On July 21, 1994 at 1400 I arrived at Nanasivik via Canadian airline on a Boeing 737 jet.
The cost of flying there was amazingly inexpensive less than 1000 dollars from New Haven, which is the least expensive flight I have ever taken that far north.
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 Ottawa who is studying Thick-Billed Murres on Prince Leopold Island. For me traveling, especially traveling alone, is a wonderful opportunity to ask questions and do some intense learning.
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 Baffin Island the shallows of Foxe Basin. I had read about Foxe Basin but I did not quite believe it’s vastness until I saw what it really looked like from the air. The character of this area completely the opposite of the high mountains, glaciers and fjords on the eastern side of Baffin.
I couldn't believe seeing islands such as Prince Charles and Rowley Island that they were completely flat, sparsely vegetated sand. I hadn't imagined that this area might also be as flat as Barrow Alaska.
I remembered Captain Bill Bartlett's description of sailing horrors in Hudson Strait - just the best. They had no idea that they were to become stranded in the shallows with the tidal bore coming down on them.
As we approached Iglulik, which is on the bottom of Admiralty Inlet, the terrain started to change to mountains and when we reached Admiralty Inlet there were high escarpments ringing this bay. From the bottom of the bay north to our destination I could see nothing but endless pans of last year’s ice. 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 Greenland. 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 could 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 Arctic Bay and for luggage I had to transport five bags, a gun and my camera collection.
With great luck Rubin and his friend happened to be going to Arctic Bay with an empty pickup truck. I got a ride with Rubin from Nanasivik to Arctic Bay at no charge. Rubin and his friend are typical Inuit Arctic fellows, just lots of fun and always very jovial.
This drive was just 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.
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 Siberia just with a simple drive than I had anticipated.
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 Arctic Bay and he had just returned from a long trip out in the field. We sat down and started discussing what kayak paddling conditions I could expect to encounter.
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 Greenland and Ellesmere Island, polar bears are accustomed to people, especially hunters because they frequently encounter them.
In this area, Arctic Bay, now the polar bears have changed their behavior and are unafraid of hunters. This is because in this area of the Arctic conservation is practiced via hunting quotas so that hunters do not shoot every polar bear on sight and that hunters always have food with them.
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.
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 it’s 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 amo.
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 Arctic Bay as a solo kayak paddler was going to be particularly demanding because Arctic Bay is noted for it's strong winds.
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 ultralight 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 Arctic Bay it blew 70 knots.
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 Alaska and Upernavik Greenland we enjoyed comparing our knowledge the weather in the arctic.
Glen mentioned that Greenland is in need of use of population control for the Beluga whale because they have been over harvesting the Beluga. Unfortunately Greenland doesn’t practice wildlife conservation as Alaska and Canada as is illustrated by observations for the Danish Polar Center in 1998 of the auk population in the bird nesting site, Sort Huile, Upernavik. Indiscriminate hunting of auks occurs there throughout the summer despite regulations against discharge of firearms in nesting sites.
To date, 1998, whales slaughtered in Upernavik commune are utilized for matak but the remainder of the carcasses is mostly abandoned. Within Greenland these entire whale carcasses could easily be utilized, but unfortunately there exists no infrastructure for processing and transporting these whale carcasses.
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 it’s 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.
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 New Jersey.
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 Connecticut. Travel is quite amazing because it can so often the only way of learning.
We discussed what is happening with kayaking in arctic Canada. Glen told to me about his own initiative into teaching anybody, especially children of Arctic Bay, how to paddle and how to roll a kayak in the pool at the sports complex in Nanasivik with the 10 kayaks that he brought.
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 Greenland lines such as from Nuuk.
The Greenlander was from Griesefjord. He built the kayak in trade for funds so that he could fly back to Greenland.
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.
