speed by taking advantage of this paddle shaft flexure when I integrate this
rhythmic flexure with my stroke because this weight
momentum create the pendulum effect during the paddle stroke. So what I am doing is I lean on my paddle making the shaft
flex and I spring off the shaft flex into the next stroke. It is like a
slight extension of the stroke taking advantage of the moment when the blade
angle is still pushing against the water. By forcing the paddle shaft to flex
back and then spring forward in recovery, I am lengthening the time that the blade face providing more trust. I had learned from white water slalom race training John
Barry’s adage "let the water do the work for you." Of course
this only happened after I exhausted myself that I heeded John’s
advice. When I was in complete frustration, only to watch John paddle the
same course make every gate with next to no effort, while I was sitting on
the shore staring in disbelief and asking myself "where’s the motor?" As one of my experiments I switched to using a single
short wooden paddle just to change off from the 8 foot Werner Wenatchee. The
single paddle gives more propulsion because I used it in more vertically
angled stroke and set the foot operated rudder with just enough depth and
blade angle to counter for the paddle stroke yaw angle. This approach didn’t work very well because I think
that I was probably sitting too low to have the proper leverage. I never did
try Verlen Kurger’s
covered canoe and his tried and true single blade method. |
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Crossing over to Holy Cross Point and passing along its
flanks was no problem the tides and current was carrying me. Holy Cross Point
was craggy with rugged red-brown basaltic or trap rock character rock. The
gulls hang out here looking for fish in the currents. I didn’t happen to notice but there were several
suitable for camping past the point. There was an inlet with a narrow opening
into a round bay. Past the backside of the peninsula forming the eastern edge
of this round bay there was a pebble beach. Past this peninsula the coast cut
back a quarter mile edged by 50 foot angular granite offering no area
suitable for landing for a mile. This ended at a small spit of sand and rock
offering a narrow steep sand beach on both sides useable only in dire
emergency as an overnight campsite bereft of water. Beyond this small point this side of the sound was defined
by towering yellow quartzitic rock cliffs that plunged from dramatic height
straight into the water. |
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From here for the next few miles there was no place where
there was even an apron large enough to stand on let alone put the kayak on
or accommodate a tent. This did factor did make me feel a little bit edgy if
conditions were to become threatening in this area on this side of the sound. I was having just a calm quiet paddle on the tide but my
kayak paddled more slowly than usual because I forgot to fully reinflate the sponsons.
I had launched my kayak on the water at about 0800 but I
did suddenly at 1430 the tide reversed with a vengeance. At first I made the assumption that I could keep going. In
great glee I entertained this bright idea which I gleaned from my white water
training. I thought that since the shore eddies would be going the opposite
direction of the main current, I would have them all to myself and could hop
a free ride them. |
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Well that was very short lived because what I hadn’t
quite thought about was that the ice would also be doing just what I was
going to be doing too. So there I was discovering, all by myself, that I had
company in the shore eddies, not just some company but just to make sure I
wouldn’t be even slightly lonely there I was in lots and lots of ice. And all that ice in those eddies was whirling around
leaving no space for me to even squeak by. Then to further complicate matters
the tide was dropping rapidly the ice of all different thickness was
grounding out everywhere cutting off every possible passage along the shore. So my great idea was indeed very short lived. As the tide
was dropping rapidly and so was the ice of all different thickness just
grounding out everywhere, cutting off any possible passage along the shore. |
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It was time for the Glen Williams ultra light aircraft but
for me it was now you get to find out what it means "to dry out." I realized that my little innocent journey had not only
just suddenly ground to a quick halt but that I must immediately find a beach
area free of ice pans with clear access above the high tide line. If I had to
beach my kayak among grounded out ice pans than I would have to get it
somehow through them to the high tide line. The thought of my kayak grounded
out among a field of ice pans with the next high tide at some early morning
hour combined with me being solidly asleep in my tent was not a desirable
option. Ice is very formidable. The other side of the coin was that I was also quite tired
and could use a rest. This was partially because I wasn’t used to
paddling a loaded boat and had neglected to reinflate my sponsons that morning.
My kayak with its drooping stringers and probably slightly hogged keel line
paddled more slowly and required more effort than usual. Oh well I was a little annoyed with myself but this is
just one of those things you discover that you happened to have overlooked. I
haven’t paddled my sponsoned kayak in a while so I was out of the
routine of reinflating my sponsons each time. I knew that the next time I
launch I would certainly remember to reinflate those sponsons. Another important thing I thought about was the effect
near freezing water has on sponson air pressure. I reasoned that if I inflate
my sponsons while I am still on land especially if I am in bright sunlight
that, just as soon as the boat is launched on |
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I beached my kayak, hopped out and looked around for the
best camp site. I thought about my options with safety being first. I looked up
at the high rock cliffs and thought about rocks cutting loose tumbling down the
cliffs onto me. And just in that moment some rocks did that somewhere up there
and they bounded down landing somewhere down below.
Little alarm bells went off in my head telling me that I had
better look around for a place beyond the range of tumbling rocks. That ruled
out a tent site near the cliffs in fact as I looked at where there were loose
boulders accumulated on this apron the only safe area was confined to the edge
of this apron most particularly within the old tent circle.
I thanked my lucky stars and reaffirmed my strong belief
that old tent circles are good luck sites. I know that Arctic archaeologists
would be offended by my violation of a possible data baring archaeological site
but I didn’t wish to becoming rendered a statistic myself.
Thinking of the archeologists I did briefly consider another
possible site but I am a firm believer in good luck being associated with old
tent rings and that site did not have quite such a good view and suitably flat
area for my tent. The next day I was to find out something else about that very
spot I might have placed my tent on which I had never thought of or experienced
before relative to ice.
I was surprised and amused after I had looked around and
accessed all possibilities that I just happened to come in for a landing at the
most ideal spot. My campsite choice was just exactly where there was an old
tent ring just at the edge of the high tide line. It is a perfect place because
it was a good sighting point in either direction up and down the sound. I could
just poke my head out of my tent to see what was happening out there in either
direction. Just in case an ocean liner might be coming by, some hunters, seals,
whales might be out on the water or a polar bear floating by on a pan of
multi-year ice. You just never know.
The tent circle was conveniently flat and dry with the best
sun angle exposure. I like to not be in a land shadow when I awake around
A babbling brook was conveniently near my campsite too.
Now that I had definitely decided where to set up my tent I
unloaded my kayak, dragged up just above the high tide line on broom stick
rollers and set up my tent. Not a soul was about. There was no sound other than
the dripping of the melting ice and the water cheerfully babbling nearby to
calm my slightly jittery nerves.
One thing about being in the
There are no sources of noise such as wind rustling in the
leaves because the trees here are only able to form mats over the ground and
fill the shelters among the rocks that have lain there trapping windblown soil
between them for eons. The trees form a continual sculpture mat of two
dimensional Japanese bonsai forms as an endless panorama of espalier
promulgated by only the toughest survive.
My GPS and map located this camp site was at 72°55.04'N,
84°42.25'W.
For the bears I set up around my tent a monofilament tripline with pull string firecrackers, a gravity alarm
when moved from hanging vertical to horizontal would set off an alarm and an
infrared motion sensor alarm. I had with me, easily accessible, my loaded
shotgun. My thought was to be protected in several ways from a possible polar
bear and mainly rely upon the element of surprise to scare the bear away but
only at a last resort would I have to shoot a bear.
I was now nicely settled in my tent and could look out and observe
the clouds. The clouds on
Pond Inlet affects this
And I must admit that I didn’t feel to particularly
comfortable as I looked at them. In fact I felt a little bit alarmed and was
glad that I was safely situated on land. I knew I could trust my tent in 50 mph
winds and I was glad that I had plenty of tie down
ropes and large rocks available to tie things to, especially my kayak.
The weight and space a few whitewater throw ropes take up in
your kayak is well worth the sacrifice compared to the disasters of what would
happen to things that are not tied down in a strong wind.
This sky looked very threatening to the south with small
passing showers on the other side to the west. Okirqtaukt
Mountain at 1500 feet seems to catch the low stratocumulus clouds looking like
that mountain probably has many storms on its’ summit.
Over that mountain I saw and photographed virga that was unusual because it had shafts of cloud at
oblique angles.
There is a hole in the sky and to the south where there was
perfectly clear sky. Through this hole I could see perfectly clear blue sky
which I thought was spectacularly strange. In all my travels I found a major trademarks of this area of the
I looked at the map and found that I had paddled 10 nautical
miles which was alright. It is not easy to estimate distances in the
I investigated the rocks and took pictures of beautiful
metamorphic colors and layers among the rocks. I delighted myself finding rocks
highly colored. I contemplated the plants noting that these were different
because there were some alkaline soil plants among them, which were new to me.
I indulged myself in scouting out my most favorite plant, the fern.
Chapter 6 7/25/94 — ice crunching outside
I awoke at
Just a few footsteps away from the front of my tent my kayak
was sitting. I had chanced leaving it tied off to some hefty rocks just exactly
at the edge of what looked like was the last high tide mark. I was taking a
chance that there was not going to be an unusually high tide.
And yes, if I were to consider pan ice, as some sort of
company, I was definitely not alone, not even slightly alone, because the
entire Adams Sound as far as I could see west was now completely clogged, once
again, with ice.
I realized how very lucky I had been, just only the day
before, to have caught the opportunity to paddle this far
east into Adams Sound.
The ice four days ago had been pushed out of Adams Sound by
the tide and wind but now the ice had packed itself into the mouth of Adams
Sound by the 10 knot west wind which blew for 12 hours during the past two
days.
Now at 0900 the ice is spreading out with developing open
spots as it was being flushed out by outgoing tide.
Now there was nothing but ice in either direction, so I told
myself that I shall spend a quiet day icebound.
I thought about the possibility paddling up to the falls on
the
Looking eastward from my campsite, I could see just a few
miles away to the east this strange looking ramp, very definitive landmark. It
struck my curiosity because it looked so simple, just like a truck run off ramp
on a steep long grade.
I wondered what it really was, why it had such a distinct
look and character and why it could it be there, but this mystery I was to find
out later.
The wind this morning was very low and changeable and the
hot sun was showing through the stratocumulus cloud cover punctuated with
openings to clear blue sky.
I contemplated my equipment and thought about repairs such
as the little simple things like the tiebacks on the tent doors. How to improve
the SVEA 123 stove performance would be by using a heat shield around the pot
to hold more of the heat next to the pot rather than defusing off into the
atmospheric hinterlands. And of rather critical importance with the trip-line
bear alarm system was that I didn’t want to have to untie this whole
elaborate creation. I hoped that I would be able to just wind the thing up on its
spool.
I had devised this trip-line bear alarm to use 30 lb.
fishing line for portability and functionality. I tied with the loops tied to
the "bang pops" that explode when pulled apart tied together with a
simple overhand knot on themselves shorter than the distance between the loops.
One problem I hadn’t thought of was the effect of
humidity or, worse yet, rain on these paper bang-pops. And guess what? Rain and
humidity are very readily absorbed by the nice paper on these bang-pops,
especially dew. Dew always comes in those early morning hours just when you are
blissfully snoozing away in your tent. This softens the paper just enough to
render most of the bang-pops useless. The only thing I can do is to devise and
attach little hats of plastic sheeting over each one and hope that the wind
doesn’t carry them away.
