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In July
of 1995 Martin set out from the Mackenzie River Delta, Northwest
Territories, Canada, heading east on a solo quest to reach the
Atlantic Basin. During one of the worst weather seasons in decades,
he navigated 1,250 miles in 25 paddling days, an average of 50
miles per day. On the first leg of his journey, drought conditions
left stream beds dry and eliminated a portage, adding an unexpected
150 miles to the 300-mile section. By paddling 78 miles in a single
day, he managed to reach safety in the middle of a storm, arriving
at the village of Paulatuk in the endless twilight of a summer
night.
In remembering some of his difficulties during that 1995 season, Martin says, "I
can honestly say I've seen the Eastern Beaufort Sea at its worst-and it's not
a time and place I'd want to revisit." Martin had waited for the ice to retreat
to the north, leaving free and easy passage-until summer storms kicked up the
seas. "It was the worst weather folks had seen for 15 years. The three capes,
Dalhousie, Bathurst and Parry, lived up to their reputation as the Gatekeepers
of the Central Arctic. I had high winds, up to 50 knots, and really nasty conditions
at each prominence. The shallow sea, combined with a flat, featureless coastline,
made navigation very difficult. A mile off shore with no land in sight, I'd run
across sandbars."
The run to Dolphin and Union Strait was also tricky, Martin recalls. "I experienced
some of the biggest seas I have been in during my six years of paddling above
the Arctic Circle. The wave height was not the problem, it was the short wave
length that developed from nearby Arctic storms. The Cheetah was designed for
big ocean swells. In the choppy seas, the boat was a bit out of place. It was
very challenging paddling, but I still made good time."
Martin attributes his successful navigation to the shared traditional knowledge
base of the Inuit who live in the region and have traveled this route for centuries. "I
purposely did very little of the usual historic, scientific or geographic background
investigation prior to the '95 and '96 seasons. The route finding and selection
was based on local knowledge and lore gathered through personal interactions
with elders, hunters and other ocean travelers."
Martin is quick to point out that, "Inuit roamed the Arctic in kayaks and umiaks
long before renowned 'Euro Northwest Passage explorers' retraced their living
migration routes and passages." He maintains that the route should be named the
'Inuit Passage' in respectful recognition of the people of these Northern regions.
He made week-long stopovers in each of the villages to meet with friends and
acquaintances and to collect route information, often in conjunction with waiting
out bad weather. "On a map it's very difficult to delineate portages; however,
local hunters told me of small lakes and rivulets I could take. Invariably, I
found the routes to be exactly as they had described them. Many times the hunters
could not remember the last time a kayak had been through the passages, but they
always knew precisely how the kayaks used to travel from village to village." When
an early winter set in during the second week of August, Martin put the Arctic
Cheetah on storage racks in the central Arctic village of Umingmaktook.
In mid-July 1996, Martin Leonard reunited
with his kayak and departed from the village of Umingmaktook to begin
the final leg of his journey toward the Atlantic Ocean. "The real
key to the second season was the use of the traditional portage at
Itibliyaruk on the southeast side of the Kent Peninsula. It allowed
me to avoid the ice-choked Dease Strait and enter the Queen Maud
Gulf quickly, in conjunction with breakup." The weather was favorable
and the pack ice in the Queen Maud Gulf had moved offshore; there
was nothing to slow his progress eastward. He paddled for 10 or 15
hours at a stretch, eating Powerbars and dried caribou meat while
in the boat and making good time. The journey was enchanting: The
weather was calm and sunny and there was lots of new terrain around
each bend in the coastline. "Some days I just didn't want to stop!
At the end of a long stint I often made excuses not to stop, but
eventually I always found a nice spot with water nearby, crawled
into the tent and listened to the worldband radio until I fell asleep."
"I didn't see another person for a 400-mile stretch, but there was always wildlife
around-Arctic summers are so full of life." On one occasion Martin landed at
the mouth of a bay near a traditional whaling camp. As he set up for the night
on a gravel spit, beluga whales began to leave the bay. "There was a bunch of
young whales in the pod. They all played as they traveled, spyhopping and chattering
to each other. A steady stream poured out of the bay, then more, and more! It
must have been a few hundred animals. I made dinner and fell asleep on the beach
next to the fire, listening to their breath and chirps."
Farther east, the low-lying coastal plain of the Adelaide Peninsula went on as
far as the eye could see. One evening Martin tucked his camp behind a small bluff
for the night, the only protection from the wind for miles. "I got up in the
middle of the night and my tent was surrounded by sleeping caribou, about 30
of them. I was so tired I just said hello and went back to bed. In the morning
I had to check for tracks, just to be sure it wasn't a dream. You know you've
picked a good campsite when your evening company is a herd of caribou."