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 despirate scramble to put my boat together and get out of here. Then I counciled 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 mattak I had purchased at the hunters co-operative, I went to Glen’s house that evening when 8:00 rolled around. There I met Glen's wife, Rebecca, whose brother, Rubin, happened to have been the delightful fellow who drove me with all my tons of stuff from Nanasivik to Arctic Bay at no charge.
The day at Arctic Bay had started out in the morning with a few clouds but a definite wind of 10 - 12 knots from the south. And to add complications to the situation, by this morning enough ice had been brought in by the wind that it was now, definitely beginning, to fill in my side of the harbor as throughout a continual parade of ice had been coming in on that side. Last evening there were just a few pans drifting in on the other side and this was just a continuation of yesterday’s vanguard.
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 Greenland for a very touchy stove. That was a trial of tribulation.
The Baffin kayak was much wider and more multi-chined, elliptically rounded than I quite expected. Interestingly enough the keel is integrated into the roundness of the hull, just the opposite of the Greenland kayak keel. The keel is 3 inches wide laid flat whereas the Greenland kayak keel is 1 1/4 to 1 inch wide projecting sharply especially at the bow and stern. The deck was completely flat like a big coffee table both fore and aft. Not even a Greenland kayak is this flat but this is because the hull depth is so shallow that the deck and the minimal diameter of the cockpit and height requires elevation above the gunwales in the middle of the foredeck to accommodate the paddler’s legs. The Baffin kayak has enough deck height at the gunwales and cockpit length to accommodate the paddler’s feet and legs.
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
Although this day at Arctic Bay had started out in the morning with a few clouds but a definite 10 - 12 knots from the south wind. My first moment to launch and escape town finally arrived by early afternoon because during the morning I rushed and struggled but by the time I was finally ready the south wind had pushed the ice into the bay.
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 Baffin paddlers of traditional Baffin Island kayaks might consider a kayak very differently than Greenlanders. Baffin Island kayak resembles a chunk of ice in character. In the Baffin Island kayak the design is so spacious that everything can be stowed inside or on the deck. This kayak is a self-contained a combination of both a containership or barge. Really this craft was the first container ship. The Baffin kayak was specifically designed as a travel vehicle into among the ice that it can be easily gotten out of and loaded because the majority of paddling is through passages in the off shore ice and among meter thick pan ice. This pan ice can clog any area and it is thick enough that a kayak has to be dragged up on top of it by the paddler getting out and hauling the craft up on top of the ice. When hunting among the ice to be able to sight animals and find passages among the ice requires being able to stand up in the kayak or getting out on the ice.
Oppositely the Greenlanders’ kayak designs south of Melville Bay at this same latitude north, are sleek narrow craft designed for high speed long distances over open water. This is because the Gulf Stream branches off as the West Greenland Current giving the west coast of Greenland a much longer open water season.
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 Arctic Bay the wind was from the south but where I arrived on the south facing point which was exposed to the east and west. The wind was blowing from the west. The wind continued until about 1800 at 10 to 15 knots.
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. Arctic Bay was at the next opening on the north side of Adams Sound.
Here the wind followed the contours of the bay and changed its course veering northward into Arctic Bay. I could see from the riffles pattern on the water out in Adams Sound as the wind once again resumed its original course from the south or southwest as a low-pressure system.
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 Greenland and this aspect of the physics of air circulation resulting in wind factor has to be considered when planning fjord paddling.
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.
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 Arctic Bay is at 73°00.61'N, 85°08.93'W was my first campsite. The ground was level, grassed over gravel easy to pitch a tent on.
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.
I had been told that if Adams Sound looked dark and threatening when viewed from Arctic Bay, people traditionally avoided going down into the area. And I inherently knew that part of my experience was probably going to be that I would indeed find out what this meant as I visited Adams Sound. And from my past experiences in the Arctic, both in Greenland and especially in Pond Inlet, I knew that unless the weather was unusually stable that I would very likely find out and the only unknown was when.
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 change.
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 Arctic Bay many go caribou hunting.
A quality special to the people of the Arctic is that everyone knows where everyone is off to, but when they are returning is always a moot question, because people do not take undue risk boating on these waters.
