This story, “The Arctic Almost Killed Me — Twice,” appeared within the June 1977 challenge of Out of doors Life. Tony Dauksza turned the primary individual to traverse the Northwest Passage in something apart from a ship. He accomplished the three,200-mile journey over the course of six summers on a solo canoe expedition.
My arctic canoe journey was going nice until I bought combined up with a polar bear. That’s when my luck turned dangerous. It bought so dangerous that for days it appeared as if I had no probability of escaping dying in that bleak spot on the east coast of Somerset Island, some 700 miles northwest of the north shore of Hudson Bay. I’m extraordinarily lucky my bones aren’t scattered up there close to these of the bear.
I had made camp on Batty Bay in mid-afternoon. It was late August, 1972. The solar was shining, the wind was out of the south, the temperature was close to 50°, and the big ice floes appeared at relaxation off the gravel seashore. After I hauled my canoe above tide 88 line and pitched my pop tent, I made a decision to take a hike and do some exploring.
Simply as I topped a hill of rock, I heard shuffling sounds and a clatter of stones. I appeared up and noticed a polar bear pacing away. He 1umbered throughout snow drifts for 200 yards, then stopped and appeared again at me. He appeared extra curious than afraid. The thought hit me to return to my tent, get my digicam, and take some footage of the bear.
I trotted again to camp, picked up my digicam, then unzipped the gun case holding my Browning lever-action .308. I packed the rifle alongside simply in case that bear determined I could be good to eat. I did a variety of looking for the bear, however I by no means noticed him once more that day. I developed the uneasy feeling that he was hiding someplace and watching me.
About that point, a dense fog rolled in like a moist blanket of white. It could possibly be loads harmful enjoying video games with a bear in that form of climate, so I went again to camp. I had each intention of heading on down the arctic coast at daybreak, however issues didn’t work out that method.
I awoke early and was simply out of my sleeping bag when a vicious snarling and growling erupted near my camp. The sounds of the circling bear grew louder each second. As I unzipped my rifle case, there was a sudden swatting on the facet of my tent. I guessed what was occurring.
The dense fog had condensed on my tent, then when the temperature dropped beneath freezing in the course of the evening, the moisture had become a heavy layer of frost. When the bear took a swipe at my tent, I heard his claws rip by means of the frost. The bear was going to smash my tent right down to get at me. I started yelling and screaming like a loopy man. Fortunately, the sudden eruption of my high-pitched voice should have caught the bear abruptly. His assault ceased as instantly because it had begun. I opened the flap and appeared exterior. The bear was nowhere in sight. I’d truly hollered him away. However earlier than that day was over, I had a powerful cause to imagine that our encounter was removed from completed.
I couldn’t pack and depart as a result of a howling blizzard was approaching quick. Earlier than the swirling snow dropped visibility to close zero, I took my rifle and hiked out to see if I might discover the bear. There was a bit of backwater bay not too removed from my camp. As I approached it I noticed him once more. As I studied what he was doing, my neck started to crawl.
That loopy bear was swimming after eider geese that he had no probability on this planet of catching. If he was making an attempt a stunt like that, he needed to be so hungry he wasn’t considering straight. There was little doubt he could be again after me.
When he returned at daybreak he got here as earlier than, snarling and growling. I didn’t wish to danger being attacked by going exterior, so I shouldered my rifle and waited. This time he didn’t slam a paw on the tent, however I knew he was simply exterior its entrance. I guessed at the place his shoulder was and fired.
After the roar of the rifle, I heard no sounds. I stared on the tiny gap the bullet had made within the tent, and I bear in mind noting the pepper-like powder burns across the gap. Minutes handed whereas I held the rifle in readiness to shoot once more. After I lastly appeared exterior into the grey first gentle there was no signal of the bear, however his tracks confirmed plainly within the new snow and drops of blood confirmed that I had scored successful.
Although it was snowing exhausting, I made a decision it was greatest to trace my quarry and kill him earlier than he might trigger extra bother. I discovered him mendacity beneath an ice ledge alongside the shoreline the place he had been chasing geese. A big purple blot stained the white fur excessive on his shoulder. He was in dangerous form, however I put three extra bullets into him.
