The 2nd Annual IR Vacation to Hell- The Baffin to Ellesmere Challenge

cool as a florida cat...

I took this from some video I shot a couple of weeks ago while I was in the Everglades with a great group of college students from Gettysburg College in Pa. It is a Florida Panther..one of only 87 left. They grow to the 80 pound range and this one looked big and healthy. As I watched this big cat I flashed forward to the upcoming Baffin to Ellesmere trip and all the opportunity to see rare and interesting varmits like this one.
It has been a very busy time with conference calls sorting out gear ,kayaks, logistics.tons of e-mails with lists that grow one day and shrink the next. What to bring, testing sleeping bags and tents, do we each want a tent, do we all want to sleep in one tent do we want two tents.
Thats how it goes and all of this while we all work for a living, and have our relationships and play gigs and help our parents put up garage door openers and...well you get the idea. But I feel like we are finally getting some of the big things moving forward.
OK so first it was my brothers idea of getting helium filled balloons and theathering the kayaks to them and walking the kayaks across Devon Island.(We're not doing that.) Now I'm thinking that using kites, like a kite surfer uses might be a good way to get across the big open water up there.
Well looks like its time for supper, more later.
Russell.

When living in a landlocked country what is one to do ...

... move to another landlocked country of course!

I'm moving from Hungary to Switzerland next week!

Living in Budapest is great but my setup here is not very convenient. I have to drive one hour to get to where my kayak is stored and that is in the opposite direction to where the water is so a 3 hour paddle is usually an all day event. Zurich has a very active sea kayaking community and it looks like I'll have a place to store my kayak next to Lake Zurich! - Alain

"Where are you going? And thats where?"

I was talking with some people the other night at a campground in the Everglades just prior to taking some people on the water for a few days paddling and camping. And conversation turned to our upcoming adventure in the Artic.
I told the folks where we were going and the whole story of winning the grant and so on, all the while gettng nods and knowing smiles and looks from them. Sometime later in the evening one of the group came to me and said.."I've asked everyone in our group and no one really knows exactly where it is you are going."
So I decided maybe people that are looking at the blog might need a map to show just where the heck we are headed, and maybe this weeks trip plan.

On another note big thanks to Dave Reid who owns Polar Sea Adventures in Pond Inlet, he has lived there for 15 years and has a tremendous amount of experience in the area we are heading. He leads trips for any of you that want to see some of the most amazing places on earth, he also guides scientific expeditions, film crews, and helps trip planning with nut cases like us. Check him out on line at http://www.polarseaadventures.com/.
He has been very gracious and forthcoming with info (not always telling us what we want to hear).
Monday we had a conference call that stretched over 9 time zones! From Los Angeles, California,(Dave Reid ,whom is working on a film) to Budapest , Hungary,(Alain,who is a month late moving to Switzerland).
Anyway the logistics of just getting us all on the phone at one time are sometimes challenging. But the content of the conversations are always fruitful in one way or another.
Again thanks Dave for all the insight and now I have a load of new questions from things we found out from our last conversation!
It would appear that ice and terrain in Navy Board Inlet are maybe more of a problem than we thought, also ,(here is one none of us saw coming).Bylot Island,(which we were going to use to camp on on the way up Navy Board Inlet ) is a National Park. No guns allowed in National Parks. Unfortunately there are a fair number of large white things that may consider us food. No one on the team is excited about making this journey unprotected. Dave said when he paddled to the north west end of Bylot Island they saw 8 Polar Bear in 6 days.
Most of them runaway,but like any species the young adolescent males are pushing their limits and testing things and are the dangerous ones to look out for.
We had a couple of close encounters with bear in Labrador and I swear I don't ever want to be that close to a bear in the wild again! At the same time none of us wants to kill anything, the whole point is to observe not change the special places on the earth. Having a gun helps us scare bear away before they get close by firing flash/bang rounds,(A very loud bang with accompanying sparks and flares). Russell.

There's a little black spot on the sun today ...

If we have good weather and are somewhere between Grise Fiord and northern Devon Island on August 1st we'll have the good fortune of experiencing a very rare event: a total solar eclipse on a day that would otherwise have 24 hours of daylight! - Alain
map from Nasa Eclipse home page

Ice verses Sand.... You choose!

Moriah Cay - Exuma Bahamas

In 8 months it will be ICE and not sand! Yes, a tough place to sit and think about Arctic Travel with your toes buried in the beach....  =)

Tim

Winter Testing in Exuma Bahamas

The team has been anxious to get some cold weather testing done over the holidays and the colder months here in Tennessee.  Things have been a bit slow due to lack of gear availability and cash flow.  We're told by the VTH Guys this should change quickly in the new year! 

Instead of winter testing, I headed to the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas for a bit of kayak paddling & RR.  I did however take a Nemo GOGO Tent (potential sponsor) and plenty of IR paddle gear & a hammock.  Nice stuff, indeed!

