Right: Erik Boomer navigates a
labyrinth of treacherous ice floes. PHOTO: JON TURK
Below: Amid the desolate ice, the team encountered a curious Arctic fox, communed with a white wolf and experienced unnerving visits from aggressive polar bears—one bear ripped a hole in their tent and thrust its head inside. PHOTOS: ERIK BOOMER
Right page: Jon Turk on the 500-mile home stretch through walrus-, polar bear- and ice- congested polar seas. PHOTO: ERIK BOOMER
Turk: We left the Eureka weather station on day 24 with 50 days of food and 300 miles to our next cache, near Ward Hunt Island. Knowledgeable explor- ers had warned us that the ice on the northwest corner of Ellesmere might be very rough and that we might be slowed to traveling a few miles or even a few hundred yards a day. If the ice turned out to be that rough, we would have starved before reaching our food drums. Why did you continue on with me in the face of such uncertainty and potentially dire consequences?
Boomer: This was my biggest concern of the whole expedition. The environment was so harsh and unpredictable that rescue options were few and far between. Even if we could make it to one of the few viable landing strips, there was no guarantee that the weather would allow a plane to reach us. So unless we were extraordinarily lucky, we might have had to wait a week or more for an aircraft. If we were starving or injured, that might be too long.
38 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SPRING 2012
Paradoxically, this risk factor is the main reason I joined you on this expedition. I found myself going through the same mental process that I go through before paddling over a huge un-run waterfall. Identify the dangers and decide if I can hit the line that will lead to a clean drop. The major difference is that kayaking waterfalls lasts only a few seconds. On this expedition the nervous uncertain feeling was a nagging daily emotion.
The unknown, difficult nature of the North Coast kept the expedition exciting and fun. No day was monotonous. We skied to exhaustion every day, knowing that if we met or exceeded our 15-miles-per-day average, we would be saving food, time and energy for the possibility of rough ice and slow travel ahead.
As it turned out, we exceeded our expectations and made great time getting to our food cache near Ward Hunt. Actu- ally, I think the traveling became a lot tougher later. We could worry all day about the “what ifs.” Adventure is about accepting the challenge to go into the unknown.
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