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 it’s 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.
I had to gather chunks and leave them to melt in my collapsible wash pan to supply myself with water. I thought this time to bring a collapsible wash pan because it is a very handy piece of equipment.
Unfortunately later in the trip it started to leak and I would suggest a large diameter, round bottomed vinyl dry bag in it’s 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.
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 Arctic Bay but on the north side of Adams Sound the tide is coming in bringing in the ice.
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 noon, however fog began closing in at 1300 brought in by the wind from the west. At 1430 the point was fog bound, wind west at 10 knots, and the temperature dropped with cold fog but there was no rain.
And curiously enough all that ice which the wind had filled completely up Arctic Bay just the day before was now 3/4 of the ice had gone out with the outgoing tide. I thought about the wisdom of how transient ice packs can be this time of year.
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 Arctic. The largest home was about 25 feet in diameter. The stones used for the wall structure were 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot very heavy and large. As I took photos of the overall view from the point and of the house looking out at the ice, I thought about the vantage point this must have been. From here one could easily spot game, especially marine mammals and the air currents were kindly for warmer living conditions and for boat launching.
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.
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. 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 Admiralty Inlet. They a beautiful panorama of coloration in pink, white and red subtle bands blending softly together of fine grained siltstone. The layers are of red pink hematite, red sandstone against a white back ground.
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 Baillie River to the west in the Barren-Grounds.
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.
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 judgement 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.
The last of the ice, which had been recirculating in Arctic Bay, has eased out.
No one had any seal when I arrived a couple days ago because there was still too much ice inside Arctic Bay. A few lucky ones who lived nearer the point had a slightly better chance of getting out but this only gave them a couple days advantage over those who kept their boats down in the bottom of the bay in town. But now at 2000 everyone that could was out there on the water hunting for seal. They would look for seals along the edge of the ice pack and an especially favorite area was near Holy Cross Point. Probably because there are strong recirculating currents that brought together food for the fish and it was these fish which the seals were after.
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 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 omlet mixes some of them have some very good taste especially the Mexican omlet mix. The dehydrated meats are a choice of chourico or linguisa from Amaral’s in Fall River or some ham. I am a firm believer that good tasting spicy food is a pleasure to be enjoyed while traveling. Dehydrated food has much better flavor and character than freeze dried food. I round out my breakfast with some oatmeal seasoned with dehydrated fruit and milk powder. These concoctions are easy to prepare. I simply pour boiling hot water over them and wait for them to rehydrate in polyethylene lidded containers for a few minutes.
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 Admiralty Inlet and fog was moving to the east down Adams Sound. Sun is showing on the west shore of Admiralty Inlet, which suggests that the low-pressure weather system is clearing out. Through out the day the fog was a very even light gray layer with one and two miles of visibility. This was a typical fog with very low cloud ceiling where the air temperature and dew point collide as the saturation level changes with a rise in temperature.
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 Arctic Bay, has eased out. I thought that this was a good sign for my upcoming paddling venture, because I was taking a chance that just maybe where I was going to paddle was to be ice free. This was my first really intense experience of paddling just as the annual pan ice would be going out. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew to heed advice. All was to be an unknown for me in my next few days.
No one had any seal when I arrived a couple days ago because there was still too much ice inside Arctic Bay. A few lucky ones who lived nearer the point had a slightly better chance of getting out but this only gave them a couple days advantage over those who kept their boats down in the bottom of the bay in town. But now at 2000 everyone that could was out there on the water hunting for seal. They would look for seals along the edge of the ice pack and an especially favorite area was near Holy Cross Point. Probably because there are strong recirculating currents that brought together food for the fish and it was these fish which the seals were after.
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 Fall River or some ham. I am a firm believer that good tasting spicy food is a pleasure to be enjoyed while traveling. Dehydrated food has much better flavor and character than freeze dried food. I round out my breakfast with some oatmeal seasoned with dehydrated fruit and milk powder. These concoctions are easy to prepare. I simply pour boiling hot water over them and wait for them to rehydrate in polyethylene lidded containers for a few minutes.