Tim

Devon crossing...

Low altitude air chart of Devon Island,Nunavut.(Note the white stuff is ice.)
If you look at the chart of Devon, the large south thrusting point is Cape Warrender, the area we will land in. West of there is the large bay, Croker Bay where we will paddle up to the western glacier and then go up one of the lateral morains to the ice cap proper.
Following the 3000 foot line around toward the west then curving toward the east and ending up above the Sverdrup Glacier where again using a lateral moraine we descend down to sea level and head east. On the west edge of Eastern Glacier we make the crossing to Ellesmere Island.
Childs Play, I know.
One thing we were talking about the other night was stress.So you paddle 140 miles from town ,(hundreds of miles above the Artic Circle), and psych yourself up for a 60 something mile crossing. What if you then have to sit on the beach for several days waiting for a break in the weather? Then while you're hanging out you have to stay stoked up as well as keep an eye out for roving carnivores.
So you finally get a good weather day and make the crossing...then 20 something hours later you show up on Devon ready to land anywhere...not in good shape to hang out in your kayak and cruise the coast to find that optimum camp site . You know the one , no bear, no walrus, fresh water nearby, flat space for tents, out of the wind,(it comes from all directions at anytime.
So you just take what you can and get some rest and then...get psyched up to pull your kayak and 150 or 200 pounds of stuff up to and across a 3000 foot high chunk of ice.(Devon's ice cap goes up to over 6000 feet high,east of where we plan to travel.)
Once across Devon a quick jaunt up the coast and a 20 to 30 mile cruise across a neck of icey water known for strong currents,(some tidal races on the charts), and katabatic winds.
But then you're on Ellesmere Island,one of the most northern islands on the planet.Only 50ish miles to go to Grise Fiord, a small hamlet of about 170 people. And when you get there you may have a week to wait for the airplane that comes there,weather permitting.
In his book,Paddle to the Artic,Don Starkell qouted is as saying,"Inuit are too intelligent to take chances. Their survival up here for thousands of years was possible only because of their experience and their 'smarts'.They never gamble,they only travel at the best of times and keep themselves well supplied with food"
Don paddled from Churchill ,in Hudsons' Bay west to Tuktoyaktuk, (nearly Alaska), it took 3 summers to do and he lost his toes and fingers the last year to cold.
So the lesson is..listen to the people who have lived here for thousands of years and survive and blossom with the land and sea the way they have , with your "smarts", not your ego.
Russell

A meeting of the minds.

Photo;Off the coast of Parkavik Island,Labrador,2005.

During the Christmas break,our compatriot,Tim Keen has been paddling in the Bahamas. So, here is a guy that on his three weeks off plans and executes his own mini expedition to Exuma.
He organized the shipping of his Foster Legend from Florida to the Bahamas, came down early dropped the kayak off then went and paddled 10 or 12 days solo down there. Came back to the U.S. drove 5 hours to stay at my house a couple of days for some expedition planning sessions, then drove back south to Ft.Lauderdale to pick up his kayak to then turn north for a 15 hour drive home to Nashville ,Tennessee.
Well done Keeno!
It was critical that the 3 of us who could make it to this spur of the moment meeting do some serious brain storming and come up with The Way for us to go .We have been working on several plans and now it was time to decide which one to pursue.
The general idea we have decided on is from south to north. (The opposite we thought we would do.)
We will paddle from Pond Inlet north up Navy Board Inlet on the west side of Bylot Island,(renowned for its Glaciers and high polar bear population on its east coast.) Once we reach its northern mouth we will cross Lancaster Sound,(about 62 statute miles as the crow flies), to the south side of Devon Island,around the Cape Warrender area. Proceding west to Croker Bay, then we go to the western head of the bay , climb a glacier and start an ice portage of about 75 miles, at about 3000 feet above sea level.Dragging the kayaks over the ice like sleds.
We intend to reach the north side of Devon at the top of the Sverdrup Glacier,make our way east about 25 miles to Eastern Glacier and then a 30 mile open water crossing to the south side of Ellesmere Island at Craig Harbor.
At that point we are about 50 miles east of our pick up point of Grise Fiord.(The plane comes once a week.)
We think it is doable with the right conditions and the right gear.I just hope we have a big enough weather window.
Everything we have read, and all the people we have talked to that live in Pond Inlet,have trepidations about the Lancaster Sound crossing. They feel everything else is doable, (weather not withstanding), but when we talk about Lancaster Sound, their voices change.
We have been told about an expedition that attempted to circumnavigate Bylot Island 2 years ago that sat on the Lancaster Sound shore for two weeks before running out of time,(summer is only about 5 weeks long up there), and having to turn back.
A typical year is ,the ice breaks up the last week of July and starts coming back the first week of September. That doesn't count all of the glacial ice bobing around,some icebergs the size of a real castle!
So 4 months in and we have a plan with a few options.
Happy New Year!
Russell