|
|
||||
|
|
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN It is difficult to conceive of a region uninhabited by man. We habitually presume his presence and influence everywhere […] Nature was here something savage and awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what the Powers had made there, the form and fashion and material of their work. This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night. Here was no man's garden, but the unhandselled globe. It was not lawn, nor pasture, nor mead, nor woodland, nor lea, nor arable, nor waste-land. It was the fresh and natural surface of the planet Earth, as it was made for ever and ever […] There was there felt the presence of a force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place for heathenism and superstitious rites, - to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rocks and to wild animals than we […] What is it to be admitted to a museum, to see a myriad of particular things, compared with being shown some star's surface, some hard matter in its home! I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one, - that my body might, - but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! - Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we? - Henry David Thoreau, from Ktaadn Taylor and I grinned at each other as the ski plane waggled its wings merrily then faded away over the Delta. We're back, baby. And this time we're going to kick some arctic ass. At almost noon the sun was hovering just above the southern horizon. The great yellow sphere threw no discernible heat our way, tilted away from it as we were here on Earth in midwinter north of the Arctic Circle. But just the sight of it gave us comfort and boosted our confidence. We congratulated ourselves for having been wise enough to schedule this, our last chance, a few weeks after the end of the thirty days of complete polar night. This trip we could expect to have five or six hours of actual sunlight each day. At least if we stayed on high ground and it didn't storm. We stood together in total silence on brilliant white snow covering a frozen lake. This unnamed lake was the farthest west of any in the Delta's Rat River region. It lay atop a treeless plateau directly above the Rat River Canyon - the place where the failed siege had begun and where Constable King had been shot. Just by landing here, instead of down on the Delta, we achieved more than we had on our 2004 misadventure. We were already a few hundred meters higher than the Delta and it's ridiculously deep snow. I turned away from the east and the Delta and gazed westward up at the Richardson Mountains. From this perspective they didn't look that intimidating. All that could be seen were rows of scattered ridges and peaks, each growing slightly higher than the one before it. A straight line drawn through the air from our boots to the highest peaks 5,000 feet above would rise at a gentle grade. The peaks within view were round-ish rather than jagged, having been worn down by timeless exposure to wind, snow and temperatures that each year ranged some 150 degrees. But we knew from the topographical maps we had so tediously studied that deep canyons and 1,000 foot-high walls lurked among the crests and ridges. A light wind was blowing over the mountains from the Yukon, sending streaming flags of spindrift into the dark-blue sky. For the first few minutes, as we strapped on our sled harnesses and packs, the breeze didn't bother us at all. I felt freer and stronger than I'd ever felt in my life. I sucked in big breaths of cold air, each inhalation expanding me, filling me with vigor and excitement. "The wind seems to be picking up," Taylor commented as we clicked into our ski bindings. "I spit in the wind." "Just don't piss into it. It looks like it will be a lot windier when we get higher. I sure wish you'd brought the tent instead of the tipi." As I've mentioned before, we had spent months debating several items on the gear list. The last great lingering debate was tent versus tipi. The tent was bombproof. Staked down with skis, ice axes, or ice screws, it could withstand a hurricane. But it was heavy, almost 12 pounds, and so small and low you could barely sit upright in it. It would be intensely claustrophobic with the two of us huddled inside, wearing our fat down suits. I'd learned from the numerous training trips how short my temper can grow when, every time you make the slightest move, you're bumping against your partner. And merely brushing the taut fabric of the tent's walls, where steam from our breath and cooking gathered and turned to frost at below zero temperatures, would convey the moisture to our down clothing and cause it to lose its insulating capacity. Bumping a wall at below zero would turn the tent's interior into something resembling a briskly shaken snowglobe. I suspected my damaged spine would revolt from too many hours and too many days hunched over. The tipi, on the other hand, weighed less than half of what the tent did, and yet you could actually stand up inside once you'd dug down into the snow a little. It was floorless, so there was no concern about removing your boots and brushing out the snow. It was so tall, though, that we doubted it would hold up very well in a big wind. But the weather had looked so promising … and I figured if things got really nasty, we could always just dig a snow cave. It hadn't been a confidant decision. Taylor had