Blog

April 28, 2011: Hells Gate

Our first crux will be to navigate the Hell's Gate Polyna, about a week after we leave Grise Fiord, and two weeks from today.  Strong tidal currents maintain open water here, even in the dead of winter.  Temperatures this week in Grise Fiord range from about -20 to + 10, Fahrenheit. Here's a satellite view of Hells Gate taken on April 27, 2011.

   The challenge will be to navigate the thin ice adjacent to the open water without breakin through, and not to get swept under the ice by strong currents. If we get past Hell's Gate, it should be smooth sailing for several weeks.

April 25, 2011: Crunch Time

       A week from today, Boomer and I will connect up in Ottawa and fly north to Iqaluit. So it’s crunch time. The temperature in Grise Fiord today is -4 F. It’s supposed to be -22 F on Thurs, then start to warm up. I’m in Boston, working with Jody Weber, choreographer of Weber Dance to produce a joint Dance, Storytelling event surrounding images and ideas about seeking connectivity with ourselves, our communities, and our planet. Check out a video of our recent practice.

      I know that there is significant resistance out there in the world to saying this, but Boomer and I are on a vision quest. We can wrap it up in different bundles for our sponsors or magazines, or whatever, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…….well…

      Right now, none of our food drops are in place. That’s right. Zero, zip, zilch. None. Aziz, THE MAN in Resolute assures me that the food drop in Eureka is guaranteed.  Good, I trust that.  After numerous attempts and “almosts” over several months, the food drop on the north end of the Island is “supposedly” happening May 10. What does "supposedly" mean?  There are folks up there who need to be picked up.  The pilots at Ken Borek Air know what's at stake.  The food will be there.  Yum, I can taste the candy bars now.   Finally some locals in Grise Fiord assured us that they will drive up a food drop to Makinson Inlet when they go up there in late May by snow machine.  So, I get nervous on occasion, but it's all good.  The expedition unfolds.   Tyler’s plans remain uncertain depending on his ability to raise enough money to join us in mid stream.

      Jerry Kobalenko, the prolific Ellesmere explorer and chronicler, emailed me the other day, asking, “What is your back-up plan in case you are moving too slowly and won’t make it around the island before the ocean starts to freeze again?” Duh….. I guess we don’t have a back-up plan……….Call a rescue, put it on our credit card, and declare bankruptcy? Nah, that’s not good style. Our back-up plan it to complete this expedition as planned…….

April 13, 2011: Planning to Meet Tyler

      As I said on my Newsfeed, the revised plan is for Tyler to heal and then to meet up with us in mid June. If all goes according to plan, Boomer and I will have made it through Hells Gate and up the west coast of Ellesmere by that time. Tyler will then, hopefully, hitch a flight from Resolute to Ward Hunt, a small island on the north coast of Ellesmere. There’s a steel hut up there, where you can sleep without being eaten by a polar bear. Boomer and I will be battered, tired, and worked, crossing the in finite expanse of shifting, talking, moving ice.  We will be so happy to see Tyler’s broad smile and hear his booming laugh.

      There are a lot of dragons to slay (or cajole) along the way.  No one really knows how this will all pan out.

March 25, 2011: Tyler

      On Monday morning, March 21, I opened my computer and saw an email from Tyler, posted at 1:47 AM, titled, "Bad News".  The first three sentences read, "I really fucked up. My boat flattened out halfway down a big falls and I broke my back. I'll know a lot more in the morning when I talk to the neurosurgeon."  That was 4 days ago.  Tyler suffered an extension fracture of L-1.  He's been through surgery and is screwed back together.  We are all expecting 100 % recovery, but it will take a while.  Boomer and I thought about postponing a year, but Tyler is planning another expedition, I am getting older, momentum will be lost with sponsors, and so on, and I fear that postponing would mean not doing it.

     So Boomer and I will set out as planned, saddened, without Tylers strength, infectious joy, and artistic camera eye.......... but with our own shared resolve and strength.

March 9, 2011
Fernie, British Columbia

     OK, so it's been fifteen months since my last blog posting.  Not a very good record.  I have to do better than that.  Honestly, I've been at the computer, or giving talks, or driving to give talks about as much as I can handle -- and still stay active, alive, and happy outside: skiing, riding my mountain bike, hanging out, and climbing every so once in a little while.

     OK, enough rambling excuses.  The big news, now, is that Tyler Bradt, Erik Boomer, and I are planning to try to drag and paddle our kayaks around Ellesmere Island this spring and summer.  It will be a logistically difficult and expensive undertaking and would be impossible to complete without the generous help of sponsors.  First Ascent-Eddie Bauer has stepped in in a big way.  In addition, we won a Polartec Performance Grant and are grateful to all those folks for helping us as well.  Wilderness Systems and AT Paddles fill out the roster of major sponsors.  See my sponsor page for details and all the other generous companies who are helping us.  For a detailed summary of the expedition itself, please go to my Ellesmere Island expedition page.

December 21, 2009
Fernie, British Columbia

    It’s the solstice and The Raven’s Gift will be released in one month.  Time to reflect, get organized, and ski a few more turns before I get too busy. 

    
      Earnest Hemingway famously said that the writers most "indispensible tool" is his "fraud detector".  I don’t want to argue with the master, but in this day and age I don’t think that you need a very highly tuned fraud detector to see the major problems that we face. 

     When the banks and financiers jump-started a global recession about a year ago, those of us in the United States and Canada took it on the chin.  Small investors lost bundles in the stock market or their home valuation.  Officially 10%, but more accurately 20% of Americans are unemployed or underemployed.  But North America is the most opulent society the world has ever known. For most of us, there are enough safety nets so we have enough to eat and a roof over our heads.

     Not everyone is so fortunate, or powerful.

       When I was in the Solomon Islands a few months ago, Malaysian logging companies were clear-cutting tropical hardwoods and shipping the raw logs out on big ships.  A local timber cutter, running a heavy modern chainsaw in the jungle, earns about as much in a year as a good West Coast Canadian sawyer earns in a day.  These people eat white rice and tea when they come home from work.  Their families aren't acutely starving, but it's pretty darn close.  This near-starvation puts more money in the pockets of the rich Malaysian corporations. 

    You don't need a very highly tuned fraud detector to see that something is wrong with this picture.

     The writer’s task, then, is offer visions for a way out of this mess.  Armed rebellion?  Anarchy?  No, no, a thousand times, NO.  "They" have all the guns -- and that’s not the solution anyway.  I disagree with our Nobel Peace Prize winning president who just sent 30,000 additional troops to fight what he calls a "just war."  It seems pretty obvious that you can't promote peace and harmony by killing.

      At least part of the solution is to preserve the cultures, human rights, and wisdoms of indigenous societies.  To listen to and learn from two million years of accumulated wisdom  -- an overriding and overwhelming ethic of connecting with nature.  Seeking ecstasy.  Realizing that the Real World and the Dream World are one.  Creating and living within supportive local communities.  Communicating with animals, plants, and landscapes.  Living sustainably on our planet.

    I’ll be on the road in a little over a month.    Speaking.  Driving.  Speaking.  Helping, in my own small way.