Another one of my alarms was a battery powered gravitational
high water alarm which is set off when it lands level and ideally if it lands
in water and floats level.
And the other factor plan on is that batteries don’t
maintain a very good charge in cold conditions.
I did set up the alarm strung around the tent on lightweight
mono-filament fishing line from a fishing reel over the ground. I created rock pedestals
to elevate the line above the ground even though this arrangement was not as
reliable as if the alarm were to drop into a bucket of water in which it would
automatically float level setting it off. I can say one thing about that alarm
when it goes off its raucous buzz won’t stop until it is reset. Its guaranteed to scare the daylights out of anything not
deaf as a post for miles around.
So you now all you have to hope for is
that your bear visitor doesn’t happen to be deaf. Ah, its
just another small detail in the world of Arctic travel.
But I created a neat compromise I did tie my high water
alarm to my nearly empty tin gallon fuel can. I figured that if this noisy tin
can falls over on the rocks, I will probably hear it.
As an up close and personal defense alarm, I was glad that I
had brought flares and pepper spray. And up in Barrow
There I was icebound more or less, but now was my chance to
indulge my botanical and geological curiosity. After my usual breakfast I
wandered around collecting flowers. Now in late July summer flowering was just
about at its’ peak.
Here I found that it was very interesting in terms of botany
because there was a wide variety of plants ranging
from those requiring high mid and low pH. There was an immense variety of
plants and what especially was interesting were among the varieties of the
alkaline soil growing plants was some legumes, which were new to me and could
be eaten.
(#24 photo) The flowers I collected on this site of
Paleozoic Quartzite Egululik group were Campanula uniflora, Cassiope tetragona ssp.
tetragona, Cochlearia officinalis
ssp. arctica, Draba lactea, Draba nivalis, Dryas crenulata, Melandrium apetalum ssp. Arcticum,
Oxyria digyna, Papaver radicatum,
Polygonum viviparum, Potentilla hyparctica
var. elatior, Russula mushrooms - brown, Salix arctophila, Salix cordifolia var.
callicarpea, Saxifraga Aizoon var. neogaea, Saxifraga crenulata, Saxifraga foliolosa, Saxifraga oppositifolia,
Stellaria humifusa, Stellaria laeta,
and Taraxacum phymatocarpum.
Of note: Salix arctophila had red
veined red catkins that grow upright when sheltered. I saw the same plant some
leaves are rounded and others are pointed on stem
round near the catkin. Salix cordifolia var. callicarpea, which has gray fuzzy leaf
backs and catkins I had also seen near Augpillaatoq
Greenland.
I didn't see any birch and I wasn't expecting to because of
the temperature regime here.
Russula mushrooms were brown and starting to show. I was
looking forward to how many I might find because in 1989 at Pond Inlet just 200
miles from here to the east I had gathered and feasted on many.
The sun shown from a cloud free sky and no topographic
obstructions, giving perfect illumination for the pictures and videos I took between 0800 to 1200.
I captured exciting images of the metamorphosed sedimentary
rocks thoroughly enjoying their colors made more interesting by their white
injected mineral veins into siliceous sediments. These wind deposited sediments
had become metamorphosed into beautiful layers of colors and swirls. The dark
brown top layers of each wind deposit are wind separated iron bearing sands
which form definitive caps that outline the yellow white silicaceous
layer. These broken rocks show these cross sections as very colorful and
imaginative artistic swirls that are lovely examples of wind sorting of sand
according to mineral content.
These sediments are made further beautiful by the variations
introduced into the wave patterns of metamorphic faulting and compression
patterns. The rock faces are sometimes broken in one plane straight through and
in that same plan brake to reflect the wind wave deposition. This provides a
virtual feast for not just the eyes but also for the imagination in colors and shapes
both two and three dimensionally.
And another very exciting find, which I discovered just by
walking over shards of rock, were specially lithified chalcedony flakes.
Chalcedony is also created by metamorphism of silicaceous
deposits and it is created by the amount of weight and heat these sediments
have undergone.
When I walked on these seemingly uninteresting rock flakes,
they would actually ring and jingle as they tapped against each other. Just to
be sure I wasn’t experiencing some extra reality event, because as is
reality, just being in the
The most likely explanation I can think of is that perhaps
these sediments of silicacious sand had become
compacted and compressed but in addition had become tempered during
metamorphism into a type of flint. The marine siliceous deposits on
Well as you might expect as the day was going by there I
was, sort of hoping for some miracle, just a small one, as the ice was in
its’ endless procession. I watched the ice go west in the shore eddy,
collecting itself down lower in the sound. And over on the southwest side,
large low flat pans of ice are starting to work out of the upper end that have
not had the opportunity to become broken up yet.
To add to the suspense I noticed that the large pans
don’t move as fast as the smaller six foot diameter pans, so they tie up
the water for a longer time than the broken up pans. Probably this greater
horizontal surface area of those larger pans gives less of a surface area for wind
or tide to push against.
And of course I always check the weather to see if it is
friendly or not. The seemingly innocent light wind blew from the east as I
contemplated the ice. There was ice everywhere, no brakes in it, no clusters of
pans, just ice and more ice.
The tide was coming in from the west, but the east wind was
pushing the ice. When 10 knots of wind and waves hits the ice and tide, the
crackling sound of the air trapped in the rapidly melting ice is quite noisy as
the waves expose and erode the numerous air pockets undercut pans. The air
pockets are created by compression of snow and brine pockets.
I thought about my options for paddling and applied some
down to earth logic about what to do next. From here westward there were no
suitable campsites for several miles. Eastward was the unknown.
I thought about how the ice was moving and it seemed to me
that I should paddle in the same direction as the ice was moving. I thought
that this might be the safest and certainly the least strenuous. My idea was
that the ice would tend to spin toward me cutting me off. If I paddled against
where as if I paddled with the ice was likely to spin and pack but give more of
a chance to maneuver around and through it.
Later I was to find that this was faulty logic in either
case. I was to find out in the truest sense of the word why the kayak aside
from the umiak was created and is the only possible boat design in the arctic.
I had planned to paddle eastward to the waterfall and to the
end of Adams Sound. However today because of the wind blowing from the east,
all the ice was being blown past me out of the sound and the tide would be
going out at
Judging by what I could see from my campsite I accessed that
the quantity of ice eastward was so great that I was wasting my time waiting
here for the ice to go out. In my present position I was less than half way
down Adams Sound. To continue in eastward I concluded that I would most likely
become cut off by a clog of ice pans, especially as the passage narrowed. I
didn’t know where campsites might be. There was an unbroken horizon of
ice all along the opposite shore and there was a visible ice pack, which filled
a narrowing just a few miles east.
To the end of Adams Sound I estimated would probably need a
week for that passage to open up.
I decided that I should change my paddling plans for
paddling to the falls and to the bottom of Adams Sound. I decided that when
this ice and weather conditions looked okay and I would paddle back to Arctic
Bay to spend some more time with the ladies on the point and collect some more
lichen specimens from that area for Eric Steen Hansen.
I checked my barometer at
Somehow I didn’t think this amount of accuracy was
quite necessary. I amused myself thinking about how irrelevant such hysterical
precision would probably be because I rather doubt that the meter would
register the difference, anyway. The main concern was how rapidly and how much
the barometer is changing as an indicator of the strength of an incoming low
pressure system.
Glancing at the sky I noticed that there was a new event
starting heralded by gray altostratus clouds coming in from the west mixed with
broken cumulus above and there was a weak east breeze.
Well I told myself "I guess I am in for a little
weather. Is the
I checked my barometer and what the pan ice was doing ice at
And now, ever so slowly and ever so gradually, all those
tons and tons of pan ice was passing by on its egress westward with the
outgoing tide.
"How lovely!" I thought
to myself as I secretly thanked my lucky stars that this was the season when
the ice was going out, rather than, when the freeze up would be starting. Here
I was taking my chances because I was geographically out of walking range back
to humanity and I had no means of making contact.
At that time, 1994 single side band radio was the only means
of communication available. These radios are too bulky and weigh too much to
put into a kayak. Later in the late 1990’s satellite telephone
communication became available.
Travel on the water by kayak when it is late in the open water
season would have been more than just a touch risky.
There is some risk even in this season, mid-summer, because
it is possible to become entrapped in a mass of annual ice and just be carried
to where ever the ice was going for days on end.
This constant world of ice coming and going is and then what
happens in between freeze up is a source of tension people in the
Then an hour later, at
Some of the birds that I saw were; Glaucous gulls light
gray, Black-Legged Kittiwakes, Common Eiders, and of the most common were
Northern Fulmars in both dark and light phases.
This dark and light phase of the Northern Fulmars makes them
look quite different from one another.
Near town as is quite usual in association with human
habitation, there were numerous delightful amusing Northern Ravens. I never
cease to tire of watching their personalized repertoire of antics. They are
just simply perpetual showoffs.
The lichen samples I gathered were Alectoria
nigricans, Bryoria nitidula, Cetraria ericetorum, C.
nigricans, C. nivalis, Physcia
dubia, Polychidium muscicola, Thamnolia vermicularis, and Xanthoria elegans.
Now the wind was blowing 10 knots on the water making the
ice bubble like a glass of ginger ale because the ice was being forced to melt
and loose air so rapidly. I reminded myself as I noticed that because of all
the ice in this immediate area upwind only tiny
wavelets developed rather than the typical sea which should have come.
There was no lack of light at
I always worry that my tent may decide to leak but once
again this durable Chouinard Mega Mid was holding fine. I like the design
except for the fact that it does slat annoyingly in the wind. However, the advantages of to this simple floorless pyramid shape is that
there is optimum versatility, which outweigh this annoyance. During drastically
windy conditions the total height of the tent can be reduced which acts to
limit amount of exposed surface area to the wind and rocks can be piled onto
the flap edges. I added pockets to the flaps on its’ circumference which
are to hold sand as ballast. In areas such as Barrow
An hour and a half later at
Chapter 7 7/26/94 - vanguard of a powerful
low - pressure system.
Just after
I recalled previous experiences in
By
Now all I needed to experience was the oncoming reversal and
once again poke my head out of my tent into the Arctic July world of ice and
snow. "Oh well, here I am in the
And it was nice to note the exact time of the slack tide was
Luckily this area has diurnal tides. Having two tides rather
one is a confusing situation.
On the West Coast of Greenland, which has
semi-diurnal tides. I just never quite know what is really happening and
sometimes high tide will be much higher than I expect.
There have been a few times when I thought I could get away
with assuming that the maximum upper line of sea weed must have been a storm
tide rather than actually being the top of the last high tide.
I just love that moment when the tide is creeping up to my
kayak and it is obvious that it will be definitely floating. Then those little
bells, which I hoped wouldn’t ring, go off in my head telling me that
there is more tide yet to come and that I had better get out there, because I
have two choices either move the kayak or consider walking on water.