finally left it up to me, and I'd left it in the air until packing my truck. Then I'd said to myself, Screw it, we're going light and fast, and heaved the tent back into the garage. Doubt about that choice had chased me north on the long, lonely drive. Taylor irritated me further by also mentioning another tender subject. "And I'm a little worried about canceling the pick-up in the Yukon. Are you sure that was a good idea?" This was another nagging topic, and a quite recent one. I'd told the pilot to forget about picking us up in the Yukon - after crossing the mountains, we'd just ski another fifty to seventy miles south, re-cross the mountains where they were lower, find our way down to the Dempster Highway and, hopefully within a few days, catch a ride back to Inuvik. "No worries. If something goes really wrong, we can always get down out of the mountains to some lake and call for a plane on the satellite phone." "But all the lakes big enough to land a plane on are twenty to fifty miles from the peaks. That's a long way to go if one of us gets hurt. And I remember having some problems with the phone working two years ago." "That's because the battery kept freezing. But check the thermometer - it's almost ten degrees out. The advertisement said that the lithium batteries will work to minus twenty." It was true. At least the part that it was currently nearly ten degrees above zero (the other was a dangerous lie). Almost unbelievable here in the wintertime, but true. We were in the midst of an arctic heat wave - it was no colder than a blustery day skiing at Vail. At the moment I felt quite pleased with global warming. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. So what if cargo and cruise ships could soon ply the Northwest Passage? The Russians were already excited about planting crops in the rich ground of Siberia. Someday European tourists would sunbathe topless by the Beaufort Sea. I imagined Taylor shooting a little video of me shirtless, looking badass with my hard-earned muscles, kicking my skis and dragging my sled over the "unclimbable" and "impossible" mountains. We were going to kick old Albert right in the balls. This time I was quite certain. We locked down our bindings, faced the wind, shoved off with our poles and started kicking toward the mountains. * * * Gripping the steering wheel for up to 20 hours a day, I'd arrived in Aklavik two days ahead of Taylor. Solo-driving 3,500 miles directly north in the middle of winter seemed like something of an accomplishment in itself. An even greater triumph was that my neck felt just a little stiff but otherwise okay despite all those hours with my fragile spine hunched over the steering wheel and held rigid as I white-knuckled every slippery, snow-covered turn along the Alaska, Klondike and Dempster highways.
(Puffy crossing the Arctic Circle) I'd forced myself to do a little training along the way, stopping once in the Yukon to ski up an isolated valley. The two-hour exercise turned out to be more mental than physical, as the utter isolation sat like a brooding weight on my back. The way the snow collapsed with a "whoopf" at every step in a wide circle around me - signaling extreme avalanche danger - didn't help, nor did the sight of some fresh and truly enormous grizzly tracks. The warm temperatures had drawn at least one of the beasts out of its den, probably to prowl about for a mid-winter snack. But I persevered and gained confidence, as well as perhaps a touch of hubris, from the effort. I'd skied alone again off the Dempster Highway, just after crossing the southern end of the Richardson Mountains, near a highway maintenance shed and an adjacent trailer. Here the snow was hard-packed as I kicked my way up a valley alongside Sittichinli Peak. But the wind was intense. My hat, clear goggles, and face mask had to be constantly readjusted so that every millimeter of skin was covered. Anything exposed would start to burn within seconds, screaming a warning of impending frostbite. Still I managed to cover almost eight miles round-trip in just a few hours, giving birth to the idea that we could re-cross the mountains here and return to the Dempster, thus doing away with an expensive ski-plane pickup. The two days in Inuvik waiting for Taylor had been well-spent. Olav and Judi, my hosts at the Arctic Chalet, had years before traveled over the Richardsons on snowshoes and by dogsled in the late spring via McDougall Pass. They were able to provide me with valuable information about the conditions we might find now, in mid-winter (heavy, heavy snow and high winds). During the day I skied the dogsled trails they'd broken down to the Mackenzie River. I also became a acquainted with a fifty-year-old local businessman / aerobics instructor / Arctic socialite named Andre who knew everyone in town. Both nights he took me out drinking and introduced me to a circle of friends that included bush pilots, hotel managers, social workers and local Inuit. One of the concessions that Andre managed was the maintenance of the northern end of the Dempster Highway. He was quite familiar with the shed at the southern end of the Richardsons, and it was people who worked for him who sometimes stayed in the adjacent wind-blasted trailer. Returning to the Arctic Chalet with too many drinks in me, I studied the maps, added up the mileage, and committed Taylor and me to a one-way trip, my dangerous cost-saving plan. I determined that when Taylor arrived