It wasn't unusual, after finding a good campsite, to find traces of others also
having been there. It may have been years, sometimes centuries since the last
traveler had set foot in the area, but rest assured that where the modern traveler
seeks shelter from the storm, so had the ancients. He found old tent rings, skeletons
of boats, turn-of-the-century tools, even an old car with a rotting wooden frame.
The Arctic has seen a fair number of visitors during the last couple of thousand
years, and not all of them survived. Near the south side of King William Island,
inukshuks (Inuit rock pile sculptures resembling a human form) marked important
water holes. "Rock cairns marked the winter trail, and I couldn't help but think
of the frozen remains of the ill-fated Franklin expedition found nearby. (In
1845, Sir John Franklin ventured from England with two ships, hoping to locate
the fabled Northwest Passage. The expedition vanished in the Arctic, initiating
years of fruitless search and rescue efforts.) In seeing these sites, Martin
felt confirmation that his light and nimble traveling style was certainly advantageous.
He would not get frozen in for the winter.
About halfway to his final destination of Repulse Bay in northern Hudson Bay,
Martin encountered the Gulf of Boothia, a region known in the maritime community
as unnavigable and uncharted. What's it like? I asked. "Ice and polar bears," he
said over the static and delay in the phone line from Pelly Bay. "I'm a bit early,
the ice is still tight, and the going is tedious. Between the polar bears, ice,
and a waning summer season, there've been lots of very anxious moments. I'm never
sure what will await me around the next corner."
Several days prior to reaching Pelly Bay, as he was paddling through an area
of high ice coverage, he rounded an iceberg and saw a polar bear sleeping on
the ice about 50 yards away. With bated breath he maneuvered his way through
the ice and past the bear and spent the next few hours looking over his shoulder,
fully expecting to see it stalking him. He saw a total of four polar bears that
day: the lone young male and a sow with two cubs. He camped that night on an
ice-bound beach without getting much rest, keeping his shotgun in hand as he
dozed with fitful dreams of man's only predator. "Traveling in heavy bear country
is very intimidating, and traveling solo is even worse; there is no one to outrun!" he
said with a chuckle. It wasn't until later, when he reached the ice-free waters
in the southern corner of Committee Bay, that he relaxed his watch for polar
bears.
While resupplying in Pelly Bay, he met renowned Canadian paddler Victoria Jason.
Victoria was hoping to paddle to Repulse Bay, but the Elders had persuaded her
that this was not a good year to travel solo in the Gulf of Boothia. Too many
bears, and the ice conditions were marginal. Martin concurred, so the two teamed
up for the remaining section of coastline. After negotiating the southern shores
of the Gulf of Boothia, they had one more section to complete before reaching
the Atlantic Ocean. He outlined the conditions and the route around the Simpson
Peninsula and into Committee Bay: "Ice coverage is very high. I've watched it
moving at about 6 to 8 knots...loose pack ice and growlers grinding against steep
cliffs. All this amidst a tidal current running on a range of about 11 feet.
Paddling at high tide around grounded ice should allow passage. Once around the
west side of Committee Bay, it's only a 45-mile journey across the Rae Isthmus.
I will be doing some short portages, crossing a few large lakes and negotiating
a couple of whitewater rivers. I'm following a well-known traditional route.
I'll be in northern Hudson Bay in no time! The village of Repulse Bay is just
a 15-mile paddle from the mouth of the North Pole River.
In late August I received a voice-mail message from Martin. He was whistling
a favorite Inuit tune from the Greenland Kayak Club. He described the final miles
of the season paddling through thick fog on a compass course, when he came bow
to bow with a huge ocean transport vessel. The ship was the Matilda Desgagnes,
and he noted her home port: Montreal! He was in the Atlantic at last.
"It was a fitting meeting for me, after traveling across one of the most challenging
oceans in the world via traditional means. I paddled alongside this testament
to modern man, this massive cargo ship. I reveled in the fact that this ship
would never see the route I had taken. The encounter just reinforced what I feel
about our modern society and how so often traditional technologies are cast aside
as being obsolete. It's a trend that I'm glad is beginning to change with younger
generations who are learning to balance the two."
"It has been a remarkable journey," said Martin. "On the adventure side, the
open ocean in a very small boat is always a very humbling experience. From a
cultural perspective, the kayak still is a powerful symbol of Native spiritual
and traditional values, as well as their technological ingenuity."
Spinnaker Wyss-Johnsen is an expedition
paddler, a kayak guide and a guide trainer in Hawaii and Alaska,
as well as a competitive kayak surfer. She can be contacted at hjdww@gte.net Martin
Leonard III lives and works in Bethel, Alaska, as a coordinator of
long-distance telecommunications. When not at work or going on expeditions,
he can be found building "concept" paddle-craft and kayak-surfing
ocean swells in Hawaii and Alaska. For more information regarding
route, equipment or traditional technology projects, you can contact
Martin at qayaq@ddc-alaska.org |
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