Day: 160

Making Tough Decisions

Temperature: 50F

Location: Pond Inlet, Nunavut

Latitude: 72deg 42’ 01’’ N

Longitude: 77deg 58’ 54” W

Distance Traveled: 0 Miles – Pond Inlet

This is going to be a little longer dispatch than usual. I want to explain the reasons for my decision to stop at Pond Inlet, and a little bit about the responses of the team members. In making a critical decision like this, to stop, especially when there is potential danger ahead if you make the wrong decision, I first of all draw from advice from the Inuit people. I don’t make my decision from this advice alone, and you have to be somewhat wary of the advice you do get. Sometimes it’s good advice, or it might be advice from a snowmobiler, who travels 60 mph, so you have to factor all this in when you are listening. You can also get yes and no answers if you talk to a lot of people. In making a decision like this it is also possible to spin the information you get in your favor one way or the other. Especially on an important decision like this, spinning is out of the question.

For example, I asked on of the fellows who dogsledded from Pond to Clyde last month whether we could make it there from Pond, and he said, “Oh, for sure you can make it.” And I said, well, it would take us three weeks, maybe longer. Because when he said we could make it, he was thinking that day, traveling 300 miles (i.e. on snowmobile). And then he realized what the question was, and he said to me, “In five or six days, forget it.”

So I always draw from Inuit advice, but my decision is always based mainly on my experience. And part of that experience is being able to interpret the yes and no advice, and being able to take the advice with a grain of salt. For myself, I’ve had extensive experience on six expeditions of traveling from mid-winter right up to break up conditions, sending the dogs out and then traveling on from there. For these expeditions we traveled with dogs through mid-winter, and then when everything broke up we flew the dogs out and continued on with canoe sleds, sleds you can pull over ice and water. On two of the six expeditions we traveled right to the end of the season, leaving in December and traveling right up to July at one point and June on another. And we abandoned our gear and sleds, and continued on with dog packs. So I draw from a lot of experience in making this decision.

In order to understand the decision I made to stop the expedition, it is important to look at the process by which sea ice breaks up. When the sea ice breaks up, it is not like a lake. A lake usually melts down into candle ice, and then it just totally disappears. Sea ice generally remains quite thick, usually through July. But the sea ice then breaks up, into chunks. And on the route here from Pond to Clyde is about 320 miles, and along that route there are two major ice topographies you have to look at. One is the protected areas, like Eclipse Sound out here. The sound is about 60 miles long, about 5-20 miles wide. It is open on both ends, but the sound is very protected. The ice isn’t going to drift out into the open ocean. And then there is a lot of fjord travel. The fjords are like very deep bays, with mountains on either side. And both the sound and the fjords are solid ice. And they are safe, particularly from the significant movement that can be caused by pressure from the wind. In these protected areas you get tidal action, which is usually slight, maybe rising two to six feet. And this will crack the ice, which is sort of an ongoing process. Small cracks happen in the wintertime, and the cold weather seals those cracks right away. The ice, however, loses the healing ability of the cold when it gets warmer. So when cracks form, they stay open. And gradually these leads, as they are called, will widen with time, and become much more of an obstacle. The leads formed by tidal action in the sound or fjords form at sort of right angles to the coastline. And then following the coastline you have what are called shore leads, which follows the shore. These are caused generally by runoff from the streams, maybe a little bit of tidal action, and also from the rocks on the shore, which absorb a lot of heat. So the scenario on sounds and fjords is that you get regular leads, at right angles to the shore, and then the shore leads. So the ice on the sounds and the fjords will break into large blocks.

When we traveled from Iglulik to Pond, this last section, it was very fast, making about 30 miles a day on a trail, it was the ultimate of travel. But when it starts breaking up like this you lose the advantage of trail conditions. In this case there is a trail to Clyde, but as the leads break up you lose the trail. And it is a huge advantage to have a trail to follow, and if you lose that advantage, then there is water on the ice, and you have to bootie the dogs, which mean 120 booties each morning. And the booties have to stay on, so that is a long process. As the leads start breaking up, you are traveling 30 miles a day, but not in a straight line, rather zigzagging back and forth. And way down the line comes the point where you just can’t cross the leads any more. So very gradually, within a month, you get these deteriorating conditions on fjords and sounds, which are generally safe. But this stops you from traveling.

The other important aspect of ice topography is the open ocean. Like on Hudson Bay or, in this case, the North Atlantic. The major portion of the route from Pond to Clyde, well over 250 miles, is on the east coast of Baffin, and it is exposed to North Atlantic on one side. And on a coastline like this you have a situation where you get really solid ice along the coast, called fast ice. This forms a ribbon of ice from the shoreline extending out toward the open ocean anywhere from two to 20 miles. This fast ice is generally good travel in the wintertime. It can break off, even in the winter, but it is less likely because the cold is holding everything together. And beyond the fast ice is loose, broken ice, which is called floe ice. And this floe ice in the North Atlantic can extend out to 100 miles from the coastline. On the route along Baffin this floe is is affected by the currents, and flows south, keeping pressure on the east coast of Baffin and on the fast ice. This keeps everything intact and, in cold weather, this can be fast travel, and can be safe.