Again in camp I appraised my scenario. If the temperature didn’t give up dropping, and if the blizzard didn’t let up, the arctic shore would ice-in for the winter. This is able to imply journey by canoe was out, and I used to be nonetheless greater than 200 miles from the place I used to be to be picked up by aircraft.
I wasn’t too anxious as a result of I used to be in good bodily form. I had a number of packs of dehydrated meals, some caribou jerky, a part of a seal, and the bear. I might make it for a very long time. I additionally had flares to sign passing planes, plus a crash transmitter. These tiny one-way transmitters are powered by two flashlight batteries and are designed to ship out particular beep indicators. The transmission swap is engineered to activate with the affect of a crash. It will also be activated by hand.
The one I had was given to me by Willie Laserick. He’s a German-born pilot, top-of-the-line within the arctic. Willie had insisted that I pack alongside the transmitter. He mentioned it would save my life. It did. The blizzard lasted three days. When the snow give up falling, the wind switched to the northeast and reached a minimum of 80 miles an hour. It broke up a variety of the ice pack and blew it on shore. I moved my canoe uphill in anticipation of a really excessive tide. It turned out to be a 12-footer, and when it went out I had hills of icebergs between my camp and the fast-freezing ocean. That was dangerous. However I figured I might pull my canoe over the mountain of ice, getting it nearer to the seashore in case the wind went down.
All the things labored superb until I used to be taking place one of many ice hills. I slipped, falling with a whirling lurch. Ache stabbed by means of my again. I attempted to face up, however couldn’t. I attempted once more after some time and bought upright, however I knew I used to be in bother.
Because the day wore on, I discovered I might stand for not more than 5 minutes, then the ache would power me to lie down. It was pure torture getting again to camp. Now, all I might do was wait. I prayed a aircraft would move shut sufficient to choose up my crash transmitter indicators or see my flares.
I lived in agony for 10 days earlier than my luck modified. Winter set in with swirling snow and below-zero temperatures. I discovered later that the identical vicious climate had locked a seismographic vessel in an ice pack 80 miles south of me. When the climate cleared on the eleventh day, a aircraft was despatched from Resolute to advise the vessel easy methods to escape the locked-up ice.
By nice fortune, that aircraft handed near me. The crash transmitter did its job. I knew I used to be discovered when the pilot circled my place and waggled his wings. However being discovered wasn’t being rescued. There was no method a aircraft might land within the hills of ice and rock.
Two days later a helicopter bought me out. A couple of days after that, I checked right into a hospital in Calgary. Docs advised me that I had a severely pinched nerve in my again. I lastly wound up in traction for 12 days in a hospital close to my residence in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Although I had come fairly near dying in one of many remotest elements of the earth, I didn’t come practically as shut as I did 4 years later, in 1976. That journey discovered me slowly ravenous to dying with virtually no hope for rescue.
Why does a person get himself into such conditions? In my case it’s an virtually uncontrollable urge to hunt the last word in looking and fishing adventures. All of it started way back to I can bear in mind.
I used to be born 64 years in the past in Grand Rapids. My dad and my brother and most of our pals had an intense love for the outside. I shot my first whitetail buck in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula after I was 14, and I’ve scored on 42 extra Michigan bucks since then. Our outside adventures have been often tied in with tenting. I fell completely in love with tenting the primary time I attempted it.
I’ve at all times been simply as loopy about canoeing. Going anywhere with a canoe opened new worlds for me. As a boy, I saved my nickels and dimes until I had sufficient cash to lease a canoe and discover the Grand River, which flows by means of Grand Rapids. Although town has a inhabitants of practically 200,000, I by no means had bother paddling into backwaters and sloughs the place civilization appeared distant. It was throughout these boyhood occasions that I developed my ambitions of exploring the Far North.
Throughout the subsequent few years, I made a number of journeys into Ontario with companions. However, I by no means discovered anybody who liked the northwoods as I did, so I started planning my journeys as a loner. I reasoned that if I had a canoe, motor, tent, and provides, I might go anyplace.