And there I am, just because I had been too lazy to bother
myself with bringing up my boat, now I am forced to extricate myself from my
aura of comfort into the cold, wet world to deal with the major project of
moving my kayak up the beach
The tide was coming in at
The wind can pack water into areas or hold tidal water back.
This is usual in Long Island Sound in the narrow Race off
Large amounts of ice affects tides by slowing down the tidal
exchange rate, but sufficient wind can move both the ice and water with
especially when the wind is with the tide. I decided that this might be the
situation and that the water might come much higher.
The tide peaked out at
At
From my vantage point it appeared as if the ice which had
been along this side and down the middle of the sound had made its’ way west sufficiently such that it was out of
sight. I reveled in my new paddling possibilities.
At
The tide was bottomed out and now was coming in. And behold
I thought to myself as a little twinge of alarm passed into my soul. That ice
which had accumulated along south
I was especially pleased with this old tent ring, which I
had chosen to camp inside of because not only did it have a good view both
ways, good sun exposure and it had excellent drainage such that the area
beneath my tent was dry completely.
Who wants to discover during a rainstorm that your tent just
happens to be situated right in the middle of a gully or a low spot. I have heard of those horror stories of people waking
up to a robust torrent of water flowing through the middle of their tent.
In the middle of the night I had gotten up and arranged
little hats over the bang-pop alarms to protect them from the rain. I fashioned
the protective hats from little pieces of plastic cut out from my used food
bags
I emerged from my tent only to find that through both luck
and my respect for an others' judgement in choosing
this campsite that this site had no ice. To my shock and horror only a fifty
yards to the east where I had considered placing my tent was now sitting a huge
stack of ice blocks. Each block of ice was two to three feet thick six feet in
diameter weighing in the ton range each.
These blocks had arrived and stacked themselves on top of
each other without even the slightest detectable sound. I couldn’t
believe my eyes at how near I had come to being in a seemingly innocent
situation in which my equipment, especially my kayak which is my lifeline to
the world and even myself might have been destroyed.
At first I could not imagine how this could have happened,
but then I looked more closely at how the water was circulating in this
seemingly innocent area. Then I realized that the ice could have only
accumulated in this spot if there was an eddy. Sure enough after I looked at
the water and the ice chunks swirling around in a circle I could see that there
certainly was a definite eddy.
The ice blocks happened to be just the right thickness and
there was a strong tide because the moon was full just a few days earlier. The
water circulation dynamics were just sufficient for the ice blocks to not only
strand themselves but to become stacked upon themselves
in a definite pile on the shore.
This one of the little things you would probably never
visualize happening of unless you have been in the
The localized weather seemed very easy to keep an eye on
because so far the clouds were showing what was happening.
The low alto cumulus clouds follow cold air from the ice
fields generating ice fog over the ice that is here. I thought that was
interesting to think about. What happens to vast bodies of clear, cold moist
air from the vast fields of annual ice on the open water as it comes to warm
land warms up and the moisture condenses into fog.
It was interesting to observe the effect that the local
geology coupled with weathering conditions was having on the types of plants I
was finding. In these Arctic areas biogeography is easy and exciting to study
because the plants very actively reflect what is happening in terms of
chemistry, weathering and air circulation patterns.
The rock in this area is yellow quartzite and the soil is
alkaline as indicated by plants, although some of the rocks themselves might be
acidic. The soil here is alkaline and is mostly newly formed.
This area is completely different in character from Barrow
There were some moist bogs, which Melandrium
was the indicator plant. Cochlearia here and there
indicated dry soil. The presence of Dryas cernua
indicated that this soil is alkaline.
Above me were cliffs of paleozoic quartzite light yellow wind and weather
eroded into interesting spires. In a few instances these spires are suggestive
of humans, giving an eerie feeling about this area. It is a feeling as though
one is not quite lone when one comes here, especially
when traveling by kayak. Where there are those moments when it seems that
one’s survival is dependent upon the good graces meeted
out by unknown divine powers of whom we visitors are only first to meet. Indeed
we are strangers in this land. It is the land of them, but who are they?
These thoughts came to me as I wondered about the local
people having said "Don’t go down Adams Sound if it looks
dark."
These were the remainders of rock, which hadn’t
destabilized and tumbled from the cliffs above. The rock was chunks and nearly
vertical fissured walls. This quartzite was hard well-compressed metamorphosed
strata, which has broken into irregular blocks.
Within this yellow strata had
interesting horizontal overlays in blue gray on yellow white quartzite strata,
shapes of broken rock to illustrate lithification or
degrees of metamorphosis these shapes ranged from conchoidal
with various structure and graphic scenic layering in white with green tinted
gray lines. I would guess that the green tinted gray lines were probably some
oxidation state of iron.
I sort of looked at the ice to the west in the bay and saw
that it was still clogging the next two miles so that meant that it would not a
practical idea to try and paddle in that direction.
Soil in this area was clay and rock flour light brown
alkaline small area of red clay hematite soil overlay of acidified old soil
with typical acidic plants having Vaccinium among
them. In the scree slope among the larger boulders I found the fern Cystopteris fragilis a very
exciting moment only one plant. Other plants I found Arnica alpina
ssp. Augustifolia, Cassiope
tetragona, Potentilla nivea
ssp. nivea, Pyrola
grandiflora, Salix herbacea, Saxifraga
nivalis, S. caespitosa ssp.
uniflora, Stellaria monantha
and Vaccinium uliginosum
var. uliginosum, which was a give-away for the
presence of older soil.
Lichens were Cladonia fimbriata,
Cetraria ericetorum, C. delisei,
C. nigricans, Leptogium tenuissimum white with cream interiors on soil, wet moss, Parmeliopsis hyperopta, Stereocaulon glareosum, Omphalodiscus krascheninnikovii
on acidic and alkaline rocks and soil, Physcia caesia, Umbilicaria havaasii, U. proboscidea, and Xanthoparmelia centrifuga,.
Well there was no doubt that this was going to be another
storm there was a nasty cold wind closing in at 15 knots from the west with low
cold rain-filled clouds.
And both the barometer and the clouds were once again doing
something. The barometric pressure readings at 11:00 was 997mb with clouds, at
12:00 was 998mb, at 13:00 was 997mb and at 14:00 was 998mb but at 15:00 the
barometric pressure was 999mb, fog, cold west wind 10 - 15 knots, clearing and
the tide was coming in. At
Even though I felt disappointed because I would have liked
to have been able to get back on the water and continue with my exploration I
could see that I had best stay put. I realized that here I am on solid ground
with water a good campsite and that there was no point in trying to leave until
all this music back and forth stops. There was no doubt about it, as had been
alluded to, that the weather here is anything but stabile. Indeed the true
character of weather here is, without doubt, always in transition.
Although I have no influence, I quietly admitted to myself
that I hoped the weather might settle down. So far my experience had been that
between the ice, the rain and the wind this was place is absurdly wild. Much of
the ice has melted.
As Glen Williams had forewarned me, you can find yourself
having to stay places whether you might or might not want to!
Thoughts came to my mind of "Now where is that ultra
light or can I hire a helicopter somewhere quick. Yeah but I came here to
paddle my kayak. Those options would be too easy and that would be cheating anyway!"
I reprimanded myself. Even though I was alone, it is amazing how big this
personal crowd of me, myself and I can be.
Then to console this raucous crowd of me, myself
and I and to continue with what I should be doing I contented myself
with taking another interesting cloud mist sunlight photo. I reminded myself
that I couldn’t take photos unless I were here
when an event was happening.
At
Chapter 8 7/27/94
I was becoming bored and I changed my mind about continuing
down farther to the east because it seemed to me as though I could only cover
two miles before I would probably become stopped by an ice jam. And to me this
was just not worth wasting my time doing. I thought I could more effectively
use my time both in the sense of a learning experience and give the ice a
chance to go out. I decided it would be best if I were to return to the point
near Society Cliffs, where I had met the two ladies from town living
traditionally out on the land.
The wind was blowing from the west at 10 knots. I decided
that I could risk bucking this wind. There was no ice nearby or visible as far
as I could see to the west when I broke camp around midmorning. Breaking down
camp went along smoothly and I loaded my kayak with it afloat. Packing my craft
went with ease because all the drybags fit nicely into the spaces beneath the
decks.
I hate fighting with bags and boat interior limitations. The
bulkiest items luckily fit very nicely into the bow sheets. That is always a
great relief.
I felt quietly invigorated because once again be reunited
with the water feeling like I had just escaped the clutches of the icy elements
and the torment of contrary weather. And so off I went, paddling against wind
and tide.
This is certainly not the first time I have paddled against
a 10 knot wind with a fully loaded Klepper before. I was not going to wait for
the idyllic combination of wind and tide to follow me, which would have been
rather impractical.
Even though it is not especially
demanding, even if the tide was also contrary.
I was energetically paddling westward but I knew this would
not last over the necessary miles I had to cover because paddling against 10
knots of wind and tide sooner or later takes its toll and becomes wearing.
I analyzed within myself, how can I make this journey as
least demanding as possible? Calling upon my small craft flight experience and
white water paddling knowledge, I knew well that taking advantage of land
friction was just the perfect solution for this situation.
Wind speed becomes reduced by land friction and it the right
topographical conditions it can create reverse eddies. And I thought that I
could take significant advantage of this land friction factor since the
topography all of the way back was of rugged vertical walls.
I remembered fooling around with water and wind currents and
finding that air currents affect hull speed much more drastically than water
when the waves are less than a foot. Even if there are waves I could time my
paddling to accelerate on the backs of waves. Unfortunately the problem with
the wind is that wind does have an unmistakable way of grabbing kayaks.
So I quietly reveled in my succinctly strategy of planning
my paddling to take advantage of the land friction. "What a neat
idea" I thought to myself, "now I was to try it".
I set off and eyeballed the water for the configuration of
wind riffles. Just 15 feet at most was the flat area so I paddled doing what
ever was necessary to stay in that wind shadow staying very close to the rock walls. If I had to hug them I would have rather than waste
energy out in the wind.
Coming down a long passage in
Padding close to the nearly vertical rock walls also allowed
me to take advantage of the possible eddies formed along the land. These eddies
flow in reverse to the current and in this case the tidal direction. These
eddies weren’t very large but still they helped.
As I made my way down the bay I noticed several places where
I could set up camp that I hadn’t noticed on my first journey past this
area. I was not so pleased to notice that there were not that many places,
which offered water even if there was room for a tent. I had been very lucky
where I had been forced to stop that there was such excellent water as a
delightful babbling brook close by my tent.
It is always interesting when I am just interested in
getting somewhere. I engage in the most boring treadmill paddling. And what is
really alarming, how truly myopic my powers of observation are in the sense of
just plain noticing landing sites which may spell survival at some future time.
Not being open-mindedly observant makes kayaking even in the most interesting
places very boring because I don’t notice things and miss others, rather
than find out what is there that I have never seen before.
I hauled out at
I reminded myself that it was good to have no illusions
about that place. Especially regarding water even though I always take the
special precaution of carrying a few gallons of water just incase I am forced
off the water onto a place such as this.
