"I'm unpacking my gear and getting ready to wrap up here next week. It's been a great trip, and though it may seem hard to believe, I don't have any problems about not having made more miles than I did this year -- only about 70 of a proposed 232.
When I arrived in Barrow I was strongly cautioned that the sea ice was unstable this year and that there was a lot of polar bear activity in the area I planned to traverse. These were personal assessments made in face-to-face discussions, assessments that I could never have gotten or appreciated over email or the phone: I really did have to simply get the expedition up here, and check out the scene. Based on the advice of local mushers, wildlife experts, and hunters, I decided to alter my route, and stay somewhat inland; I also decided to make a short, first trek, about 20 miles SE from Barrow and back, so that I could be back in Barrow for a native gatehring that I didn't know was going to take place: Kiviug.
The first trek went well, and I learned a lot. I accepted that I'd be learning more about the tundra than the sea ice this year, which was fine with me. I did about 37 miles, returning to witness three nights of native dancing and drumming at Kiviug, a great experience.
After Kiviug, I packed for a slightly-altered trek: I'd begin by heading 20 miles ESE from Barrow towards Iko Bay, where there was a hut I could occupy before continuing another 40 or so miles, for about a 100-mile round-trip. But once at the hut, during a routine inspection of my gear, I found that my backup stove pump had a problem, seriously leaking at the valve. When I realzied I could not fix the problem -- which wasn't a cracked O-ring (I brought plenty of extras of those) but something integral within the valve unit -- it was easy to decide not to stray far from the hut. At well below -30F (my thermometer dropped below taht every day, though it doesn't read temperatures below that), going out on just one stove wasn't a reasonable risk for me. I've taken plenty of risks over the years, this one was simply beyond my threshold. And it's a good thing I didn't, as about three days later, when I would have been another 30 miles or so out, the primary stove gave up on me (still trying to identify the problem there) just as a 48-hour windstorm with -70F temperatures came up. That would have been a nasty time to find my main stove going down with no reserve. My choice was correct.
At the hut I had plenty of film and video to shoot and sound recordings to make,and I decided to focus on these, for the educational DVD I'm making about thw North Shore in Winter, rather than be depressed by fixating on not making lots of miles this year. It was a great week, and I had more unique experiences than I can hammer out here on email; when I was down to a few frames of film and all my video camera batteries were dead, I headed back to Barrow. On the return trek I saw wolverine tracks, a man chasing caribou on a snowmobile, and strange, writhing mirages on the horizons. When I was approaching a road and was spotted by an Indian man driving a snowplow, I was taken to be a ghost -- he said that since nobody walks out here, he assumed I was the ghost of a shaman, a hermit-like wizard that used to live out near Iko Bay, or perhaps one of his ancestors, coming back from the past.
All in all this year I put in about 70 miles across tundra, black frozen lakes, and sea ice, spending about two weeks out in the wilds; very different from the 40 days and 232 miles I'd planned. But in spending more time in and around Barrow than planned, I also saw kiviug and learned more about the culture, wilderness and history here than I could have done while in a focused, 40-day, 230-mile trek; I also have better video, sound, and photo records than I would have had in the case of the originally-planned trek. I'm far better prepared and educated to come back next winter for the second phase of this three-winter expedition. In the mean time, once I get back to Portland, around 11 March, I'll start posting video clips and photos, as well as more writings.
As the English mountaineer Don Whillans used to say, "The mountain will always be there to climb: the trick is for you to be there, too." I will.
Attached tonight are some sketches from my note-pad. The drummer is a man from the Kiviug feast, as is 'man.jpg'; 'banner' is a banner from one of the dance groups from the
village of Atqusuk, just South of Barrow; 'mukluk' means boot; and the girl was about to dance at Kiviug; and the 'sea ice' is sea ice broken up and steaming offshore."
Bear Scare
Banner
Drummer
Girl
Man
Mukluk
Sea Ice