the next day, we could shuttle my truck to the shed with a rental 4x4 and abandon it there. Back in Inuvik, we'd fly in a ski plane to the Rat River as planned, race across the "impossible" peaks in Albert's footsteps, then march south on the Yukon side for about sixty miles, re-cross into the Northwest Territory via the lower peaks on the southern end of the range, and descend the valley I'd already skied to the shed and my waiting truck. It would cost, I surmised, only a few days to, at worst, a week of additional effort. Taylor arrived on February 17th, feeling as gung-ho as I did. After dinner in town, I spread out the maps in the Arctic Chalet and explained the new plan. He cautiously approved, but seemed to be withholding some deep reservations. The next morning we rented a truck from Olav and Judi and began the shuttle down to the shed. After the first 50 miles, however, a nasty wind started streaming snow across the Dempter and rocking our vehicles. By the time we reached Fort McPherson, the road was closed. We turned back to Inuvik, yet I wasn't done with the plan. I arranged with my new friend Andre to simply send a ride for us once we reached the shed in a week or two. And the next day we were off - waiting around and debating our decisions would only weaken our will. We flew into the mountains in a bigger plane than two years before. This one, a Pilatus Porter, would only have to make a single trip and could land in a lot smaller space than the Cessna we'd previously flown. It was capable of setting down on a patch of flat snow no longer than a soccer field. The pilot had shown no concern when I'd pointed down at the little lake above the Rat River and asked him if he could drop us there. We'd circled once, gauging the snow depth and drifts and the direction and strength of the wind, then landed almost as if in a helicopter. After we finished heaving out all our gear while the propeller continued to sing, the pilot shouted to me, "Where and when do I pick you up?" "You don't need to. After we cross the mountains, we're going to ski down to the Dempster." He paused as he climbed back into the Porter and stared at me. "You sure about that?" I gave him a steely stare, choosing to take his apparent unease for avarice rather than concern for our well-being. "Yep. But thanks." He shrugged, slammed the door, and spun the plane about on the snow. The propeller bit hard into the breeze and the Porter all but leaped into the air. Taylor and I were here at last, alone at the foot of the Richardsons. Before the Mounties blew it up and the river dragged away the ruins, the cabin - the place where it had all begun - would have been in the Rat River Canyon just a half-mile to the east and a few hundred feet below us. We turned westward instead, eager to find a location that still existed. Our plan was to head for Millen Creek and find the place where Edgar Millen had been killed in the canyon shootout. I wanted to ice-climb the wall that Albert Johnson had scaled using only a hatchet to cut holds for his hands and his feet. But first we had to find a way down to the Rat, then ski a few miles upriver to its confluence with the Barrier River. The small, steep-sided canyon carved by Millen Creek should only be a mile or so above the confluence. Dragging the sleds, we skied to the edge of the plateau and gazed down on the Rat River. It was perhaps one hundred feet wide, with a solid wall of skinny black spruce and snow-covered willow bushes rising abruptly on either side. In the silence I could almost see Albert loping along the open snow on the river. I could imagine the teams of huskies and nervous Mounties following his tracks while scanning the trees for an ambush. "Geez. How are we going to get down there?" Taylor asked. The slope down to the river was steep and appeared to be quite cliffy below us. Worse, it was choked with trees and some very deep-looking snow. Trying to navigate our way down would be impossible with our sleds riding twelve to fifteen feet behind us on their rigid poles. We probably stood at the very place where Inspector Eames and the first posse had attempted to sneak up on the cabin, led by the fallible guide Charlie Rat. I now understood why the men and their dogs teams had been forced to return to the Delta and make their way up the Rat. We skied west along the plateau's summit, toward the mountains, until we found a narrow valley that seemed to lead down to the river. The angle of descent was still steep and thick with trees, but at least there didn't appear to be any cliffs. I pointed my skis into a gap, snowplowing mightily as the weight of my sled shoved me from behind. The snow was indeed deep, rising to my knees despite my super-fat skis. Gravity and the sled drove me faster despite my attempts to turn and brake. My ski tips caught under an unseen willow and I flipped face-first into the snow. The sled's weight drove me down deeper still. After ensuring I wasn't hurt, then having a little laugh at my expense, Taylor took off his skis and swam to my rescue. The descent to the Rat became very unpleasant. The buried willows tripped us constantly. The trunks of trees snared our sleds. The branches raked our faces. By the time we reached the open snow of the river, we were exhausted and humbled. I checked my watch, then my GPS, and then my map. We'd been battling for an hour and a half and were still imprisoned by the printed bars of the same square kilometer.