I stretched out on my air mattress and took a nice short nap
in the warm conditions it seemed to suit the moment. It is nice to have a quick
snooze because I need a break from time to time. When I become fatigued from
just doing the same thing hour after hour, especially slog paddling, I find my
interest levels dropping. When I am refreshed I am not pushing myself and just
simply absorb much more of what there is to see and I enjoy in a more
spontaneous way the experience.
I wasn’t worried as I snoozed about polar bears
materializing or other threatening complications such as an ice jam because
there was no ice in sight the water was calm and quiet, just idyllic.
An hour later I got underway again and I was off checking
the rocks for details. I was hoping to find something unusual perhaps some
exciting minerals. I paddled close to the shore because it is always more
interesting to look in detail. There were several miles before I could find
another place even a small place to make a landing. The rock walls even though
they were only a few meters high in this area rising to a flat wide ledge,
which could have been a road, offered no possibility for a landing at the
water’s edge. I thought that was interesting and I was surprised. From
afar this next few miles looked hospitable but I found
it would have only been hospitable if I were a spider. Oh well!
I continued on and by
Then I noticed the ice farther up. It was more than just a
few pans randomly out there. And out there was not just anywhere. The world of
the ice which I had not really been particularly concerned about in fact I had
assumed the ice was not anything of major concern now was different.
As I paddled close enough that I could see from my kayak.
There it was all that innocent ice was now gathered into a continuous flow of
pan ice completely filling the mouth of Adams Sound.
And of course just to add to the suspense, because this is
what this trip seems to be about I reminded myself, one limiting factor of
being a kayak paddler is that I am so low to the water that I can not see very
large distances. Nothing like a little real suspense and being the victim sure
beats reading about it and I felt my nerves twinge.
So there I was not sure if there was even the remotest
possibility that I might be successful and get round Holly Cross Point or would
I have to face a highly unanticipated disappointment.
One reality in the
So there I sat on the water looking and feeling like a large
red duck. I knew that I had no choice other than to paddle a few more, what
might be useless, miles from where I was on the water when I first spotted the
ice pack. I couldn’t sure until I had gotten within range to see how much
ice was off Holy Cross Point.
Well it wasn’t a fun moment. I found that all the
lovely ice just happening to have rafted up, completely blocking off the area
around Holy Cross Point. It was impossible for me to go around the point back
into
It seems as though the ice is either not moving at all or it
is moving along gingerly, there seems to be no in between. Ice has a life of its
own.
The ice was not moving. Tide was going out. The 12 knot west
wind was blowing against the outgoing tide packing these ice pans forming this
ice jam.
Near this ice pack I saw two black humps like Dolphin backs
come up in a hole which were probably some type of seal.
Dejectedly grumbling under my breath about "how could
this be!", I had two choices either to sit there
on the water and wait for the ice or to double back and find a campsite
somewhere along the way.
Not wanting to dubiously honor myself and my illustrious,
red Klepper as just another addition to the already myriad blobs on the water,
because really what else is a kayak that is just sitting there on the water not
going anywhere, I resigned myself to the best of two
choices.
And besides it doesn’t take very long before it gets
chilly out there, just sitting among all that ice not doing anything, I
reminded myself from my sailing experiences in Pond Inlet.
Resignedly I doubled back, just happening to recall, that I
did just pass what looked like a possible campsite which even had with a nicely
inset apron that formed a beach only a half mile back. "That isn’t
so bad, I could have been committed to miles of
backtracking had I been farther down this sound." I told myself.
Bringing my kayak up on the narrow apron of beach was not
difficult because the rocks were flat and shalely in
character, here rather than boulders. This was a cozy hospitable place.
Looking around, I found that this was a highly used campsite
and I just laughed to myself about because the last campers had probably been
forced to stay here for the same reason as I. In the spirit of the occasion I
doggedly resigned myself to setting up my camp.
Then just as I had completed my task I heard that all too
distinctive sound of what could only be motorboats on water. This sound was not
quite exactly what I wanted to hear just then, because I realized an undeniable
reality about ice. This raft of pan ice moved enough that by
For as much as I might try to pretend it might not be so,
ice always goes just when and where it wants to. I have no control, only luck
and a tiny bit of guess work in my favor over the peregrinations of ice. Polar
bears just hop on multiyear ice and float around because being stuck in pack
ice is not a problem for them and that is where the seals are.
I suppose that it could have been possible for a very daring
person with exquisite balance to get out onto these incredibly slick pans of
ice and drag a kayak over to the open water. However I was definitely not going
to take this risk. It would be too easy to either slip off or break off a piece
of undercut ice. I wasn’t armed with the traditional picks ice boaters
wear on a string around their necks so getting back up would have been
impossible. And can you imagine wearing crampons inside a fabric hulled kayak
as a practicality. "Not I!"
At my new campsite, which was at 72°59.37'N, 85°02.76'W I
take some pictures of flowers to compare with the other places I visit. I take
some pictures of the clouds because the types and dynamics of clouds are always
develop into something curious. What was really
exciting to find were the ruins of
This area has always been heavily populated because of
excellent water and land hunting which explains these numerous ancient house
ruins.
The barometer was depressed with an east wind. I very vainly
hoped that this might be just some air from the ice cap in
Earlier in the day, at
Wind from
Now at
I watched a Snow Bunting eating willow catkins, which I had
never seen before, a Gyrfalcon in the gray phase (orange area at the base of
the tail top), Red-throated Loon male, and Snow Bunting female.
I noticed during my paddle in either direction for a half a
mile of this campsite that this campsite happens to have a good view and be
very sheltered from the winds on Adams Sound. Interesting
aspect, which is very likely the explanation for its heavy use. Always
trust old remains and tent rings as they represent the wisdom of those who have
preceded.
Here at 72°59.37'N, 85°03.25'W, I found something that I had
never seen before. There were plants growing at the very edge of the high tide
line. This was the only place I have ever seen Mertensia
maritima with blue flowers and bluish leaves and Cardamine bellidifolia but which
had low tiny white flowers and a rosette of spoon leaves definitely a Cruciferae growing on the edge of the high tide line.
Mertensia maritima
is edible and a nice source of vitamin C.
Chapter 9 —
It was a quiet dawn, the sky was silver gray. I ate my usual
breakfast of rehydrated food and had my cup of
espresso. By late morning I casually launched.
Little did I suspect that this day would be a grand day of
chasing and being chased by the ice. If I had known
that, I would have had an acute case of butterflies. Today’s events
revealed to me why Inuit people are traditionally very quick at getting
underway, whereas I take a minimum of a couple hours to first prepare food, put
some hot soup in my thermos, break camp and pack my kayak. No doubt it does
take a certain amount of time to properly handle equipment and the price for failure
just is not worth it. Planning is of the essence to survival but so is
flexibility as I was going to find out this day.
At
Then I reasoned from saltwater boating and fishing that the
tide was slacked out while the tide is in the midst of changing there is a
quiet period between storm activities. The winds and weather
calms for a few hours until the tide reestablishes itself.
At
Oh boy! All I could think of was to paddle as hard as
possible to just make it by before the ice closed it off.
My mood and my paddle stroke went from being relaxed into
total alarm mode. I can tell you, I sprint paddled, bending that paddle shaft
with all my might, "like a scared man bails a sinking boat", hoping against all odds, that I could just squeak through in
the nick of time.
Today was going to be anything other than a simple quiet day
on the water going where ever I might wish, for today was going to be little
bit too real. I was committed to either another stroke of luck or another
starkly humiliating disappointment. Definitely, it was going to be a day when
strategy and brute survival was to be the issue. Today was not going to be
relaxing, to say the least.
Indeed as Glen Williams had forewarned me, the
I hadn’t thought about the effect that this incoming
tide would have on that, all so innocent, ice. And further, I hadn’t
thought about the combination of this moderate wind, which was blowing from the
east with the ice being pushed by the tide flowing from the west.
I ground to a halt at the ice pack edge. There was no way
and all my effort was to no avail, because time won. The wind and tide combined
to push all the ice together in this area around Holy Cross Point. Now the ice
had closed this passage.
Sadly I recalled, that this passage
had been open all the while, just shortly after I had gotten off the water from
about
I felt rather small in my little red kayak, like just
another bit of nothing on the water, quite insignificant and thoroughly
overwhelmed. That is what pan ice can be all about, to a kayak paddler.
As I was sitting in the tail of the ice pack daunted, I
began to think "surely there must be some sort of possible way to beat
this". I hypothesized from my white water slalom paddling training that
the ice along the rocks would be in eddies. Therefore I theorized that the ice
would not be able to pack together tightly, but would instead remain loose with
spaces around it through which I could paddle my kayak. The current in the eddies would be weak and therefore the pieces of ice
within these eddies would be only the small ones because the eddies would be
too weak to bring in the big pieces of ice.
Ah the lucid imagination of a kayaker!
In just the few moments while I had been sitting there in
the back of the ice floe I looked behind me only to find that more and more ice
was joining the pack behind me. Now I in my little red kayak was becoming part
of the floe. There was no doubt in my mind that I had better back up my kayak
immediately and get out of the ice pack before I get caught in it. I freed
myself by first lifting my rudder to reduce my water line length and not
entangle it with the ice. Then I delicately paddled backward always looking at
the paddle blade on each side so that I would be most stable and I would be
best able to strategize the direction of my hull through the ice pans into a
free area.
Once free of the so-called crowd, all that ice, I swung my
hull around and paddled my kayak over to the wall of vertical rock leading to
the point.
I began to paddle along the wall. At first I made some
progress through the openings around a few of the ice pans. I had to jam my way
past some pans. Risking puncturing my hull, I forced my way through. There was
a gap between two floes. I thought that if I were lucky, I could squeeze
through that gap. But before I knew it, I could go no farther. I had ran out of open spaces.
I was agonizingly close to the end of Holy Cross Point.
My valiant effort suddenly became my nemesis. "Oh oh, this is really humiliating I guess I really do have to
look. Oh but I don’t want to. Things like this are not supposed to happen
to me the intrepid kayaker." I mumbled to myself under my breath barely
daring to admit defeat of my strategy.
I swung around in my cockpit to discern the horizon
sternward. Immediately behind my passage had filled in completely with pans of
ice. Now I was just a little more than slightly indisposed. Now I was
undeniably trapped.
Calmly I reassured myself, thinking that I would be able to
back my kayak up onto the ice pans. "I can just back out. After all, I
have been able to back my Arluk over the sea ice by simply pulling it backward
with a garden hoe up onto the ice in
Well, that idea didn’t work. I had forgotten a few
minor details. The Klepper Aerius I unlike the Arluk III has a straight keel in
the stern and very little rocker aft of midship to
the stern. The height of the ice pans were elbow high
to me sitting in my cockpit, which was much too high for this strategy.
I would have needed a sharp edged implement to firmly grab
with a full length handle to provide the necessary leverage such as a normal
garden hoe, which I didn’t have either.
Now the wind had increased and is blowing 15 -20 knots from
the east. Doing some quick mathematics in my head involving weights and force,
I realized that no way was I strong enough to force my kayak through the ice
nor was the structure of my boat capable of sustaining such stress. I reminded
myself that I wasn’t paddling a steel or a ferro-cement hull.