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 Admiralty Inlet. There was also some fog moving to the east down Adams Sound. Sun is showing on the west shore of Admiralty Inlet, which suggests that the low-pressure weather system is clearing out. Through out the day the fog was a very even light gray layer with one and two miles of visibility. This was a typical fog with very low cloud ceiling where the air temperature and dew point collide as the saturation level changes with a rise in temperature.
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.
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, the thought of dropping this 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 it’s 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 the tricks Frank Goodman mentioned for Cape Horn and those tradionally used on the west coast do with the long leaves of laminaria that grows there. Little convenient thing afforded by Kelp fronds such as; if you want to take a nap, just paddle into a Kelp bed of Laminaria and drape it over your kayak bow. The seaweed will keep you upright and deaden the wave action so you can take a snooze.
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.
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. 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.
Crossing over to Holy Cross Point and passing along it’s 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.
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 sponsoms.
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.
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 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.
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 sponsoms that morning. My kayak with it’s 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 sponsomed kayak in a while so I was out of the routine of reinflating my sponsoms each time. I knew that the next time I launch I would certainly remember to reinflate those sponsoms.
Another important thing I thought about was the effect near freezing water has on sponsom air pressure. I reasoned that if I inflate my sponsoms while I am still on land especially if I am in bright sunlight that, just as soon as the boat is launched on Arctic waters the sponsom pressure drop dramatically. So I made sure to float my kayak and then inflate the sponsoms after allowing for the water temperature had fully affected the sponsom pressure.
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 6:00 in the morning and it is nice to see the sun in the west as well. When it is in the north it is nice to be in a land shadow. This site offered this with its’ main exposure to the south.
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 Arctic, when it is quiet there it is absolutely quiet. Since I am accustomed to a relatively noisy environment this initial realization of this rather mystical aspect of the Arctic, its’ silence is disconcerting. It makes you, as a solitary traveler, feel that you are very much alone. There are moments when you listen extra hard just for even the slightest sound because it is hard to imagine that you are in a place that is this quiet.
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 Okirqtaukt Mountain I found to look especially strange. And to confirm my observations I took pictures of colliding, blown out stratus (altostratus and cumulus) clouds. These clouds looked as though they were meeting at opposite angles to the east, toward Pond Inlet.
Pond Inlet affects this Arctic Bay weather pattern because it is only a couple hundred miles east. The topography combination of high mountains, strong ocean currents sweeping through, large polynias, proximity to the Penny Ice Cap and Greenland makes Pond Inlet especially disposed to very rapid and wide ranged barometric pressure changes. So with all this going on just a couple hundred miles to the east the local weather in Arctic Bay can at times be unstable. This seemed to me why the clouds looked like massive amounts of unstable air was on the move.
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 Arctic is that it seems to host especially interesting cloud formations.
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 Arctic because there is nothing to scale distance by when you are new to an area and unfamiliar with its’ topography.
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.
I awoke at 02:15 hearing ice crunching outside and looked out to see ice moving rapidly by. I checked to see what the tide was doing and as could be expected the tide was still coming in. The tide peaked at 0300.
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 Adams River from where I am situated. And I was glad that I had chosen a campsite with good visibility and plenty of water for waiting out these extra days before the ice were to move out. From here, the falls are about another seven unknown nautical miles away.
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 it’s 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 it’s raucous buzz won’t stop until it is reset. It’s 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, it’s 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 Alaska the according to Geof Carrol, the polar bears just love pepper spray. When you spray them, all they do is just lick it off. Even though it seems extravagant bringing all these alarms, the idea of killing or maiming a bear was terrible. I would much rather scare away a polar bear than use a shotgun.
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 Arctic is an adventure in "extra reality", I tested other pieces of rock. These pieces of chalcedony definitely rang when they hit another rock while the other rocks just made the usual thud, tap or clunk, depending on how I dropped them.