I started canoeing a variety of northern Ontario. Throughout these early years I earned my dwelling by working for my dad in his restaurant. Later, I bought a job in a machine store. By 1940, I had saved sufficient cash to make a down fee on the Anchor Bar, which I nonetheless personal and function. Within the late 1940’s and early ’50s, I explored a number of rivers that move into the Manitoba part of Hudson Bay. On a kind of journeys, I spotted I had canoed farther north than some elements of Alaska. So, Alaska turned my subsequent aim.
I didn’t make it up there until 1957. I hunted Dall sheep within the Chugach Mountains, caribou within the Talkeetna Mountains, moose on the Kenai Peninsula, and brown bear on the Alaska Peninsula. At the moment a nonresident didn’t want a information, so I hunted the place I happy.
My involvement with canoeing the arctic coast started in 1964 after I made my first journey into the Northwest Territories. I wished to discover the wildest space in North America. I left Fort Windfall on Nice Slave Lake on July 2. I canoed all the way in which down the Mackenzie River to Mackenzie Bay within the Beaufort Sea, however it took me until early September to get there. I bought into bother as a result of I gambled on winter being late.
My 2½-horsepower outboard motor didn’t push me again upstream as quick because it did downstream, however I made it again to Aklavik. There, I boarded a bush aircraft that flew me and my outfit over mountains to a small lake which was the headwaters of the Little Bell River. I had hoped to canoe down the Little Bell, Huge Bell, and Porcupine rivers to Fort Yukon, however I froze in at a small Athabasca Indian settlement.
My intention was to stroll the 180 miles to Fort Yukon after the river ice turned protected for climbing, however it turned out that I bought residence with a lot much less effort. I flew out of the settlement on a bush aircraft that introduced in a faculty instructor.
After having seen the immense remoteness of the world, I developed an intense want to canoe alongside the Arctic coast. On the time I had no intention of canoeing the fabled Northwest Passage, however I did wish to begin at Level Barrow, Alaska, the start of the three,200-mile passage that has claimed many lives.
I most likely deliberate my journey in addition to anyone might. I’ve at all times been fascinated with maps, so I bought detailed maps displaying each mile of my route and I studied them until I virtually knew the shoreline by coronary heart. My tools consisted of a 16-foot square-stern canoe, a brand new 3-h.p. outboard motor, a brand new pop tent — the one sort that received’t be ripped to shreds within the fierce arctic winds — range, rifle, spinning deal with, gasoline, oil, spare motor elements, versatarps, ice pole, and different gear together with dehydrated meals. I used to be properly conscious that this journey could be essentially the most dangerous of my life.
However I wasn’t about to give up. Certainly one of my fundamental worries had been getting gasoline alongside the way in which. Then Max Bruer, supervisor of the navy’s arctic analysis lab at Level Barrow, advised me about gasoline caches alongside the coast. He pinpointed their areas on my maps. I additionally knew the areas of a number of manned DewLine Stations.
Shoreline ice cleared sufficient to allow starting my journey on July 25, 1966. I canoed 600 miles to Barter Island by September 1. I saved my gear and flew residence.
By now, I had visions of canoeing your complete Northwest Passage. Every year I made a part of the journey, apart from 1973 and ’74. In ’73, the yr after I harm my again, medical doctors advised me I’d be loopy to go north with my damage nonetheless not fully healed. So I stayed residence. In ’74, I bought again to Batty Bay and came upon that the bear I’d shot wasn’t the one one within the space. My canoe and equipment, which I needed to depart behind after I was rescued by helicopter, had been smashed by different polar bears. I spent the remainder of that trip fishing at Pond Inlet.
In 1975, I re-equipped and spent a lot of the summer time exploring large Creswell Bay on Somerset Island. The realm was a wildlife haven. Meals was seldom an issue, till my fateful journey in 1976.
I left residence in mid-July by automotive and drove to Montreal. From there I took a 2,000-mile industrial flight to Resolute. Then I flew to the Eskimo settlement on Creswell Bay the place I had left my canoe and outfit the yr earlier than. The journey began going bitter proper from there.
The Eskimos figured they’d by no means see me once more, so a few of my possessions had been scattered amongst seven households. I had a tough time getting my issues again. Then I needed to wait two weeks for the ice pack to interrupt up alongside the shore. I didn’t shove off until Friday, August 13.