Now there I was sitting in my little kayak, smothered by ice
pans. I was feeling just ever so slightly desperate. "No
this can’t be my only option." And another creative tactic
came to mind, get out and walk on the ice. "Why not get out and walk on
the ice after all everybody does that in
As I put my foot out of the cockpit, just before I actually
started to transfer my weight onto my outstretched foot, I hesitated. I knew by
the dimensions of these ice pans that they could bare my weight. But then I
noted that this fast melting ice was impossibly slippery.
I would need to be wearing some form of better traction such
as a special type of boots with very abrasive bottoms or some crampons. Trying
to rely on exquisite balance to maintain myself atop the ice was much too
risky. Also pieces of the pans would break off anywhere along their eroding
undercut edges.
I looked down in the water where I was right next to the
vertical rock wall and realized this water was deep, unimaginably deep. What
did I think I was about to do.
That near brush with indulging myself in absolute
foolishness, made me sternly remind myself that no matter how I might feel, the
only place I am safe here and now is within my kayak. I had this illusion of
safety because I was so close to the rock walls which had lured me
In this moment rather than allowing myself to become
frightened I had learned from other arctic travel experiences that survival
depends on a traveler's resourcefulness. I calmly told myself to look for and
think about other options. Once again, from my cockpit I sat and looked around
to evaluate my options. I knew that when the incoming tide reversed that the
combination of the wind and tide would force the ice out, but when and would
all of this ice go was the question.
Then immediately the answer came. There I was sitting next
to the rock. By good fortune I discovered that I just happened to have arrived
at the only place where I could climb up the rock. In fact this was the only
place along this rock wall and the tide was at just the right level so that I
could easily step out onto the wall.
I reasoned with myself saying, "Now this is a good idea
because rock isn’t like ice. It doesn’t move around and brake and
roll over. Especially when I consider that this is an entire wall of rock
probably a mile long and about fifty feet high."
I always keep handy easy to retrieve from the cockpit side
bag a stowed in its stuff bag, a 50 foot CKS polypropylene whitewater rescue
throw line, just for this sort of moment. My kayak on a trip of this sort in
the
Then before I did anything else I carefully worked out in my
mind exactly how I should get out of my kayak without the risk of immersion in
the icy, dark blue interminable depth. When you are alone there is no one to
save you.
I thought through my every move so that each would be
smooth, well balanced and could be reversed with equal ease.
First I put my paddle across my rear deck to the rock step.
Then I rethought my plan and changed my mind the balance would be right if I
heisted myself up onto my paddle leaning toward the stability point the rock.
Then I put my foot out and placed it on the rock step making sure that all was
stable taking care to lean securely but not excessively on the paddle. I stood
up on my feet and transferred all my weight onto my foot on the rock. I took my
other foot out of the cockpit and transferred myself completely onto the rock,
all the while making sure that the boat was completely stationary. The last
thing I wanted to have happen was the proverbial split.
I was like a cat slinking across the china shelf without
disturbing anything, as I I transferred myself on the rock.
How ironic and lucky it was that this escarpment should be a
dike of Cambrian Gabbro. This rock is a granitic basaltic rock. It is easy to
climb because this rock happens to be gently sloped with rounded, weathered
horizontal surfaces large enough for good footholds. Even though my agility was
somewhat restricted by my drysuit and booties a far cry from rock climbing
clothing, I knew that I would be able to easily climb this rock face.
I wasn’t worried about my how my booties would perform
because I already knew from my many boat launchings over seaweed encrusted
granite that I could trust the
With my throwline in hand I
trailed it behind me as I scaled the rock. I made sure that it didn’t
snag anywhere among the rock surfaces, because I wanted to be sure that nothing
might affect my ability to control my boat with this line.
I climbed upward and along the cliff looking for a place to
tie the line off. I found a large undercut opening big enough for me to squat
down within and be comfortably inside sheltered from the wind. There I ran out
of line but I had just enough line to tie off onto the nearest convenient large
stone. Once again I literally thanked my lucky stars that I had brought 50 feet
of line, not less. Situations like this make this simple fifty feet of line
well worth the space and weight.
I rested for a moment "to let my soul catch up with my
body." This is an excuse my cousin and I used to use when we wanted to
take a breather and wanted to rest a moment.
Then curiosity got the best of me and I decided to see if I
could climb up on top to look out from this point. I saw that I could continue
just as long as I was careful in how I climbed. The last thing I would want to
have happen is that I accidentally tear my vinyl drysuit
I had no adequate means of repairing it on this trip.
Repairing this type of vinyl requires special glue, bonding material and
temperature conditions. A temporary repair using tape would not work because
tape does not stick to anything, even to itself in these near freezing
conditions. So with this in mind I knew that ripping my tough vinyl dry suit or
falling would be very costly. I had to be extremely careful as I edged myself
past the occasional sharp edges of broken stone.
Sort of like laying on gold leaf in gilding I edged myself
around the exposed face of the escarpment and spanned one exposed step over,
which lead upward to a flat wide vegetated, sunken passage. I followed this
passage up to the top where it divided four ways.
As soon as I got up on top of the peninsula I looked around
to see if there was any possible sign of previous habitation such as a few
stones piled on top of each other that couldn’t be a structure formed by
glacial deposition of erratics. No, there was nothing. And I thought that this
was rather interesting. Then I figured that this must be because the approach
was too difficult. I concluded that since there was not even a temporary
shelter, that perhaps I might only be stuck here for a short while. That was
reassuring to me because I didn’t want to be stuck here for anything
other than the least amount of time.
Then I stood on top the rocks to look westward because I
wanted to see just what all that ice was doing. With great relish I looked
forward to this lovely moment when I was not stuck in my kayak only able to see
from 3 feet over the water just with in the confines of the passage. Atop a
peninsula I reveled in being able to see all three sides. At least all that was
in view would not be a surprise any more. That was a welcome change but now I
had to be concerned with the safety of my boat on its line down below.
I crossed back over and looked closely at my boat to check
on my boat after being up on top for only a few minutes.
I don’t make any assumptions about what ice floes will
do, because I am not sure of just what they might do. I had already been fully
victimized by one just a short while ago and twice before a few days ago I had
been victimized. Ice floes are free spirits and you can’t make deals with
them they come and go all on their own. The last thing I wanted to find was
that the ice was either carrying my kayak away or crushing it against the stone
wall or between the ice pans. Such destruction would begin completely
soundlessly and when it started it would be just too late for me to do anything
about it. So before anything might happen I determined that I must check on my
kayak every few minutes just to keep any possible damaging situation from
happening.
I evaluated the ice and noticed that to the west extending
across the four-mile width of the bay was what appeared as a continuous
uninterrupted ice floe extending as far as I could see.
The ice along the rocks on this peninsula extended as small
pans around the other side. There was more ice than I had expected but the
north side facing
I settled in a cozy niche and watched how Glaucous gulls
hover on air currents. This would have made wonderful video footage and thought
material but I left the camera in the kayak.
These gulls can control lift by fanning their tails and
tilting their pelvis and tail downward. They can micro adjust the air foil
surfaces of their bodies so precisely that they can stay positioned in the air
with constantly changing air flow. This was very interesting. Nature's air
foils. Sensitivity to air currents translated to flight control by position of
feathers on the tail and wings coupled with motor neural responses. I watched
and marveled at how an animal, a simple bird can feel the slightest air
currents with each main feather on its wings and tail with the same definition
as we are able to feel the difference in thickness between just one piece of
paper and two sheets of paper together.
%%I looked out, ice a third out from where I was sitting on
the point was now moving west on the tide, which was now going out.
However my Klepper was in an eddy. A few minutes passed as I
waited suppressing my ensuing anxiety. I checked again nothing much had
changed. Then after a few more minutes had passed I climbed up to a better
lookout vantage point and I saw that now everything was moving, my Klepper
included where some small but weighty pans of ice had caught on its mooring line.
%%Sensing the impending possibility of disaster I
immediately raced, as fast as I dared, over to the rocks to untie my boat and
try to free my kayak up from above. However from my position on the cliffs
above I couldn't quite succeed with freeing mooring line of my kayak from this
ice entanglement.
With the mooring line in hand, which represented my
umbilical cord to safety, I descended the rocks. I nervously
clutching the line in fear of accidentally entangling it somewhere on
the rocks as I came down and of myself accidentally falling I made my way down
the cliffs to my boat. Easing myself down the last available section of rock
suitable for me to launch myself in my kayak from, I balanced myself on the
knife edge of stone while I worked to free the line and line up my kayak so
that I could safely launch.
Although I was prepared for immersion the thought of the
actuality and the possibility of any failure since I was also completely alone
made me not wish to take the risk. I really wished to avoid immersion at all
cost. Only in the most completely involuntary situation did I wish to
experience immersion.
I freed my kayak from the ice pans and brought it back to
the rock I was standing on. I launched and the undeniable feeling of exalted
independent freedom of being back in my totally self-sufficient boat with open
water available was just completely exhilarating.
That delicious feeling of having extricated myself as I began paddling out from the pack was tempered
when I noticed that the wind could move me faster when it was pushing me in my
kayak than the ice pack. I was moving faster than the ice because I presented
greater surface area to the wind than the pack ice.
To give the ice time to move out I spent extra time by
paddling back upwind to just have another look around. I was hoping that I
might be lucky enough to just happen to see some seals or bowhead or narwhal
whales. The seals and whales often visit the fast moving currents for food off
Holy Cross Point. Unfortunately while I was waiting for the tide and the wind
to finish freeing the pack ice from the end of the point no whales and seals
happened to come by.
After having already experienced the time frame for drying
out on land, I did not want to have to sit among the pack waiting, because how
well I already knew that the wind would eventually cause me to become entrapped
in the pack once again. The idea of accidentally having to idly sit entrapped
in the icy waters of an ice pack is not my idea of paddling in the
Ice Cautiously checking for open
passage around the point I continued paddling and made the passage around the
point passing a pyramid of some precariously balanced multi-year ice blocks
stacked there by the currents and ice floes. I gave them wide berth because I
didn't want to experience the possibility of the law of gravity in action with
my tiny kayak. Being careful to avoid not becoming entangled in the ice, I took
a chance skirting the moving ice pack. I was hoping that the bay on the western
point of
I gingerly paddled out and drifted at first with a fifteen
knot broadside wind out (+pg18) from the protection of the Holy Cross Point on
the eastern side of the bay into the open bay heading for the point downwind on
the west side, racing around the wind and tide driven ice pack, making sure
that I was moving faster and out of its range before the pack. I calculated
would this ice pack would most likely work its way over and close in that
western shore of Arctic Bay.
Then, once I felt that I was far enough inside the bay away
from the approaching pack, judging from my position relative to the beautiful
rose colored dolomite cliffs, known as Society Cliffs, I turned westward
drifting and paddling with the wind on my back. I enjoyed the familiar short
chop and waves that is so familiar to me, which is typical of where I paddle on
Long Island Sound.
