Conquering the Impossible (16 page)

I could have opted for a single layer of clothing, three times as warm, enveloping and protective. But I preferred to be flexible and able to remove layers when the thermometer began to rise, which would happen often over the course of my trip.

The final and most important layer was my Gore-Tex parka. It had zipper openings under the arms to allow air circulation and pockets big enough to hold a meal … or my mittens, if I had to take them off. It hung down to my knees to provide an extra layer of insulation to my thighs and to the femoral arteries carrying blood down my legs to my feet.

The lining of my jacket hood was made of genuine wolverine fur, which protected my face against wind and had the special property of never freezing. Whatever ice formed on it could be removed by shaking it the same way that huskies—sled dogs—do. Under the hood I wore a fine polyester balaclava like the ones that race-car drivers wear, plus a wind-breaker cap that I designed and made myself. It was an especially adaptable device with a retractable visor to protect against bright sunlight, pull-down earflaps, and a shutter that I pulled down over my forehead on especially cold mornings to soften the stunning blow of the frigid air.

Beneath my parka but over my sports-wool underwear and my power-stretch tights (made of the same material as my top), I wore a pair of Gore-Tex ski overalls. In order to allow me to perform my “natural functions” while exposing me as little as possible to the cold, it had an opening in the front and a zippered flap in the rear. It was also equipped with special pockets for the following items: map, compass, camera, mittens, ice axes, knife, and so forth, each item had its own designated location so that I could find anything in a flash.

All of this equipment, including my boots, was to me an extension of my skin, a way of getting as close as possible to the elements, and not a protective shell, an image whose defensive connotations I especially disliked. In my mind, weapons were what you used to protect yourself. The day I needed protection from nature, I would just stay home.

*   *   *

Each evening, the ceremony of entering my tent followed the same ritual. While still outside, I removed my mittens so that I could rapidly doff my parka to clean off the ice that formed inside and the snow that covered it; then I put my mittens back on to scrub the parka with a normal housecleaning whiskbroom whose long handle was easy to grab. Taking off my clothes this way, at a temperature of forty to sixty degrees below zero, was the worst moment of the day! But I much preferred to go through this sort of ordeal than to have all that snow turn into ice on the inside of my tent. After all, when it was only ten degrees warmer inside than outside, I needed to preserve all the warmth I could.

For the second phase of disrobing, I sat in the tent with my feet in the vestibule, and I removed my boots, brushing them off to get rid of the snow and the icy film that my perspiration left inside them. I set my shoes down carefully—well opened, laces removed and stretched out without any knots, which would be impossible to undo the next day. (Once inside the sleeping bag, I would slip my large woolen socks under my undergarments, and my body heat would dry them out.) I took off my trousers—the other part of my outer layer—and left them in the vestibule as well. I didn't want to let even the tiniest snowflake get into my sleeping bag or on the walls of my tent where it would have immediately frozen and never thawed. Then, once inside, I continued to sweep out any snow that might have slipped in with me. All told, this procedure took about twenty minutes every night before I could close the zipper of my tent behind me.

When the temperature began to get close to sixty degrees below zero, I wore a large down jacket over everything else while I prepared and ate my evening meal. I only wore that garment in the tent.

While I melted snow and ice into potable water in the pan, I held my bare hands over the camp stove to keep them from freezing while I filled out my logbook for the day. Since my partial amputation after the North Pole expedition, frostbite returned quickly and much more easily, despite the warmth of my mittens. I could often barely use my hands, even to write in my little black notebook with a pencil. I used a pencil because ink would freeze at those temperatures.

My friend Pierre Morand made a one-of-a-kind camp stove for me, complete with a saucepan. Since I only used the stove inside my tent and had no desire to die of asphyxiation the burner was designed to release the smallest possible amount of carbon monoxide. As for the pan, it consisted of two separate layers of aluminum. This allowed the fire to first heat the intermediate layer of air, then the contents of the pan. The cover flipped over to become both a plate (so I didn't have to carry one) and a food warmer (which kept my meals from freezing again before I could finish eating them). I should point out that it took me two solid hours to eat the enormous amount of calories that I required because of my daily exertion. My spoon was made of plastic (freezing metal would have stuck to my tongue), as was my cup with a screw-on lid to prevent me from spilling the contents inside the tent.

