Conquering the Impossible (17 page)

I decided to camp just before the mouth of the lake, in the lee of the mountains, where I had some emergency escape routes in case of a surprise attack. That night, however, neither wolf nor human disturbed my sleep.

Anxious to reach the cabin and knowing that it would take me a full day's trek to reach it, I awoke and set out before what passed for dawn.

It wasn't long before I noticed the first wolves. They were few in number, admirably discreet, and they kept a respectful distance. But as the hours passed, their numbers grew and their distance diminished.

It didn't help that my silhouette with my sled was roughly similar to that of a caribou, and the speed at which I was able to haul it—no more than a mile per hour because of the wind and the irregular surface—was approximately the same speed a caribou normally traveled.

When I finally glimpsed the hut on the horizon, it was with a sense of relief equaled only by my feelings of gratitude toward the fisherman who built it. It was only a little bigger than an outhouse, and you could only enter it on your knees. However, I managed to pitch my tent inside and to pile up all around me my provisions, which I was not eager to share with the wolves.

I had barely fallen asleep when I was awakened by the sound of scraping on the cabin wall. I didn't need to wonder what the sound was—the wolf pack had found my hideaway. They had scented my dinner—or maybe me—and now the wolves were scratching feverishly at the thin walls that stood between us with a fury that was only increased by their hunger. In the total darkness I listened to the beasts' cries, their hoarse panting, and I imagined their emerald green eyes and their glittering fangs, just like in a cartoon. I could hear them scrabbling under rocks and blocks of ice in a frenzy to dig out even a tiny scrap of food. (The filthy beasts have the disgusting habit of urinating on their food to discourage anyone or anything else from touching it.) The immense emptiness surrounding us echoed this soundtrack from a horror film, and the cabin amplified the noises.

But I knew that the walls would keep them out. The owner of this tiny shelter built it to be wolf-proof. This confidence gave me a sense of invulnerability that I had not felt in quite a while. Despite the frenzy outside, I was actually quite happy.

*   *   *

When I emerged from the hut after a fitful sleep, nothing remained of the wolves but their paw prints in the snow and their claw marks in the wood. But my mind was already elsewhere: a long day's march still lay between me and the far end of Saputing Lake. After that, another mountain pass would lead me to Ivisarak Lake, and a last pass—where I would camp—would be followed by a gradual descent to Nyeboe Fjord. There I would not be far from Fury and Hecla Strait, which separates Baffin Island from mainland Canada.

I had been traveling on foot for a month and a half, and I had gone less than two miles westward, the direction I was actually heading!

I had been trying to keep my mind on other subjects and to stay motivated, and so I set myself the objective of getting off Baffin Island by Christmas. If I succeeded, I had decided to reward myself on December 25 with my first full day of rest. But Christmas was drawing near now, and I set off without wasting another second.

My forehead lamp was always on, but it seemed to me—unless it was just wishful thinking—that the night was ever so slightly less dark. The difference was approximately what you would get by pouring a thimbleful of white lacquer in a bucket of black paint.

Now I had a second reason for going into turbo power—the extreme cold. The cold was breaking records, but so was I. In less time than it takes to tell, I was pitching my tent on the pass between Saputing and Ivisarak lakes.

In the very middle of Ivisarak Lake, a white mass glittering in the shadows caught my attention. It was an igloo—perfectly made, at that—a compact hemisphere of snow built the way that only the Inuit know how to build them. This had to be the work of the people of Igloolik, who must have come out here to hunt caribou and wolves.

I soon discovered that, in compliance with Inuit tradition, the people who built this igloo left it open so that others could take shelter in it. They had also left some tea and biscuits as emergency provisions for them. And so once again I learned that it is in this part of the world, completely forsaken by the rest of humanity, that human beings are most deserving of the name.