As I sprinted along, I laughed to myself about how this fate
had already started to become a reality for me last winter in Stony Creek. I
needed to do something innovative and fun with my kayak in what had become our
ice choked harbor, so I devised for myself a little game as a new form of
winter paddling entertainment which I called "Beat the Berg." To play
"Beat the Berg" the best type of kayak to use was my whitewater
kayak. To begin the game I would set pans of ice in motion. Now the goal of the
whole game was to practice controlling my boat. The challenge was that I must
paddle as fast and as close as I possibly could around the ice pans forward and
backward without touching them with either my paddle or kayak. My game which was an exercise of chasing around and racing between
the moving ice pans before they would collide together, in as many complicated
patterns as I could think of, was a delightful new form of English Gates.
Although I was beating the ice pack while I was making my
way back to my former campsite on the western point where I had first camped
with local people I noticed that there was quite a dense line of ice half way
back. I was just 100 feet from shore only to find that it was iced in, when I
realized the entire western shoreline was now completely iced in. For a moment
I tried to force my way through the pans but I quit after forcing my kayak
between a few pans just as the wind was pushing them together. I turned to look
for an open passage and there I was again in just moments the wind had pushed a
few ice pans in behind me, leaving me entrapped.
Equipment The day was saved by my brand new Woerner Furrer
"Wenatchee" paddle I forced my way back out and luckily, this time,
once again, the sharp shards of ice did not puncture the Hypalon fabric of my
boat hull.
Ice Perhaps if I had been more daring I would have jumped
out and dragged my kayak over the impossibly slippery, disintegrating pans of
ice but I through my acquired practical wisdom decided that arriving at that
exact place right now was not that important.
On the opposite side, where I had not yet visited, I could
see that there was plenty of open shore and campsites
areas.
So I decided that I had no other option than to cross over
to the eastern coast. On my way I took some excellent pictures of Northern
fulmars both mature and immature that were calmly
resting on the waves. I pitched overboard my useless #8 NP-55 video battery
which wouldn't hold a charge.
I complained to the video camera that I had come all these
miles just to camp next to the road. There I was, but at least I was far enough
from the dog teams and the road, not to be bothered by either. It did seem
awfully strange with all the endless expanse of Arctic land to happen by
circumstance to be forced to camp next to the road and dog teams. But ice has
its way of making things possible and impossible.
Equipment On the previous day I augmented my warmth by using
a silver 10" by 15" Mylar "Potato Chip" bag folded over my
scalp between a thin neoprene hood and a
(+pg19) 7/29/94 at1200 the pressure is at 977mb which is
very low and the change was so rapid that I actually felt this radical pressure
change as a twinge of pain in my arthritic hips. Cloud conditions show ceiling
dropping with an increasing gray overcast.
Ice Drying out once again, ice is
just filling in from the other side of the harbor where town is located. If the
ice moves on the tide I can make the point near Society Cliffs.
My new campsite is now across form town at 73°00.83'N,
85°03.88'or 91'W drift in reading showing up I had been just taking the first
readout because the drift is not something I can accurately access what is the
accurate portion of the readout. I suppose that if I correspond this with an
extremely accurate map I can pin down what moment during the drift is the truly
accurate reading.
1230 the pressure is at 988mb - oh well! Hermann Steltner
mentioned that this movement is typical in the Pond Inlet area.
I did successfully take some lovely pictures of Northern
fulmars that looked like a combination of immature one with a black bill and a
gray head which will be interesting to look up. They are always easier to
observe when a sea is running.
1304 the pressure is at 987mb
Plants The flowers at 73°00.83'N, 85°03.25'W are Armeria maritima, Stellaria
Edwardsii, Melandrium apetalum
ssp. arctricum, Saxifraga Hirculus var. propinqua ?
with a single yellow upright flower. I am finding no
birch of course. These plants are growing on Paleozoic sandstone and acidic
soil here and there but dominantly alkaline soil. Rock colors are pink with
purple hematite inclusions that are very pretty.
Lichen samples were Stereocaulon glareosum on a rock very common, Stereocaulon
rivulorum was not common, Cladonia crispata with olive brown tops, (+pg20) Cladonia norrlinii, Cetraria nivalis, Parmeliopsis
ambigua, two rocks with assortments, also a new piece
of Selaginella.
1500 the pressure is at 989mb cloudy, while I was sitting
here for the past two hours the bay filled up with ice again, no wind, just
tidal drift.
The camera rig planned to fit video doesn't work because the
46mm - 55mm step up is male, 46mm male to 55mm female. I need 46mm male to 55mm
male maybe I can use the T fitting from the slide duplicator. Also the lens
reversal ring for the OM-1N is 49mm when lens end where filters are screwed in
is 55mm.
1800 the pressure is at 990mb surprise, no wind, tide is rising, and the town is iced in again. I saw a
couple of fellows attempt to make it from Adams Sound back into
I took two flower pictures second roll of film #14 to
illustrate ice openings for options that don't quite work out.
Sun is peaking out at
Equipment Among the items I brought I'm glad I brought my
red waterproof cape, wool gloves, and leather three finger gloves but I wish
that I had brought plain pogies and should have brought another liter bottle or
so for fuel because one liter for a week is very short. Only my new Action
Battery is taking a good charge off the solar panel. I am glad that I brought
my plant bird and lichen guides for identifying in the field it is best should
have brought a small magnifying glass and I wish that I had enlarged and
photocopied my charts so that I could enjoy the sextant more and to reduce the
problem of having to figure out small angles. I'm glad that I brought two survival
blankets the old one with a few holes in it for the bottom layer and the new
one because last night was too cold due to air circulation (+pg22) I had to
wrap myself up in it which made me warm enough but some Velcro on the edges to
close it with, would be wise. However one drawback is that the blanket does not
breath so my sweat condensation will become trapped
within my sleeping bag and clothing.
1100 the pressure is at 996mb storm is consistent
Equipment Arrived on 7/21 cooking three meals 7/22 to 7/30
is 8 days for one liter or somewhat more fuel if the stove runs out it becomes
hot and starts burning the o-rings in the pressure cap. The cap needs to be
rebuilt and is not trustworthy. Stove pressurizing system is fast and fairly
reliable but I wonder how long it will be before the o-rings either ware or
burn out.
Glad I brought a microscope to deal with all this storm
time. Although the ice is out again the wind is too much. This area of the
1200 the pressure is at 997mb storm has died out.
After I broke camp and crossed over to
On my crossing the wind didn't seem like much 10 - 15 knots,
then it started for 15 knots in my face from the northwest, so I worked some
more. Then the wind accelerated up to 20 knots with higher gusts which required
that I had to keep a closer and closer eye on my bow angle and really watch
those gusts as I neared
Once I arrived on the beach in front of town I was in the lee
and I could just pull the boat up and tie it off.
In town I visited the Niglasuk
Company to buy some mattak and since it is an
outfitting (+23) company took advantage of information and I was able to find
out about people visiting the area. The visitors were whale watchers from
While I was in town I did notice some good wind gusts but
they did not seem strong enough to be threatening. I jumped in my kayak and
paddled with broadside wind. I quartered the wind past town then I noticed that
the farther along I went the worse the wind became. My paddle was being rotated
from the stern by the wind. The waves were trying to develop but then the gusts
started to get some teeth. I maintained a quartering angle thanks to the
healthy rudder on my Klepper which luckily I have not broken or bent in the ice
and launching, especially backing against ice pans pushing against me with
wind.
Farther along approaching the cemetery I gave up paddling
and the wind blew me along at first going, then speeding, then rocketing along.
I slowed things to maintain stability, (+pg24) direction and control. I leaned
toward the wind and onto the paddle which I angled at 35° to the water while
the wind pushed on the perpendicular face of the paddle on the opposite side. I
knew that if I made any error I would be in big trouble immediately. The wind
hit some absurd speed so that the tops just spewed off of the waves
horizontally as if someone was hitting them with a bat. Maybe the wind was 35 knots
but I have no idea but the wind was brutal.
I knew that if I rounded the point and the little bay that I
was shooting for was filled with I would be in some big trouble. This was
because rounding the point with no refuge meant that I would have to make a
quick, desperate, instant choice of some type before I was committed to being
just simply blown across Adams Sound.
All went well, the little bay that
was out of my line of sight was open. I pulled the boat well up on the bank and
very securely set up my tent.
I even noticed a Raven hunkering down behind some old house
walls hiding from the blasts of wind which may have gone to 40 knots. I can't
estimate in that range. Glad I was experienced and in a well loaded Klepper.
2400 wind arrives again like last night.
7/30/94 at 0730 1003mb East wind 5 - 10 knots gusting to 15
knots gray overcast to the west there are stratocumulus , overhead gray and
east the sun is shining.
Seems to be more wind, probably as the air cools starting up
at 2300 for a few hours being cold air replacing warm air, might be the reason
which is not what I have seen elsewhere, usually it becomes quiet at
1000 1000mb wind 10 - 15 knots clumps of white buff gills on
buff colored mushrooms tan brown with gills Russila
too early for the rose red mushrooms.
1125 altimeter 220 ft or 905mb didn't set the altimeter at 0
at the bottom. Gentle walk 1 1/2 miles up hill North
wind the same around the point, my tent is where the wind wraps creating east
and west wind gusts but it becomes a warm calm area good for tents.
Ice Ice is out as far as I can see
down about 10 - 13 miles into Adams Sound from Holy Cross Point. Ice is along
the south side from Holy Cross Point westward out to
Butterflies orange on the top to black near the body,
Fritillary; yellow to green then gray black with two spots that are edged with
orange and have white centers and an Orange fritillary black and orange bands
etc.
Sunday is today and so far nobody on the water church at
1045 Carillon bells 1115 beautiful to hear.
Meteorology questions I need to contact someone at Yale or UConn about what I see.
Equipment Discovered to my horror that my new
1500 1004mb what the change in millebar equivalent to in meters of altitude. It is
too balmy and quiet. I looked at the point on the north side with my binoculars
and saw that there is ice all along the shore it doesn't look good for camping
there is no green.
I collected lichens at 73°00.70'N, 85°09.05'W. Geological
feature is the Society Cliffs Formation of gray dolomite and a gabbro dike. I
gathered Sorolina spongiosa,
Collema bachmanianum, Physconia detersa, Bryoria lanestris.
I saw a butterfly with green wings that he pink edges pink dark red edges and
around the edges black dots and on the folded side bottom black lace 1 1/4
inches long green fuzzy body. I think may be a Skipper because it sits with its
wings folded up. Another butterfly 1" long gray small body pale orange
sits with its wings open.
An officer from the Canadian Mental Health Dept. in Eqaluit John Vanderbuilt I met at
the hotel.
Equipment, Paddling You can't appreciate a big rudder on
your kayak until you have experienced involuntary hydroplaning being pushed by
35 knots of wind.
2215 arrived back at my tent only to find that it had been
rifled through my tape player, a Russian Favorites conducted by Leonard
Bernstein tape, red small Bic cigarette lighter, 2
Cadbury Hazel nut candy bars are gone the remaining odor of perfume from a
brown haired long jacket girl her boyfriend light and blue jacket dirty rides a
bicycle. I hope that they did not take my 4 extra AA batteries but I don't see
them. I found that lots of survival tablets and chocolate bits had been taken.