When I turned the plate over, small openings released the heat contained between the two walls of the pan; and my little cooking set became a small radiator.

It had another use, I confess. At exceptionally cold temperatures, when using my trap-door toilet required a level of endurance that I couldn't stand, I sometimes heated up the pot, lined it with a plastic bag, and used it as a toilet. None too hygienic, I realize, but no one besides me ate out of this cook set.

My camp stove was, of course, designed for easy repair, because it would be unthinkable to be left without the tool that allowed me to thaw out my food, melt snow for drinking water, and heat up my tent a little—in short, to eat, drink, and keep from freezing to death.

*   *   *

Before getting into my sleeping bag, I slipped on a pair of heavy, padded knickers, a sort of knee-length down jacket for my butt. My own invention, it was meant to provide a little extra warmth and thus help the circulation of blood to my legs. I had to absolutely avoid crossing my legs in my sleep, or even laying one on top of the other. In this cold the slowed circulation would be enough to cause frostbite to my feet, and my heart could not beat fast enough to make up for it. Every half hour I changed position to keep my limbs from going numb, and my subconscious automatically woke me up every hour to make sure that everything was all right.

I was always, in any case, in a state of high alert. The hood of my sleeping bag would have made me deaf to any outside noises, such as an approaching bear, so instead I just used the insulating balaclava that by then I wore day and night; it had become a sort of second skin.

Once I was in my tent at night, I drank lots and lots of water—as much as three or four quarts before going to sleep. When a pressing need to urinate woke me back up, I relieved it immediately since holding it in was a waste of effort that would burn up calories and chill my entire body. Fortunately, I didn't need to get out of my sleeping bag. I had a portable urinal inside the bag. Once I filled it up, I placed it between my feet, which were thus warmed up by the heat of my own urine. The second time I felt the pressing urge, I needed only extend an arm out of my sleeping bag to empty the bag in the tent's vestibule before the contents could freeze; then I filled up my liquid foot-warmer again. This little portable radiator would become even more invaluable between the beginning of January and the middle of March when temperatures would drop even lower.

*   *   *

One night, I was suddenly jolted awake by a powerful and repeated nasal snuffling sound that resembled the breathing of an animal. The beast must be very close to my tent! Could it be that wolf that had been following me from a distance for two days now and that I spotted more than once out of the corner of my eye, even though it was cautiously keeping its distance? I was even more worried that it might be a bear. If it was, though, how did it make it past my bearwatch? I couldn't figure it out, but that question was no longer relevant. Seized by a wave of panic, I leaped up, forgetting the container of warm urine sitting between my feet. The “piss pot” overturned and spilled all over my sleeping bag. Nearly all the liquid remained inside the condensation-proof lining, which meant I would be able to get rid of it easily. But my clothing was soaked, and that's always dangerous when traveling in frigid temperatures. For the moment I had other priorities. I grabbed my rifle and my flashlight and rushed outside, ready to take on the monster, but there was no bear in sight. I took a hasty but careful look around and went back inside and got back into my sleeping bag. False alarm, it would seem. And yet I was certain that I heard the breathing of an animal.

Fear ate at me as my ears perked up, waiting for another suspicious sound. Suddenly, it began again! The same rough hissing, sharp and prolonged, that only an animal could have produced. It was coming from even closer this time, just the other side of the nylon wall. For the second time, I rushed out of my sleeping bag, without upsetting any liquids this time, and out of my tent. Yet I couldn't see even the shadow of a bear on the horizon! Could it be that solitude was beginning to unhinge my mental faculties?

That was when I realized that I had pitched my tent right next to one of the holes that seals make in the ice so that they can surface and breathe! In the darkness, I never even saw it. It is true that the holes are tiny, and thin film of ice covers the holes back up very quickly.