(Taylor making contact with the Rat River) "At least we're on the river now." I told Taylor as he picked himself up from a final crash onto the river. "The snow is harder here. The going should be a lot faster." But it wasn't. It turned out that there wasn't much good, wind-packed snow on the open river. What we found was either ice - too slippery for our skins to grip - or deep drifts along the banks. And these drifts were knee-to-thigh deep, with every forward kick requiring an effort. But soon we came to where the river made a "Y" and gave a cheer. We had reached the Barrier River. Our enthusiasm and optimism had definitely taken a punch. But we were still strong, and it was still relatively warm. Despite a rising wind we were traveling in just shirts, fleece sweaters, and vests. When I looked down to readjust my harness I saw that my vest was covered with frozen sweat and respiration. Checking the thermometer on my sled at a break, I saw the temperature had already dropped to zero. The sun had disappeared when we dropped down to the river. Dusk fell just an hour or so later, at about three o'clock. We pressed on. Albert's route lay up near the headwaters of the Barrier, but Millen Creek was a mile or so up the Rat. Taylor wanted to skip it, and I did too, but, with the cabin gone, I needed to view at least one place where a shoot-out had actually occurred. Besides, I wanted to test myself on the ice wall Albert had scaled with just his hatchet. We found the shallow canyon formed by the creek just a little way up the Rat. Supposedly some decades ago Mounties had come in the summer and erected a stone monument to Millen at the entrance. But the snow was so deep I suspected it would be buried. We couldn't find any sign of it as we broke a trail into the canyon. It was an impressive place, dark and forbidding, with high, sheer walls and, where the creek's banks meandered away from the cliffs on either side, impossibly thick stands of willows. We found the dead-end side canyon where Albert had set up his secretive camp. Through the huge tangle of willows and spruce, we could see the ice wall Albert had scaled with his hatchet. It looked nearly vertical, but wasn't the ice-wall I'd imagined. It was perhaps seventy-five feet high with protruding rocks and bushes for handholds. Still, it looked damned hard and dangerous to climb. I debated whether to break out my ice gear. But it was near night now, and getting colder. Taylor had no desire to sit for an hour or more just to belay me. The tangle of skinny trees in the side canyon appeared all but impenetrable. I could see the difficulty of shooting Johnson in there, and the danger Millen and Gardlund had been in when trying to approach. Somewhere, within a few feet of us, was the place where Millen had been shot through the heart seventy-four years before. Instead of digging out my axes, crampons, ice screws and ropes, I just lay down in the snow and pointed a ski pole like a rifle. Taylor snapped a picture. Then we turned around and headed back down canyon. It was getting colder, and starting to get a little dark. And I wasn't feeling quite as confidant as I had when we'd been able to see the sun. Speed was everything, I told myself. Momentum can't be lost.