Equipment (+pg27) Stove cap 2nd one
lit up and probably caused by over filling and dirt. Have to waste a tiny bit
of fuel not at all happy about that problem.
I saw in the water some pteropods
and something else transparent with some red coloration on its swimmers and
with two dots on its body. Also I saw a round black with fans for swimmarettes in large numbers suggesting a bloom of the
summer or in association with the sudden release of nutrients from the rapidly
melting ice.
This area is okay to visit as long as you never leave your
tent unattended. I visited in town with a highly skilled narwhal hunter, Ikie Tsagaq and his parents they
were preparing to go boating. I saw the fellow who visited Glen,
he has a white boat with a blue top. 75°56.85'N, 84°24.53'W he saw me camping
and on the water, as did the rest of town. It was good that I came in and
visited this gave me and them perspective on my visit and kayaking skills which
they saw graphically demonstrated on Saturday when the wind really blew. When I
started out making my crossing of the bay from its east side, at first the 15
knot wind was nothing to be concerned about, but as I got closer and closer the
funneling effect of the topography at Arctic Bay increased. During the last
stretch I had to watch and be prepared for the encroaching cats
paws over the water while I was working very hard 2 miles. There were a few
especially strong blasts which had the capability to either
grab the paddle from my hands and put me over. During the violent
passage of these gusts I was forced to stop and lean out on my paddle in the
water towards them to stabilize myself while I waited for them to blow through.
In town on
The gray stable skied tide is coming in I got on the water
at about 1400 and paddled until 24:00. I was chasing the tide up Adams Sound. there were more boats on the water doing some active hunting
of seals which is good to see.
I kept the same paddling stroke on and on.
I took photos of views with reflections on the calm water
and stones upended into exceedingly lovely swirls. Many
beautiful rocks showing contact metamorphism which created the pink quartzite and
gray gneiss. With such calm conditions I was able to enjoy looking at
the bottom covered with rounded stones and Fucus 50 feet from shore in the
cracks of the bed rock that have escaped being scraped away by the ice on the
north side.
1100 1006mb wind 10 knot west wind clouding over high
ceiling with altocumulus in the northeast blue patches to the west a few
cirrostratus visible in the west. The cast of thousands - mosquitoes has not
quite been able to erupt because it is too cold and stormy. Many people told me
in town all these storms we have had are not the usual for July when it usually
becomes warm and settles down.
The geology is especially beautiful where I finally found a
good campsite with lots of tent rings. Between here and my last campsite there
was not much area available for erecting a tent on this north side because the
cliffs come straight down to the water in all but a few places on this side.
Loose rocks frequently break loose from above and tumble down into the water.
It is raining again as fine sprinkles. My health is fine but
my nerves are chattering because I am very ill at ease about (+pg29) going in
For me it would be of great interest to see the end of the
sound just to see how it really looks.
Sunday was warm enough for many butterflies but today there
are only bumblebees.
The change of populating on the water has sprung since last
Thursday when there was this strange white floating stuff which looked like
small Styrofoam beads and flakes with a very few pteropods
the cleome clear red ones, now the water is covered with pink strings and oil
slicks with vast numbers of artemia type brown tiny
fish shaped things darting on the surface. Artemia
types down 10 feet and at the surface hit it breaking the surface tension
making the surface look like small rain drops everywhere. Probably
good food for whales. I saw two box comb jellies and the water is very
busy with the nutrients released by the rapid melting of the ice, especially
from the feet of multiyear ice. This melting forces very rapid biological
activity.
Equipment I am glad that I took two notebooks removed the
wire spiral and tied them together on the top and bottom with string it has
worked out perfectly.
The tent liner and side bags for the boat and baggage
retrieval system in the boat I need polyester Velcro nylon just gets too weak
in the water.
I was thinking about my problem with library access and
information gathering. Although it is terribly expensive I think that Current
Contents is the best solution. I would quickly waste tons of time and money
dealing with Yale etc., just the disruption and travel time would cost more.
Contact metamorphism is of great interest to me.
One big advantage of being alone is that I can think and get
to write more easily. I saw a viscous raven fight I think that it was over
territory and representatives of two groups grabbed each other in the air then
held on and crashed to the ground with great violence while they were both
flopping around others landed and fought with each other and pecked at the two
grounded flapping ones that had become injured by their crash to the ground.
1200 stable looking weather partly cloudy altocumulus 10
knot wind high ceiling 1007mb.
(+pg32) Thinking about finding if anyone could make me a
Thinking about John Sieburth
and his physical problems stiffness etc. I think that two Keowii kayaks would be a good solution for his needs on the
Mackenzie.
On
8/2/94 atlooking at what has been
discarded at this campsite there are a series of rusty tin cans and just a few
seal bones and some small stakes for stretching skins out to dry I estimate
that the last people did that about 20 to 30 years ago.
I found a group of Woodsia alpina
ferns but surprisingly Pedicularis lapponica leaves
look very similar and Draba glabella
among the rocks.
Equipment Talking with Glen Williams he mentioned the
application of tomography on a computer with video imagery matching program as
a non-invasive method of labeling and identifying seals and whales. Tomography
creates three dimensional images from any view to match like an overlay with a
previously recorded vied. this was used to verify toe
body of Joseph Mengala in
This tiny little spot that I have just by accident stopped
at is a geologist's paradise as well as a meteorologist's paradise. In this
area is the confluence of three geological phases of bed formation and I have
(+pg33) after thinking what I casually saw on the beach was a strange
combination of basalts, granites and odd volcanics at
72°51.85'N, 89°24.53'W just under my tent is an Archaean
Biotite-garnet gneiss, granitic gneiss, mixed biotite and garnet gneiss, granitic and pegmatitic dykes
really incredible. Just a few yards north is the dark dike is Palaeozoic Eglulik Group volcanic
member of andesite and basalt, part amygdaloidal and
tufts. I found a chunk of tuft which was wild to look at. Another few yards
farther north past the dike is yellow quartzite as the Eqalulike
Group Quartzite silica cemented with quartzite. I made a representative stone
assemblage underwater and took a picture after I had stirred the water to
capture some sparkles from the sun.
I must share this with John Stratton and David Frank who
both love geology.
Now I was just laughing to myself suppose I was made the
club secretary how would I write about the meetings. First I would change
"Mutterings in the Focsile" to "Squeeks from the Looms and Shafts" I would compare the
occasional appearance of Woody like the like the Baptist minister giving a
sermon. Yeah, I only go on outings if an airplane is involved, otherwise I
don't.
Equipment I should ask Adventures and Delights if they could
or I could heat seal across the bottom of my bags because that is where they
seem to wear out.
The Svea cap will leak if (+pg34) the fuel is too low or the
stove is over filled or over pressurized just enough pumps to bring the fuel is
the best option.
Right now looking out, the water has that innocent dark blue
light blue sparkle to it just as it looked at Pond Inlet when just only a week
ago it was iced up and gray looking black and brown.
To explain and to actually experience the vagaries and
demands of ice is not comprehendible. The emotional physical
actuality of dealing with ice like the rest of life. There is a complex
maize living the experience of "ice out" was high impact experience.
I am glad that I had some perspective and prior experience. I must tell Glen
Williams that John Dowd said that the design of kayak you see today are the
survivors of all the previous experiments that have already been tried and have
succeeded. Those that failed died. I should send him the footage from Fort
Devon's to show if stands to reason here in Baffin with only two months to
paddle in ice and wind that the Baffin design would work best. Even in
This notebook arrangement deserves to be continued when I
get hoe. It is worth buying a pile of these tough waterproof pages and tying
them like this along with the pen. The whole rig fits perfectly into my pocket
for use at any time I should call the company directly and order a large
supply. Also I should look into ordering Xerox paper for color printing of maps
that would be waterproof.
Barometer is at 1006mb all day ceiling was high although
various clouds appeared at all levels including some blown out altocumulus.
2400 or 0000 on
Equipment Stove pressure cap leaks much too easily and the
pump is in trouble.
Thanks for the new cassette player I am enjoying James
Galway flute music which is good for the soul. I am most glad that I bought
that tape and I do miss the Russian one that was stolen.
Meals less of the sausage, especially the chourico and
linguisa more specially prepared beer. Lunch soup should have at least has some
hint of meat in it not enough to is as a vegetable broth or some soya granules dried cheese such as dried mozzarella was
especially nice. Work on that try drying the soy tofu out and compare probably
the mozzarella will be the best. Dry kielbasa had wonderful flavor and Italian
sausage was really nice with the basil and green pepper dinner chunks of dry
tomato (+pg36)would really fill in nicely. the mushroom base was too bland. Powdered eggs were okay
maybe a cheese omelet mix would sparkle them up. Dry
parsley in with the eggs here and there would work nicely. The fruit mix was
just delightful with bits of dates, mango, strawberry, apple, peach, sunflower
seeds and nuts were a very wise addition a good bunch of seeds and nuts to
mellow out the acidity and round out the fat content. Cider mix was good but I
could use some diversity with some other flavors like mango. I was especially
glad that I planned some cider mix for evening that I would keep in my thermos
bottle for a hot drink.
Equipment I am very glad that I went to the extra trouble of
labeling all my bags and numbering each dry food bag gives me a greater peace
of mind. The two transparent bags are very important and the medical bag needs
to be replaced. Tyvek liners to black and gray bags are very good. Camera bags
need special stiff plastic - sled plastic liners on inside so that the cameras
can be taken out with less of a fight. Video batteries need a special Velcro
closed pocket so that they stay. It takes nothing to accidentally dump them
overboard.
John Seiburth I should push him to
recognize what he needs to know about rocks and 7 knot moving water. I should
also get in contact with people who pilot boats on the Mackenzie probably a
barge company in
Equipment Contact Lee who made the breakdown paddles, he can
probably make a good breakdown sweep oar with other attachments like a hook and
duckbill for pushing off flat areas and mud.
Sampling methods, keep the bailer handy and scoop up the
victims may be okay to photograph in the bailer swimming animals with its white
background.
Equipment In my lifejacket I need to carry a very small
waterproof container for a lighter and tinder which is now the fishing tackle
holder but the jacket has to have the pocket redesigned with vertical holders
so that things fit better in the pocket and the jacket wraps comfortably around
my back.
Life is so much simpler if I accommodate my mind and memory
by helping it. Write the idea down, don't sit there and try to wrack my memory
- what a waste of everything.
I think that the air movement today is just cold air from
the outside to the west replacing warm air inside. The sun is warming up the
air greatly today and the wind has now come up from the west at 10 - 15 knots. 1100 1010mb fewer clouds bright sun.
I put extra raisins and coffee in the 3rd food bag, I hope
that I remember this.
Equipment I too many navy blue equipment bags, they just
disappear in anything but the best light. I have to make new light colored bags
with drawstring tops. I cant see things down inside
them either.
As I go from place to place when I think and imagine my
audience I am in my best spirits. What they want to hear is most exciting to
find for them.
On the Garmin GPS carrying bag put a smaller inner clip on
the attachment because it is very hard to stow as it is now.(+pg38)
8/4/94 at 72°45.96'N, 84°01.67'W Barometer is 1009mb all
through the hours of early morning but by 0800 it had changed to 1008mb with
rain starting at 0900 1007mb and 0920 1009mb rain.