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 Bermuda behave in a similar way depending on level of compaction.
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 15:30. I realized that if I were to continue as planned paddling east to go further into the sound, I was committed to having to wait until there was much less ice, rather than try to weave against tight and fast moving ice.
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 15:00 and the barometric pressure was 1011mb and I checked that it was adjusted to 0 meters or sea level. However my instrument was not truly at this altitude because I was actually standing a meter above the high tide line. To have been absolutely accurate, I should have been lying down at the mid tide level.
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 Arctic a stable quiet place, maybe, but it certainly is not here".
I checked my barometer and what the pan ice was doing ice at 17:00. The barometric pressure was at 1010mb, which was the same as two hours earlier, but now there were more gray clouds.
And now, ever so slowly and ever so gradually, all those tons and tons of pan ice was passing by on it’s 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 Arctic just accept as just another part of what it means to be in the Arctic. This is an environment where one has to be a wise opportunist, very flexible and extremely patient.
Then an hour later, at 18:00, there began to show a change in barometric pressure showing a drop from 1010mb to 1009mb, wind was blowing 5 - 8 knots SE with light rain. At 19:00, the barometric pressure was 1009mb with rain, and at 20:00, the barometric pressure was 1008mb wind at 10 knots E and the rain had stopped. This was a slow drop in barometric pressure but I was yet to see the results.
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 21:00, and the barometric pressure now down to 1007mb, with slightly increased southeast wind. However all those clouds that appeared as though they were bringing rain did just exactly that. So there I was in my tent and now it was raining. Better than if it were snowing, I guess. And at least the wind was only blowing 10 knots and not more.
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 Alaska there are no rocks, only sand and there is no lack of wind on that flat terrain.
An hour and a half later at 22:30 the barometer was holding at 1007mb with rain and wind. I was glad the barometer was holding.
Just after midnight at 00:30 the barometer was still holding at 1007mb and it was raining but the air temperature was very definitely, suspiciously warm.
I recalled previous experiences in Greenland when this influx of warm air had been the vanguard of a powerful low - pressure system.
By 01:30 the pressure was down another 6mb to 1001mb and it was very warm, rain with wind occasionally gusting to 15 - 20 knots.
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 Arctic where it can snow any day of the year" I said to myself and braced myself, hunkering down in my sleeping bag, finally going off into a sound sleep.
And it was nice to note the exact time of the slack tide was 00:30. This is always handy information.
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 01:00 and I decided that I should pull my Klepper up higher yet because I could see that the wind had switched to the west. I feared that the tide may come up higher than usual.
The wind can pack water into areas or hold tidal water back. This is usual in Long Island Sound in the narrow Race off Long Island and New London when the wind is from the east. Also the ice may be driven up on shore, as well.
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 03:30 today.
At 06:30 barometric pressure was at 1000mb and the wind had switched from the Southeast to now being from the West.
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 08:30 the pressure was rising 1002mb but for some unexplainable reason an hour later at 09:30 the sun was shining brightly but the pressure was down to 1000mb but the wind was blowing 5 - 10 knots from the west.
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 shore of Adams Sound was on the move again via both tide and wind. It was now busy filling in the sound just two miles east of here - not exactly a comforting thought.
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 Arctic and seen this happen.
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 Alaska because it does not have the ancient black and brown soils formed during bygone much warmer eras of forestation.
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 16:00 the barometric pressure was 1001mb west wind 5 knots looking west the ice configuration was vague in either direction. Barometric pressure at 17:00 was 998mb, at 18:00 was 997mb and at 19:00 was 995mb. There was a cold steady west wind at 10 - 15 knots which was bringing in a snow storm from the south. It was just starting to snow.
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 20:00 the barometric pressure was 996mb with intermittent rain and west wind of 10 - 15 knots.