I had a variety of bother with ice floes, however I bought to Whaler Level on August 24. The 200-mile journey meant that I’d lastly conquered the Northwest Passage by canoe, and I thereby turned the one man to do it.
Whaler Level is on the intense northeast nook of Somerset Island. The weather will be vicious, and so they bought to me in a rush. That evening, the wind should have reached 100 miles an hour. I needed to sit up all evening with my again in opposition to the wall of the tent to maintain it from blowing away. The storm produced an unusually excessive tide that worn out most of my gasoline.
It continued brutally chilly. Gale-driven snow packed in opposition to my tent, and I needed to chop it away with my paddle earlier than it collapsed my tent.
The storm didn’t die out until August 29. I used to be nearly out of meals, and there was no recreation within the space. I dismantled my camp and headed my canoe for the outdated Hudson Bay submit on Port Leopold Bay. I hadn’t traveled greater than a mile after I heard a aircraft. It flew proper over me, circled after which, to my nice shock, landed on the snow-covered seashore at Whaler Level. I had anticipated the aircraft to choose me up on the submit the place there’s a touchdown strip.
Regardless of. I used to be optimistic the pilot had noticed me. As I continued on towards the submit the aircraft instantly took off and flew straightaway. It was virtually not possible that the pilot hadn’t noticed me. I assumed that he could be again later.
I continued on to the submit the place I discovered a rock cairn — a cache of provides laid in by Canadian officers for emergencies. Such cairns are sponsored by the Order of St. John in London, England. They’re scattered alongside the arctic coast, and are constructed with mortar and rocks.
I pitched camp by the cairn, however, I didn’t open it for a number of days throughout which I turned essentially the most annoyed and flabbergasted man on this world. It was unimaginable, however I needed to settle for the truth that the pilot had not seen me. Later, I discovered the flying service had offered out to a different concern whereas I used to be on my journey. My pick-up directions had been misunderstood. The pilot, when he landed at Whaler Level and didn’t discover me, assumed that I used to be misplaced and doubtless useless.
I spent eight extra horrible days in camp. I had been rationing my meals for over 10 days. All I had left was just a few chunks of compressed emergency meals from the cairn. I used to be rising very weak. I usually lose about 35 kilos on every of my arctic journeys, and I knew I used to be properly previous that. It was now apparent that ready for a rescue aircraft was futile. I needed to attempt utilizing my final power to go north. Farther north I’d have extra probability of being nearer to a aircraft route.
On September 6 I attempted to interrupt camp, however I used to be too weak to get my gear collectively. I rested all day, then tried once more subsequent morning. I lastly bought beneath method, simply in time. There was little or no open water left. I knew my probabilities of survival have been about zero. Winter was setting in, my meals provide was virtually gone, I had two gallons of gasoline, and I used to be so weak I might hardly steer by means of the ice floes.
Lastly, I got here to a gravel seashore. I bought ashore, pitched what I figured was my final camp on this world, then fell asleep fully exhausted. Every morning for 4 days, I went exterior and used all my vitality within the usually easy job of clearing snow off the 8 x 10-foot blaze-orange sign tarp I had unfold on the bottom close to my tent.
On the fifth morning, I awoke and questioned if I used to be wanting on the similar miserable tent partitions for my final day on earth. I had no want to rise up, however I needed to urinate. I cleaned off the tarp, then noticed what I assumed was a seagull flying towards me. I blinked my eyes, then knew it was a low-flying aircraft. I grabbed my tarp and waved it frantically.
Learn Subsequent: I Nearly Froze to Death When Our Argo Sank in the Middle of an Arctic River
The aircraft flew previous, banked, then got here in to land on the snow-covered seashore. In moments, pilot Timmy Lee, constable John Drisdelle, and I have been exchanging bear hugs. I repeated time and again, “Thank God I’m alive.” Tears of aid ran from my eyes.
It turned out that the Bradley Air Service aircraft was on a gasoline run to an island close by. Even so, Lee and Drisdelle had been searching for me on the odd probability I used to be nonetheless alive. We couldn’t take my canoe out. It’s nonetheless up there, and It might be there perpetually. I’ve since promised mv spouse Anne that I’m all completed with that a part of the world. It’s time: it virtually killed me twice.
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