It turned out that I had “pissed in my pants” for nothing!

*   *   *

My buddy, the wolf, continued to follow me at a distance. I skied over the tracks of a bear that was heading in the same direction as me. The natural dangers I faced were like a dormant volcano between eruptions.

But the volcano erupted suddenly about three weeks after my departure from Arctic Bay, in the area around Bell Bay—in the form of a major Arctic storm. Luck would have it that at the very moment that the storm reached its peak of fury, I happened upon a shelter, a simple unheated log cabin in which it was just as cold as outside—around fifty degrees below zero—but where I could at least pitch my tent without being exposed to the squalls of wind and thus warm up a little faster. I hunkered down there for a few days until the weather calmed down, and then I set off again.

Forty-eight hours later, I noticed the headlights of a snowmobile in the distance. The driver also noticed me and headed straight for me. His vehicle, equipped with Caterpillar treads and two skis, was pulling a covered sled.

When he stopped beside me, I saw that he was an Inuit wrapped in furs and caribou skins. He got off his snowmobile and stood before me, looking at my layers of Gore-Tex and Polartec. Once again, two worlds stood observing one another. The Inuit stared at me, his eyes buried in the folds and furrows of his face; then he opened his toothless mouth and yelled, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I had been asked this question before. Without losing my composure, I replied that I was heading for Alaska—on foot.

“Now?” he asked.

“Yes, now. Why?”

“And the night?” (The Inuit are unfailingly terse.)

“And so?” The dialogue was becoming surreal.

“So … we never travel when it is night.”

I explained to him that I planned to cross the Bering Strait and could not afford to wait four months. Winter—the coming winter—would keep me from getting there in time.

The man just stood there, staring at me in astonishment for a few more moments, and then he burst out, “Incredible!”

He had no time to waste. They were waiting for him at Arctic Bay. It occurred to me that it would take him barely two days to make it back to a place that I had left three weeks ago. Since he was coming from Igloolik, which was right on my route, he told me what to expect: a few liquid gaps in the ice, a little drift ice, but nothing insurmountable.

When the time came for him to leave, he pulled back the tarp that covered his
kamutik
(sled in Inuktitut), took out a large Arctic char, frozen solid by the ambient temperature, and offered it to me as a gift. In winter such a difficult-to-obtain food takes on inestimable value for the Inuit. This gesture, which showed that he was not indifferent to my fate, touched me deeply. With the tip of my knife, I cut off a piece of fish and ate it, as raw as sushi.

Our conversation had not lasted any longer than seven minutes, and in that brief time this stranger who knew nothing about me had found the time to form an opinion of me, to give me advice, and to offer me some food. I forgot about the cold and the night. It was moments like this that made all the rest worth it.

*   *   *

December was approaching, snow was falling more heavily, and the thermometer was dropping. I crossed Easter Sound and began a long and grueling climb up to Saputing Lake, a body of freshwater a good thirty miles in length, perched high above sea level. I followed frozen rivers, crossed valleys. Snow replaced ice and then gave way to rock. I frequently had to stop, remove my skis, and push my sled. Sometimes I had to unload it to lighten it; it only weighed forty-five pounds less than when I had left Arctic Bay eighteen days ago. I would move the contents to a platform and pile it up there, then go back to find the sled and carry it on my back. The obstacle course was exhausting, and I only made a half mile of progress every twenty-four hours.

When I finally arrived at Saputing Lake, I was utterly spent. Until I could recover my strength, I would not be able to travel more than four or five hours a day.

Obviously it would take me more than one day to reach the fishing hut whose GPS position Claude had given me. It was the only hut on all of Saputing Lake, located halfway up the lake's length, on the shore.

There was a good reason that I was so eager to spend the night in the hut instead of camping on the frozen surface of the lake. Saputing Lake, wedged between rocky mountains and fed by mountain streams, acted as a trap for caribou. Once they imprudently wandered into this dead-end trap, the unfortunate creatures could no longer escape the wolves. And if I were to pitch my tent in the middle of the lake, I would be in the same situation.