*   *   *

At the far end of Ivisarak Lake the mountains forced me to climb again. And around noon, in a strange, diffused light, I first glimpsed the outlines of Nyeboe Fjord. My heart raced in my chest. In my eagerness to get down to the fjord, I set off skiing at a rapid clip. But skiing downhill here proved to be a lot less fun than on the slopes of Courchevel. My sled was heavy and moved faster than I could, hitting me in the back and knocking me down repeatedly. I had to let it run ahead of me and try to restrain it while moving forward, a struggle that made climbing look enjoyable. To make things even worse, the wind began to blow harder and harder, but Nyeboe Fjord was the Holy Grail to me, so it made everything well worthwhile.

When I finally got to the surface of the fjord, the wind was blowing so hard that it kept me from setting up my tent. It also kept me from getting anything to drink because it had swept away even the little bit of snow that had fallen so far this winter. I moved forward across the frozen salt water of the fjord, hunting in vain for even a tiny pile of snow. The gale, which was growing more intense by the minute, wasn't about to improve matters.

After struggling for two hours in the absolute darkness, fighting the wind the whole time at thirty degrees below zero, I finally managed to pitch my tent. I had food but not a drop to drink on the evening of December 24, 2002. Talk about a Christmas Eve dinner!

*   *   *

On Christmas I started the day by calling Cathy and my daughters on my satellite phone. We talked longer than usual as a way to make the most of this family holiday that brought us together—virtually, at least.

I left Nyeboe Fjord and made my way out onto the Gulf of Boothia, which had finally partially frozen over. In doing so, I left Baffin Island and was more or less on a line with the Fury and Hecla Strait. And so I had reached my goal! I had definitely earned this Christmas present.

The ice was passable, but I found myself on pack ice that reminded me of the North Pole, only more tumultuous. The frozen sheets of ice heaved, making it especially difficult for me to pitch my tent. When I finally found a campsite that was a little more stable, I enjoyed a big meal. I binged on freshwater, and I allowed myself a double ration of heating fuel, leaving the heater on longer than was customary. That night my nylon tent was a palace, and few men on earth could have been happier than me.

*   *   *

Because there was ice covering the Gulf of Boothia, there was a chance that I would be able to cross the gulf and then continue to the west! On the day after Christmas, I felt almost as if I could leap from slab to shifting slab of ice, all the way to the far shore. But first I needed to make a few preliminary checks. I contacted an icebreaker whose crew monitored the weather and the state of the ice on a regular basis. And I called Cathy and asked her to take a look at the most recent satellite photos of the region on the Internet site
www.seaice.com
.

From both sources I received the same answer. “Don't even try it!” warned my friends from the icebreaker. Cathy confirmed the warning: “Cover 3/10, type 1 ice.” Type 1 indicates fresh ice that's not very thick. As for cover, it is defined on a scale that ranges up to 10/10 when the surface is totally covered. Àt 9/10 I would have given it a try. But in the past fifty years the ice cover on the Gulf of Boothia had never been thicker than 8/10. And even at 8/10 the frozen surface could have been cut in half up the middle, forcing me to backtrack. In any case, with 3/10 cover there was no question of even trying. Crossing the Gulf of Boothia on foot was impossible. Period.

Waiting for the ice to firm up and the cover to spread would have taken at least three months. It appeared that my magical Christmas wasn't going to last.

I was determined to overcome this obstacle however I could and came up with the idea of taking a shortcut across a small island located at the southernmost edge of the gulf. However, upon investigation, it turned out that the ice was breaking up even more there, so this backup plan failed.

My worst fears had come to pass: I was going to have to walk all the way around the Gulf of Boothia via Committee Bay—the longest way around—before being able to head north again on a northwesterly course toward Kugaaruk, my next stop. The problem, to put it mildly, was that my provisions were running out, and I would be short of food before reaching Kugaaruk.

I decided to arrange for a complete resupply on the spot. I called Jean-Philippe Patthey, gave him my position on the Gulf of Boothia, and asked him to bring me not only new food supplies but also equipment with which to face the harshest months of the winter. I needed a new tent and lots of replacement gear.

Once he reached Arctic Bay, Jean-Philippe would be no farther than three days away from my campsite by snowmobile, and once he had dropped the material off, he would be traveling lighter, and it would only take two days to return to Arctic Bay. If everything went more or less according to plan, we would be together to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Claude Lavallée, whom I also called, was astonished and pleased to hear that I had made it this far. He decided to come visit me with Adam, his friend the photographer.