Equipment My chart case rollover seal did not close well
enough and everything became soggy the worst thing was that the maps should
have been waterproofed with lacquer they just disintegrate like toilet paper
Can't write with an ordinary ball-point on this paper even if it is just
slightly damp, later I fixed the ball point by passing it quickly through the
flame of my lighter.
Cloud cover is not too thick, light gray color, light rain,
no wind.
Evening hours offered excellent drying conditions. Clothing
that I had to wash because I pied into my pants - one of those surprises no one
wishes - dried completely overnight surprising evaporation rate even though it
was over cast all night (I recall a nice sunset at near midnight with
cirrocumulus clouds recorded on camera)
I found a well and frequently used campsite near the end of
Adams Sound. Once again I thank the local wisdom that was used in choosing this
place, because it is on a gravel knoll facing east. The ice circulation spins
around after being packed by the west wind into the end of the sound. From
there, as the tide and wind change, the ice spins around and goes back out the
main channel, leaving this shore fairly clear of ice. A few pieces land here that are nice for good tea water. Three brooks are right
here for plenty of good water with enough to wash out clothes in.
Equipment My tent has leak problems everywhere now, oh well,
now I know and same for the chart case too at least it is not pouring out.(+pg39)
On the way down along the north side east of the waterfalls
I found some lovely swirls of pink feldspar in dark gray gneiss and
unfortunately I was blowing along too rapidly to grab a photo of those
intricate variable swirls. Also some large nearly 6ft square flat pieces of
rock one of which somebody I think did position over supporting chunks of stone
to function as a shelter. This could have a possible
1000 1009mb light rain with no wind.
During this trip many personal aspects have come to mind to
be evaluated. The most difficult was facing the overall problem of fear of new
things etc. which has brought about a deeper resolve to appreciate the basic
faith one must come to eventually. In my life, my faith that God will help me
and be my source on consolation when my own inner strength is worn out and
really compromised. Controlling the constant problem of negative depression
mood overtones I have resorted to telling myself what I can expect to happen in
my mind because of the specific situation that is in hind sight philosophizing.
It does help to a certain extent enable me to go and do something rather than
collapse in a stupor of depression.
The music at evening helps as well. Realizing my strengths
and adapting to accommodating my weaknesses, helps (+pg40) a prime example of
this behavior is that now I notice on the Geological Survey map that the
literary references are listed I wish that I had taken the time to look for
these when I was at home and lots of other handy information I also think that
I must improve my lighting at home and make a more concerted effort to lay a
map out on a flat table for really scanning it completely.
The constant gnawing feeling of being in a breathless rush
all the time and confusion at home is not practical.
One physical problem which I have that I don't understand is
numbness in the very tips of my fingers and more extensively on the bottoms and
toes of my feet. My feet become hot and swollen at light with pain on the balls
of the feet. the possible sources are too tight cuffs
on my dry suit, gout, frost bite or some circulatory situation scleroderma. The
intense swelling and heat with great sensitivity at night I can't wear socks so
I pull my quilted pants down over them.
Mosquitoes hatched if it were sunny today - wow.
Tide is high at 1000 one very convenient part with junk
along the shore is that a couple boards or even better plywood and my broom
stick rollers make moving the boat much easier for me. In the future some way
of setting up two rectangular lengths of wood for tracks might be well worth
carrying could be rounds with square ends ferruled together to make 3 or 4
tracks, possibly the paddle shafts of extra paddles with something to not let
the rocks wreck them - most likely simple solution.
1117 am having the special
celebratory cup of coffee to celebrate having paddled to the end of Adams
Sound.
White nylon carrying straps I made are just perfect. (+pg41)
1120 rain subsiding sun brightening. Ravens
actively having a chatty party - such fun those birds.
1400 1008mb east wind 5 knots rain stopped, tide dropping
1007mb quiet conditions.
I collected some nice lichens; Cladonia rangifera
type, a Sorolina green with black centers, rock
lichens that are now in Arctic Bay Formation the Uluksan
Group black shale pyritiferous Paleozoic - definite
quartzitic granitic materials on 8/4/94 at 72°45.96'N, 84°01.67'W. Flowers were
Erigeron compositus var. discoideus
with pale lilac flower, Antennaria compacta without flowers. large
areas with this plant on dry soil.
1500 1006mb got on the water at 1700 overcast low west wind
1005mb. I especially enjoyed looking at the south side where there was an area
of little hanging gardens filled with flowers. Quartzite dike
with flat cleavage occasionally.
Even though the tide was coming in against me there were
convenient eddies in the bays and there were bays which had no current some
partial ice jams to play "beat the floe" with but not difficult a
little timing required since some of them were coming toward me. I was able to
take some pictures of the white fatty particles in the water then further
towards the west towards the opening the pink layer starting and finally a good
mass of pink strands to illustrate food in the water which is released from the
melting ice. The tail end of Adams sound with the incoming thermal wind has the
collection of ice where things are released last into the water and that was
why I was able to reverse time in a sense by finding the white particles down
in the lower reaches of the sound and as I worked my way westward into areas
where the ice had gone out earlier I was able to find the pink fatty particles
which then gave way to strands and finally disappeared into a bloom of
organisms which had consumed that material.
At 84°15' I saw the brown swimmers in huge clusters but not
in the numbers that I saw on the outer north side. I think that sun photoproductivity affects their activity as well as
current.
8/5/94 at1100 1003mb; 1200 1002mb sun out but hazy - high
up, west wind at (+pg43) I notice that the barometric pressure has been
dropping slowly since the previous morning of 24 hours earlier. There are high
clouds - probably strong high pressure system is leaving. It was very
interesting the night before when the pressure was 1007mb and steady drying was
excellent even up until it started to rain which was moments before I brought
in my clothes at about
Position 72°49.46'N 84°22.76'W 8/4/94 atlast
night the pressure was 1006mb dropping to 1006mb by noon on 8/5/94 atwith no drying. I think that this is a factor related to
the incoming low pressure system. 1200 clouds cirrostratus, alto cumulus, strato cumulus some west wind now at 15 knots with clouds
on rocks next to camp that are only 500 feet high maybe. when
clouds are on the rocks a storm is brewing. There are no mosquitoes here and a
good camp just around the corner out of the main channel wind.
Campsite is unfortunately on sharp volcanic basalt very fine
grained conchoidal in places. Luckily I found a
grassy patch for the tent and some rocks to tie down with. there
are some lovely minerals hers and there. I took photos of very fascinating sculpturesque volcanic basalt showing very fine grained conchoidal fracturing in places for aesthetic reasons, also
some pink feldspar and yellow quartz, gray gneiss with metamorphic swirls.
Cruising at night even though the sun is poor is better for
this side because it is not backlit at night there is just less light.
Equipment My feet are not in good
shape because the soles on the booties,
1400 1001mb dense altostratus and cirrus to the east but the
west has blue sky some upper alto stratus or cirrus? wind
west 15 knots.
Collected lichens and rock samples.
The volcanic high temperature minerals are exciting but in very small
quantities that are easily broken up. I found three large puff balls but very
few mushrooms. Among the lichens I found one that grows among moss and becomes
quite large, also the Sorolina in apple green, both
of these lichens I gathered from the edge of a stream.
Equipment The Svea gets three firings between refills I am
careful not to overfill and over pressurize or to burn it too close to empty.
I moved my foot pedals forward and put a piece of wood
behind them but now the mast step is not useable. The chains are down to three
links. I am trying to help this foot problem.
1800 1002mb wind is slacking off, tide is coming in, I hope that this is the evening calm. I'll paddle on this if
the wind is slacking off, as it usually does. 1900 wind is definitely slacking
1004mb low, sun shining.
My chart case is shot ripped.
A nasty wind came up at 2000 decided to make the crossing
here where it is only one nautical mile wide. Paddled across
just before the wind started. I am noticing that like in Laksefjorden in
On the other side when the dark blue line with silver
highlights line hit me, the work began. At first I scrabbled along as close to
the rocks as possible to avoid any exposure to the wind and unnecessary work. I
had a grand battle passing a protrusion. There were some good rolling broadside
breakers (+pg45) that slammed against me as I crept up the shore line. The 15
knot wind with 20 knot burst made arduous work trying to just stay out of the
wind and get less of the wave action. I did save myself until I got to a
diorite dike that offered 2 sided protection and a
nice beach. I pulled in and set my tent up on the grass but I should have
followed the sage advice of sleeping on the stones which are dryer and warmer.
I captured reflected orange sunset on the rocks across the
way at 0100.
Next morning there was bright sun and 1002mb all day. The
nasty blown out clouds were gone leaving just some scattered altocumulus giving
some good drying conditions. I got on the water at 1300 paddled up to my old
campsite where I became stuck first in the ice for several days. Then I noticed
another dark blue line on the water which meant more wind. I crept along the
shore to avoid the stiffer wind. I did well and took the precaution of stopping
before rounding the next point. Very wise move then the hard endless slog began
the worst was seeing lots of ctenophores but I couldn't take a nice picture of
them because of the waves. I did enjoy the view of the shallows. It was very
slow slogging because I am not wedged so tightly into my seat which means that
I had poorer leverage but I just had to keep going there was no suitable refuge
because there were sharp stone beaches. I kept short strokes to not stress my
paining left hand. Paddling became very demanding as I approached the lee side
of a bay. There were strong threatening gusts requiring good balance and paddle
(+pg46) position and as I started up and around to the entrance of
In such a strong wind I used my body and paddle as a sail
adjusting my body balance with my body position to retain control. Backing
around required strong paddling to keep me off the rocks and get my boat headed
down wind. Even though I tried using the full rudder kicking the rudder in as
hard as I could to counter the wind it couldn't control the boat other than to
keep the boat broadside. To get the boat swung around to completely reverse
direction I had to resort to using a strong reverse sweep. I had to carefully
balance my body by leaning toward the wind.
Once I had reversed direction and was headed downwind I had
to control my direction vigorously to gain some sea room past the rocks. When I
was clear, I just let the wind push me along.
The two worst aspects of this situation were not getting
tipped over when reversing direction and controlling down wind direction of
boat.
In this area the wind did not generate waves, which is
rather typical of a catabatic wind from an upward
angle flattened the water making conditions appear to be less threatening
instead of what they actually were.
On a calm day one can do anything in a kayak but this area
is not that sort of area.
There is nothing more discouraging than seeing (+pg48) a
black line on the water off in the distance with whitecaps. I saw some
interesting whitecap wind lines today.
Equipment The Svea pressure pump caps are no good I had a
very close call with my flaming stove which I had to throw out of the open tend
door I thought that it was going to explode. This problem with the stove was
threatening situation that was too close for comfort.
Pouring gas on the stove and lighting it is very risky. The
evening
Now at 2100 barometer at 1005mb the lovely wind is slacking
off and the sky is as innocent as pie. Altostratus 50% coming
in looks like 5 -10 knots on the water - such innocent looking clouds.
Hope that the morning is not another nasty mess.
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