Conquering the Impossible (23 page)

At last I made it to the other shore, and on February 22, five days after I finally turned west, it was with a feeling of triumph that I set foot on the peninsula that separates the Gulf of Boothia from the inlet of Pelly Bay, beside which stood the town of Kugaaruk. From here on, there would be no more obstacle courses through pack ice, just the terra firma of the Canadian continent and rolling expanses of tundra.

From this shore of Committee Bay, I was just fifty miles to Kugaaruk. With daily mileage of about ten to twelve miles, I would get there in about four or five days.

And only about six weeks from now, spring would timidly begin to emerge. If I could just keep going until then, I would have conquered the Arctic winter! In my eyes, this victory meant that I was clearly capable of completing my expedition.

*   *   *

A little cabin whose location Makabi had told me about was even more rudimentary than the cabins I had found along my route to this point. There were four sheets of plywood for walls, a fifth plywood sheet as a roof, and a door that had been shoved in by bears, so that I found the cabin full of snow. I cleaned it out with my shovel, pitched my tent inside, and enjoyed a well-deserved day of rest.

The frostbite-induced blisters that had grown under my fingernails had become so painful that I couldn't stand it any longer. I used a very fine drill bit to pierce my nails and drain the blisters, which gave me a modicum of relief.

An icy wind continued to blow, and I decided to extend my stay in the hut for another twenty-four hours. To warm myself up, I decided to stow my sled and the rest of my gear and take a little cross-country ski excursion through the surrounding countryside. It would also give me the opportunity to scout out the terrain on the route to Kugaaruk. As expected, the land was rolling, monotonous, and icy.

*   *   *

“We are not there often,” Makabi had told me. “But if you straight ahead with hills on your right, you arrive Kugaaruk for sure.”

While climbing up one hill to get a better view of the surrounding landscape, I happened upon a magnificent snow-white wolf, majestically poised looking out over the landscape from a promontory, like the Lion King surveying its domain. The wolf's fur glittered silver with reflected light. I was fascinated and could not resist the temptation to try to get a little closer—just to see how close I could get. Step by step, I crept nearer to him in absolute silence. The wind blowing in my face reassured me that he hadn't scented my presence. I couldn't have been more than ten or fifteen feet away from him.

Suddenly it dawned on me that I was completely unarmed. What if the wolf attacked me? In a short fit of paranoia, I even imagined that the wolf might be rabid. After dispelling these wild notions, I stood still and admired the wolf for a long time, forgetting all else. Then I whistled very softly. The wolf turned its head in my direction and took off like a shot from a cannon. To my astonishment, he buried himself under the snow and—like a cat under a blanket—burrowed away from me, making his escape through a tunnel in the snow.

I started off again with my sled in tow. I was buffeted by a north wind, icier than before, blowing straight into my face. This was the main problem with the direction I had chosen for my journey; I was traveling against the winds and currents nearly the entire trip. The frigid breeze rendered me far more vulnerable to frostbite, especially when the squalls regularly drove the thermometer down below fifty-eight degrees below zero, as they regularly did between the Gulf of Boothia and Kugaaruk. Whenever the tip of my nose began to freeze, I would rub a little snow on it because the snow was much warmer than the ambient air.

Ice helped keep me warm, too. Whenever I encountered a shallow pond or running stream that was impossible to go around without a lengthy detour, I would simply wade across as quickly as possible. The layer of ice that quickly formed on my boots and the lower section of my clothing would serve as a windbreaker until evening—sort of like the snot that I smeared on my face every morning.

*   *   *

I was beginning to suffer profoundly from the physical fatigue this expedition had entailed. So it was with inexplicable joy that, about twenty-five miles away from Kugaaruk, I saw Jean-Philippe Patthey; Patrick, a Swiss-German journalist; Sebastian Devenish, my expedition photographer; and Makabi Nartok coming toward me. Of course, they weren't coming to help me trek or rescue me. Rather, like the first seagulls announce landfall after a long sea voyage, my friends and colleagues heralded my approach to the shore.

