Received the following email from Cameron today (07 feb):
"Well, it's time to hit the trail. After several days of consulting with local hunters, wildlife officials,
dog-mushers, a man who's trekked to the North Pole, and others, the consensus is that the sea ice is at this time too
cracked for a decent coastal journey; in addition, my trek region is particularly thick with polar bears due to these cracks;
the bears hunt the sea ice crack-lines (called 'leads', pronounced 'leeds') and they're active right along the region I originally
planned to traverse. No matter, I know from 20 years outdoors now that expedition plans often change due to the environment, and in
fact if everything were known, I wouldn't be interested. Am I flying home, then? No way! I'm going to start by making a trek somewhat
inland of the coast, 33 miles SE from Barrow to Admiralty Bay. There I'll turn back for Barrow, to make it back in time for Kiviuk, an
extraordinary gathering of native Arctic people from around the globe: Alaskan natives, natives of Canada and Greenland, as well as Siberian
and Chukchi natives from Russia. This isn't an annual event, and it's not held in Barrow all the time, and as an archaeologist/anthropologist --
heck, as a human being! -- this gathering is irresistibly fascinating. I've arranged to attend the gathering to document in photos and writings,
and to lodge here at the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC) base during the event. After this 66-mile 'shakedown' trek, and the Kiviuk
gathering, I'll still have a month's rations remaining, and will use it on a series of treks -- or one long trek -- near the coast, occasionally
darting out to the sea ice to experience it, film it, and photograph it, as originally planned.
The folks here are extremely generous and have offered to let me use a few of their cabins on the way. Therefore, I might begin the second
(longer) trek by heading across some relatively stable sea ice to Iko Bay (E of Barrow) to stay in a hut for a few days before heading about
50 miles SSE towards Lake Teshekpuk, where there is a BASC-Wildlife cabin; I could base there, making forays out from it onto the sea ice of Smith Bay,
checking on a few BASC research facilities out on the tundra (I'm particularly keen to do this as a measure of thanks for BASC's support), and generally
getting an impression of the terrain. At the end of the trek, I believe I'll still have made my roughly 200-miles on foot, alone, in Winter, though only
some of it will be on sea ice, and much of it on land. That's OK. I'm patient...I did go back to Iceland three times, after all, to finally cross the ice cap,
and would not change a thing: I learned an enormous amount in those expeditions, and I'm sure I'll do the same here. A full coastal sea ice trek can wait.
I'm not interested in just making miles for the numbers, or making speed records -- I hate outdoor contests of speed, which focus on the person rather than the
place the person is in -- so I have no reservations about the new expedition plan, on both sea ice and tundra.
So, what will this tundra terrain be like? It's truly beautiful from what I've seen so far: tundra is an expansive, low-relief, hummocky surface, where snow piles
up in drifts downwind of any features and tufts of stiff brown grasses poke up from the snow. There are a thousand lakes and streams to cross, and most of them should
be solid ice, or capped with six feet of ice. The landscape is open and frees the mind; it's swept with a bitter wind, and drifting snow moves across it like smoke,
hissing quietly and incessantly. The other day we saw black specks moving a mile or three out; caribou! I'd thought they were all South at this time, but no, one herd
remains up here over the winter. Well, this will be my world - piles and scoops of drift snow; frozen lakes; drifting snow; wind that hardens the face and numbs the hands;
evenly-burning stars ticking across the void of space; the aurora; and the bumps-and-thuds of my sled dragging along behind me.
The sat phone is up with four fresh batteries, my plans have been locked in, I'll be pulling by sunrise tomorrow (Thursday).
My first report should come in at 8pm Alaska time (an hour behind Pacific time) and Chuck will post it some time after that."
All Material Copyright 2007 Cameron McPherson Smith unless otherwise credited.