7/27/94 at 04:00 the barometric pressure was 996mb and it had snowed during the night with a west wind of 15 knots. At 05:00 the barometric pressure was 995mb. At 06:00 the barometric pressure was steady 992mb but at 10:00 the barometric pressure was 985mb with wind out of the east at 5 knots, snow and rain with fog off and on.
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. Opportunity knocks once. Just the question is, which one is knocking at the moment and which one will come next? Once it arrives you can’t trade it in.
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 it’s 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 Greenland I paddled from wind shadow to wind shadow as the shadows wound and threaded their way down the bay. I think now in retrospect that these were caused by topographically directed winds overlapping one another.
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 13:00 on a point just to see what the exact conditions would be if I were to camp there. And it is always so real when you walk around and really look that you find those little important details. I hadn’t really thought about it until I landed and found that this was indeed not a good place because it has no water and this little peninsula probably catches all the wind and waves.
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 16:00 a few hours later I decided to break off from this detailed shore hugging paddling and headed out into the middle of the sound.
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 Arctic is that I knew I would have to make a supreme effort not to indulge my ego in feeling frustrated if I could not get around the point in the next few moments.
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 Arctic Bay or to continue westward to Society Cliffs.
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 it’s 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 19:00 the motor boats from Arctic Bay were going around it.
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 Thule shelters thousands of years old. How strange, how enigmatic here am I, just one of the many who is just passing by. I look around discovering fresh remains of seal that was eaten beside the coals of a campfire. It does seem to look as though I might not be the first.
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 Greenland but no it was to be another storm. My patience was once again somewhat tried but I had no excuse for self pity because Glen Williams had forewarned me that Arctic Bay is not the place to be for those who can’t handle storms.
Earlier in the day, at 10:00 the barometric pressure was 984mb, at 14:00 the barometric pressure was 981mb and at 20:00 the barometric pressure was 984mb.
Wind from 09:00 to 18:00 was a west wind of 10 to 20 knots.
Now at 21:00 there was a suspicious sort of dead calm, complete with fog, light snow, some sun showing but it was combined with low vague clouds gathering on western horizon. "Ah another ominous portend." I admitted to myself.
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 it’s 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.
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 10:00 I launched and much to my amazement it was still just a quiet gray day. I thought to myself "this can’t be there has to be something going on" about the length of this hiatus between the usual instability. I had begun to get used to being bombed by nasty weather every few hours.
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 10:00 I happened to be launching just after slack tide. Now the tide was coming in and as I got farther out from the shelter of land I felt a light eastern wind blowing at my back. I didn’t realize what was happening until I came into full view of this passage from my cockpit. Then, to my horror, I spotted that there was an ice clog coalescing right before my very eyes cutting me off just exactly at Holy Cross Point.
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 Arctic is one place where marked character building will take place if one is to survive. Patience and strategy are the key ingredients of survival.
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 19:00 on the previous evening to about 08:00 this next morning. Now not only was this area around Holy Cross Point filled, but from here the entire expanse westward to the end of Adams Sound was thoroughly inundated without any breaks by this ice floe.
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 Stony Creek Connecticut. I don’t see why I can’t do this with my Klepper over these pans of ice."
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 East Baffin Island, that is why their kayaks are so wide and stable. They always have to get out and stand on the ice to see where the game is and where there are open passage. So why can’t I do the same, my klepper is just as wide and stable as an East Baffin kayak. It will be easy to balance it with the paddle laid over the ice. The ice is just the right height as my cockpit."
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 it’s 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 Arctic always contains my entire means of survival. So for me to become separated for my kayak would be not an option. With great resolution I tied my twenty foot polypropylene bow line onto the fifty foot throwline.
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 Thunder Bay booties. These booties are well designed with sturdy Velcro ankle straps to keep them firmly on my feet. And these booties would not to slip on the rocks because have they have a boating shoe sole design of a type of rubber sole material, which gives excellent griping traction. For this climb on these wet rock surfaces now was one of those moments when I was glad to have these booties on my feet.
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