Since leaving Igloolik—that is, in the past five weeks—I had not glimpsed another living soul. I was somewhat shocked to realize how the planet could so easily do without our presence, just as it had for billions of years before us—and as it continued to in remote locations such as these.

Although I spotted my companions immediately and saw them as symbols of hope, they, on the other hand, failed to see me at all. Racing along on their snowmobiles, they sailed past me without noticing me and only found me afterward by following the instructions that I had given them—to follow my tracks from the coordinates of my last campsite.

Our reunion was one of those moments when words are inadequate to convey one's feelings. Jean-Philippe, Patrick, Sebastian, and Makabi were shocked to find themselves face-to-face with a sort of Yeti with a bandaged face covered in layers of snow and ice that almost obscured its eyes. In the course of a few weeks, the cold and the elements had turned me into an unrecognizable, mummified survivor, barely able to stand on my own two feet. My legs were still working, by a miracle of conditioned reflex, but I was on the verge of being totally frozen.

Makabi walked toward me, drawing so close that his face almost touched mine, and stared at me, intensely, interminably, to the point that I began to feel uneasy. He never said a word. When I stretched out my right hand to grip his in a handshake, he seized both of my hands, and then he tore off my mittens, replacing them with his own bearskin gloves. Encased in those sheaths of leather and fat, my hands felt as if they had been thrust over a wood fire. Makabi, in turn, slipped on my mittens. Once his own body heat had warmed them up, about twenty minutes later, he returned them to me, and he repeated this operation over and over, never saying a word, except, “You are very strong man.” Embarrassed, I replied awkwardly. How could I explain to him the motives that were driving me?

*   *   *

Makabi returned to his village, and the others accompanied me at a temperature of forty degrees below zero for the last two days of my trek, as far as Kugaaruk. Even though they were perfectly well-equipped, Jean-Philippe, Sebastian, and especially Patrick, who had come straight from the well-heated offices of his magazine, suffered terribly from the cold. Sebastian took photographs and Jean-Philippe shot some video, which would keep me from having to backtrack later to reenact the various phases of the journey, as I had been forced to do after my trip around the equator.

*   *   *

Once again, I was marching along lakeshores, following rivers, and alternating level sections with occasional climbs up hilly and mountainous terrain. And from high atop one of those hills, in the glow of one of the first sunsets of the season, I finally caught a glimpse of the village that the Inuit call Kugaaruk and the Canadians call Pelly Bay, from the name of the inlet off the Gulf of Boothia on which the village is situated. Kugaaruk seemed to be on another planet, wedged between steep cliffs and a bay filled with craggy islands whose rocky faces concealed what lay beyond.

I descended to the village in the same time that it took the sun to set. By the time I found myself walking down the main street, most of the village's inhabitants—five hundred people, including three hundred children—were pouring out of their prefabricated homes to welcome me loudly and enthusiastically. They began rhythmically clapping, encouraging me on for the last few yards. My friends, who had traveled ahead on their snowmobiles, immortalized the scene, cameras in hand, as I was congratulated by many generations of Inuit, crowding around me. For four months, satellite phones, CB radios, and the like had all been reporting to every corner of the Far North: “There is a guy walking from Arctic Bay to Kugaaruk via Igloolik in the heart of winter! Inconceivable!” They had been anticipating my arrival as the main attraction of the year, and when they saw my freakish silhouette and my snow-white mask, they were not disappointed.

When I finally came to a stop, Makabi got right to work. He pulled off my skis, took my ski poles from me, and unharnessed me from my sled. With hands still stiff from the cold, I shook hands with nearly everyone in the village. The Inuit are not the sort of people to indulge in insincere compliments or acts of politeness—nor are they easily impressed. Their congratulations were heartfelt, and I took them to heart.

By making it this far, I knew that I had accomplished the hardest part. And so for me, the Arctic winter thawed for me right in this remote village, even if the calendar had a different opinion.