Jean-Philippe caught his plane in Switzerland, bringing with him a substantial shipment of equipment and food prepared by Cathy. But when he landed in Paris, where he was scheduled to catch the connecting flight, the airline had lost two of my bags! Since we always mixed provisions and equipment in different pieces of luggage because of precisely this sort of problem, I lost only part of my food and part of my equipment. Among the lost equipment were my new boots and skis, which I desperately needed. It was a catastrophe, but the Air France official with whom Jean-Philippe had a heated exchange appeared to be totally indifferent. Little did he care that my life might well depend upon the gear that had been lost due to his negligence or the carelessness of his colleagues! Cathy also got involved. Then so did I. Everyone lost their patience and wound up screaming at each another, in person or from thousands of miles away.

Jean-Philippe wanted to go back to Switzerland and reassemble the package of equipment and supplies that the airlines had lost. But if he did that, he would miss his connecting flight, and there were only two flights a week to Nanisivik and Arctic Bay. I asked him to travel on and bring me whatever the airlines hadn't lost. If by some miracle the lost luggage were to resurface, then it could be sent on directly to Igloolik. From there Johannessy, Lily's father, would be glad to bring it to me. It would take him only a short day's trip by snowmobile.

*   *   *

Two snowmobiles left Arctic Bay, heading in my direction: Claude Lavallée's snowmobile and another one carrying Adam and Jean-Philippe. Even though Jean-Philippe was in the prime of life, athletic and full of energy, this was the first time that he had ever traveled in an open vehicle at forty degrees below zero. Despite the “pope-mobile” attachment—a small protective glass enclosure—installed especially for him, his face and ears began to suffer from frostbite during the three-day trip. Each night when they stopped to camp, a little blood would begin to flow back into his extremities, but the next day they would begin to freeze all over again. What he endured was a terrible ordeal—I knew something about frostbite. All the same, he maintained a positive attitude that won everyone's respect.

As for me, a blizzard had forced me to get off the frozen surface of the bay—remaining in the same spot on the frozen water struck me as dangerous—and to turn back toward the frozen shores of Baffin Island, where I was of course reluctant to return. Falling snow gradually covered my tent, forcing me to clear it off several times a day with a shovel. That explained why Johannessy, who was bringing me my luggage, which had finally been found, passed right by my tent without seeing me. He shouted my name repeatedly, but his cries were lost in the raging storm. At the mouth of Nyeboe Fjord, he noticed the headlights of the two snowmobiles coming toward me, and Claude sent him back in the right direction. The blizzard was terrible, and the group was forced to cross a broad expanse of pack ice before it could reach me. I sat waiting like a blind man until I finally heard the roar of snowmobiles in the blizzard.

When my four friends finally joined me, it was exactly two hours before the beginning of the New Year.

Johannessy had to return immediately to Igloolik, and there was no way to persuade him to stay and take part in our New Year's feast. I gave him some money and fixed him a cup of tea. We shook hands and he was gone, heading back into the blizzard. He would wind up steering his snowmobile for forty-eight hours through an intense blizzard just to bring me my bags. This is the sort of amazing sacrifice that, up here, people don't even think twice about.

Claude, Adam, Jean-Philippe, and I all crowded into Claude's canvas tent, which was roomier than mine. The joy we felt at all being together made this a memorable moment. “Mike,” said Jean-Philippe, whose cheeks were white with frost, “now I understand a little better.” He didn't need to say anything more. He had brought a bottle of whisky to celebrate New Year's, but—and this was information worth remembering—it turns out that whisky freezes at forty degrees below zero. It wasn't whisky on the rocks, but rock whisky! Our other hard alcohol had also frozen solid. After a little while on the double boiler, our drinks were finally thawed and ready for the toasts.

We were thousands of miles from all civilization, in the middle of nowhere, buried in the depths of the Arctic night, four close friends huddled in a tent, spending the most unforgettable New Year's Eve of our lives.