(Shootout in Millen Canyon) * * * We made good time through the long twilight as we skinned up the Barrier River. It was wide and more or less straight as it flowed down through the foothills. The snow was quite deep, however, and breaking trail was tough until we came upon some tracks. A big Mackenzie Valley wolf had broken a trail for us with his enormous paws - bigger than my hand with outstretched fingers. I prayed to see him, just a glimpse, so I could howl out my thanks. My only complaint was that the soles of my feet were starting to burn. The closed-cell liners kept in all my sweat, pruning my feet. I could feel blisters forming on the soft, damp skin of my soles. That was bad, but we were moving, it was getting very cold, and I refused to stop to deal with them. We traveled through the evening until the cold began to creep into our joints and bones no matter how hard we kicked our skis. Our minds were growing dizzy from dehydration and exertion. My feet felt as if the wet soles were sloughing off. We began looking for a place to make our first camp. There was a little open space on one side of the river, between some trees that blocked a little of the wind. For twenty minutes we stomped the bottomless powder to make a platform that would hold the snow stakes for the tipi. As we'd learned on our winter training missions, we backed off for a cold hour to let the packed snow settle. We were efficient with this time, making a shelter with the sleds while we waited and lighting the stoves to start melting snow. Our hot water bottles - filled in Inuvik - had either been drunk or had frozen hours ago despite their bulky insulated covers. It seems strange now, but we scarcely spoke. Efficiency and speed were everything. We went about our tasks like pros, quickly throwing up the tipi, carrying the hissing stoves inside on our shovels, inflating sleeping pads and stuffing sleeping bags into Gore-Tex bivy sacks. I didn't think about my wife, my kids, or anything but doing what needed to be done.
(Taylor melting snow) With a warm meal of dehydrated lasagna in my stomach, two liters of hot water thinning my thick, cold blood, and couple of melatonins under my tongue to top it all off, I slept surprisingly well. Every half hour or so required turning over as my downward hip and shoulder, or buttocks and back, would start to grow numb, but I still managed five or six hours total. Only once did I have to make a somewhat risky pee into the special bottle (marked with big Xs) I kept with me in my bag. The next morning we awoke to find that it was now far colder - almost twenty degrees below zero. And I noticed that even after a night in my sleeping bag I still had a stripe of frozen sweat down the middle of my back, frozen hard into the fleece vest I never took off. But we weren't deterred. We pulled on down parkas and pants, cooked oatmeal, melted more snow into boiling water for our bottles, tore down the tipi, packed the sleds, peeled off the down clothes so they wouldn't get soaked by our sweat and were on the trail again within two hours of waking up. The peaks ahead grew larger, the hills confining the Barrier River bigger and steeper. Every time I checked my GPS for our latitude and longitude and then found the position on the map, I saw that we were, slowly but surely, sliding south and west through the square kilometer boxes. On our first day we'd covered almost ten miles - a pitiful distance compared to those traveled by the Mounties and Albert Johnson - but really, not too bad for a couple of lawyers. Now, on the second day, we were making almost two miles an hour, and could hope for a twenty-mile day if the snow didn't get deeper. We could conceivable be among the highest peaks in just two more days if the conditions remained this good. To take my mind off my blistered feet, I tried listening to an audio book on my MP3 player. I'd carefully chosen one of Carl Hiassen's comedic thrillers about South Florida in the hope that it would distract me. But the story - including scenes with fresh fish boiling in butter and garlic, and attractive young women sunbathing naked under a tropical sun - only made my mouth water, my stomach cramp, and my mind continually ask Why am I here? I switched to music - the Clash and the White Stripes, to power me along. On the long drive north I'd listened to an audio book about Robert Falcon Scott's fatal voyage to the South Pole; the thousands of miles they traveled at far higher latitudes with their primitive gear. I recalled it now, and it helped to put me in my place. So did the recollection of the news reports I'd been following on-line about two modern adventurers attempting to ski to the North Pole in winter - something like 1,000 miles across the ice, fending off polar bear raids and swimming in dry-suits across the open leads - at the same time we were attempting to cross a measly 150 miles over a small mountain range just one hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. "Cowboy up," I said aloud whenever my body or will started to flag, using the unofficial motto of our alma mater, the University of Wyoming. "Git 'er done," Taylor would growl in reply.
|
|||
|
...... Website
Updated June 2008 |
||||