*   *   *

In the Far North, accommodations are extremely expensive, and Kugaaruk was no exception. Frequented primarily by construction workers, the Residence, an inn belonging to the the Co-op, a sort of Inuit authority, was not shy about posting rates of three hundred to four hundred Canadian dollars a night, per person! For that price, a visitor would be given a bedroom a few yards square, furnished with two beds. If another paying customer showed up, he would be given the second bed, whether you liked it or not, and there wouldn't be a discount, either.

I planned to spend three days with Sebastian, who hadn't been able to take any pictures of the expedition in four months, and three days with Patrick, the journalist who had spent time with me on several occasions during my expedition around the equator, and once already aboard my boat, the
Arktos,
on this expedition. His writing showed that he had grasped the true spirit of my adventures. His face, familiar to me now, was that of a friend—and a lucky charm.

I was going to have a chance to wash myself thoroughly for the first time in fifteen days, replace the sealskins on the bottom of my skis, get some treatment for the open blisters on my feet, and restore a little life to my cheeks, ears, nose, and lips, which were completely frozen, and my thumbs, which were in nearly the same condition as when I got back from the North Pole.

All things considered, I expected to spend about ten days or so in Kugaaruk. The total cost would come to two thousand dollars in hotel bills, which would completely blow my budget. But the members of the Native Corporation—whose respect I had won by accomplishing what no one in the memory of the oldest living member of the tribe had even done—decided to adopt me. Alex, the manager of the hotel, decided to let me stay as long as I liked in a mobile home adjoining his establishment. It might have been a mobile home, but to me, after all the nights I had spent on the ice, it was a three-star luxury accommodation. Sheltered from the cold and the elements, I would enjoy the calm and serenity I needed to recuperate.

Alex wasn't satisfied with just giving me a place to stay, either. He fed me soup, caribou steaks, Arctic char, pasta, and homemade bread. I got stronger but not any heavier. My stomach had become accustomed to processing the eight and ten thousand calories a day that I wolf down when I'm trekking cross-country, so my digestive system becomes a veritable reprocessing plant, continuing to operate even when my body was temporarily at rest. It would take time, and a lighter diet, before my metabolism would begin functioning “normally” again.

Ron, the policeman, continued to be immensely helpful, inviting me to dinner, helping me find or repair pieces of equipment, and gathering information that would be useful on my journey. Members of the community—especially the older ones—came in droves to ask me to teach them how to use their GPS devices, to read certain maps, etc. It felt like I was constantly holding court. Someone would come in, ask for my advice on this subject or that, share a mug of tea with me, and then leave as the next visitor entered. Others used their lunch breaks to come and sit in a circle around me—for no apparent reason. I became a real attraction for the town's residents, and not only because of my exploits. Kugaaruk is totally isolated for most of the year at the very end of its little frozen cul-de-sac, which even the icebreaker that links it to the rest of the world can't reach except for a few months of the year. So, in this place where life, based on subsistence hunting and fishing, hasn't changed in centuries, residents appreciated the infrequent visitor from the outside world.

Whenever I showed even the slightest inclination to start out again, my new friends would beg me to stay for just one more day. And I allowed myself to be persuaded by these people whom I found so immensely likable. After all, the time I spent here recharging my batteries was hardly a luxury.

Every day I explored the area around the village, and I pushed a little farther each time—to get new and more panoramic views of the bay and the mountains. I gradually became consumed by an ever stronger sense of longing, longing to go and see what was on the other side of those mountains—to pursue and experience the next stage of my adventure. I imagined myself battling for survival in a spectacular setting, bathed in the early sunlight of spring that was such a novelty after having walked in total darkness for so many weeks, staring at the narrow beam of light cast by my forehead lamp!

*   *   *

One morning I woke up with a feeling of urgency mingled with guilt, which clearly indicated that the time had come. On the evening before I left, the people of Kugaaruk threw a party for me in the building that serves as city hall, school, and gymnasium. Knowing that my next destination would be Gjoa Haven, everyone I spoke to offered me advice on the best route to follow. We devoured a banquet of cookies and tea (alcohol was forbidden) while musicians dressed in caribou skins warmed up the crowd and played musical accompaniment for the Inuit dances. Children chased one another in all directions as I moved from one group to another, thanking everyone for their help, kindness, and generosity.