But as the season progresses, shore leads start forming (be it from tides, rivers or the heat from the land). Thus the fast ice, which is really good travel, starts breaking off from the land, causing a number of problems. Along this route, there are large capes that we would have to go around. Since there is no snow on the land at all, crossing the land is no option. There are trails around these capes, but since there is no snow we would be forced to travel on the fast ice, and then there is the possibility that you could get a shore on this fast ice (from the shore leads opening up). And there is also the possibility, especially as the season warms, that the floe ice looses up, which happens here in late June and July. And thus the whole fast ice with you on it could drift out into the open ocean. So those are the issues.

The problem with the Pond to Clyde River route this time of year is really simple: it is summer. The last week we have had extremely warm weather, the snow is melting off the last, the streams are flowing, the leads are opening and getting wider. And soon the wind will begin taking its toll on these leads. If we attempted to travel to Clyde, one of three things would happen this time of year. One is that we could make it, I mean, it is not impossible. It would be an epic adventure, maybe it could be a straight shot. But I rather doubt it would be really straight forward. But I’m not saying it is totally impossible. Number two is that we would be stopped along the way. In other words, the leads would stop us, and we couldn’t travel at all. We don’t have any canoe sleds, and don’t have the option of dogpacking out. So if we got stopped, we might be able to attempt a retreat back to Pond. But there is the possibility that leads would open behind us. And if we got stuck like that, we would simply have to be rescued. Either by the Inuit or, most likely, by plane or helicopter. This would be an expensive way to get home. And there is a chance of that happening. The third scenario, the one that I am most concerned with, is that we would end up traveling on the land-fast ice (due to the large capes, and the inability to cross the land). And if a shore lead opened along a cape, we wouldn’t have the option of going to shore, which has happened to me a number of times. And with the North Atlantic out there, there is a possibility the ice would break off, and then you would have to be rescued. I’m not saying this would definitely happen, but there is a chance. And the later in the season the greater the chance this would happen.

The problem is that if you are doing this in two weeks, like we did the last section, it is not realistic. You got to figure it would probably take a month, and you have to bring that amount of supplies, because you don’t know what is going to happen ahead. And as you travel the conditions would get slower and slower. And the breaking off of the ice has happened before to a number of the Inuit I have talked with. Both in winter and this time of year, so it is something that has happened in the past. One group I talked to had to be rescued by helicopter.

Another thing I am taking into consideration when making this decision is that we are six weeks behind schedule. If we were on schedule, we would be 500 miles south of here, and we would be in an area called Home Bay, which is a protected area about 200 miles long, and this ice stays for certain until July. In looking at satellite photos when I was studying the route, I saw that the ice on Home Bay would never drift off into the North Atlantic. So if we were on schedule, we would definitely still be traveling, because we would be in a protected area.

So I felt the prudent decision was to stop here at Pond Inlet. All the decision making throughout the expedition was on a consensus basis, it was a democratic process, a lot of compromise all the way through, and that is normally how I would be associated with an expedition. But the decision to halt here was my decision alone. I made my decision based on the onset of summer weather and also the deteriorating conditions. I take 100 percent responsibility for this decision. The decision was not too popular with Aaron, Mille and Paul, who were determined to push on into July to Clyde. I understand their disappointment, but I felt that we needed to keep the team together, and I just had to go with my decision. Eric and Hugh trusted my judgment on this, they were totally behind me on the decision.

I feel the expedition has been a remarkable geographic achievement. We traveled 2,041 miles in 151 days, from Yellowknife to Pond Inlet. I don’t think anyone has ever done that. We crossed the full extent of the Canadian Barrens, 1,300 miles, traveling through the mid-winter night. We did a 500 mile route from Baker Lake to Pelly Bay, which was a first. We always took the unbeaten trail, the most challenging route whenever possible. It was a great adventure.

These expeditions are an all-encompasing experience, as you can imagine. When you are in them, you are totally in them. There is no outside perspective of what you are doing, no one is saying what a great thing you are doing and such. It always takes some time and distance to appreciate your accomplishments. I hope, and am quite certain, that everyone will be pleased with the distances we have covered, once we get a little time behind us. Unfortunately, I am not the most popular guy in camp here with Paul, Mille and Aaron, but I will stand by my decision. And I think for the sake of their parents and their wives I have made the right decision.

There have been questions at home about my decision, so I felt I should explain it fully. And I think that understanding the conditions that we are traveling in, that you could get an idea of what continuing would entail. And I think you have to take into consideration my past experience, and I lean heavily on that. I feel that I did the right thing with this decision, and don’t question it whatsoever.

We should know by tomorrow what our travel plans home will be.