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Starkell, Don, 1932

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Author of Paddle to the Amazon

ISBN 0-7710-8248-7

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PADDLE TO THE ARCTIC

Paddle to the Amazon:

The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure edited by Charles Wilkins

The incredible story of a kayak quest across the roof of the world

Don Starkell

M&S

An M&S Paperback from McClelland & Stewart Inc. 77ie Canadian Publishers

Copyright 1995 by Don StarkeU

Ail rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency - is an infringement of the copyright law.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Starkell, Don, 1932

Paddle to the Arctic: the incredible story of a kayak quest across the roof of the world

ISBN 0-7710-8239-8

1. Starkell, Don, 1932- Journeys Northwest Passage.

2. Northwest Passage - Description and travel.

3. Sea kayaking - Northwest Passage. I. Title.

FC3963.S73 1995 9io'.9i63'27 C95-931594-2

F1090.5.S73 1995

Typesetting by M&S, Toronto Maps by James Loates/VisuTronx Printed and bound in Canada on acid-free paper

The publishers acknowledge the support of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council for their publishing program.

A Douglas Gibson Book

McClelland & Stewart Inc.

The Canadian Publishers 481 University Avenue Toronto, Ontario M5G 2E9

12345 99 98 97 96

To the Inuit, and to the later explorers and adventurers of the Arctic. They blazed the trail, set the standards, and left the knowledge of their experiences in their legends and their journals and charts. They made my imagination work, and my adventure possible.

SASKATCHEWAN

Dreams are only dreams imagination flowing into action is reality.

- DON STARKELL

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

Introduction 11 Prologue 13

North from Churchill (1990) 17

A Trio Heads North (1991) 45 Two Leave Arviat 64 On to Repulse Bay 76 Overland to Spence Bay (1992) 104

Long Haul to Gjoa Haven 123 Alone on the Ice 134 By Kayak from Cambridge Bay 173 From Coppermine West 206 Beyond Cape Parry 244 Fighting Freeze-Up 263 Arriving in Tuk. 296

Epilogue 303 Acknowledgements 310 Glossary 313

this is the story of my three attempts to navigate Canadas Northwest Passage by sea kayak during the years of 1990,1991, and 1992. The voyage proved to be the longest self-propelled kayak journey in Canadian Arctic history.

My journey started in Churchill, Manitoba, on Canadas gigantic Hudson Bay, and moved north into the Arctic Ocean along a route via the Inuit (Eskimo) communities of Arviat (formerly called Eskimo Point), Whale Cove, Rankin Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet, Repulse Bay, Pelly Bay, Spence Bay (known by its traditional name, Taloyoak, since July 1992), Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay, Coppermine (now in the process of being renamed Kugluktuk), Paulatuk, and Tuktoyaktuk, all in the Northwest Territories.

My route of approximately 3,200 miles (or 5,150 kilometres) was covered during the short summer months of June to September. The account that follows is taken from my daily journals, with additional information from my travelling partners, my research, and a vivid memory.

I chose to measure distances throughout in miles. The miles shown are the standard short mile of 5,280 feet (as in the four-minute mile), not the longer nautical (or sea) mile of 6,080 feet. Those more comfortable with metric measurement will find it helpful to remember that a kilometre equals 0.621 miles.

At this point I would like to give special thanks to my good friend Gloria Pearn for the many hours she assisted me in shaping my diaries into presentable form for publication.

The Arctic plays funny tricks on you - it lures, it teases, it romances. So many of its visitors leave and soon feel compelled to return to its magnetic attraction and spells. I find it difficult to explain. So did Patrick G. Hunt, one of the great Arctic explorers. He was part of the crew of the St. Roch, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police boat that in 194042 made the first Canadian voyage through the Northwest Passage. I telephoned him on his seventy-ninth birthday in 1993 and was honoured to speak to history in the form of the only living rcmp member of the expedition. He struggled to put the lure of the Arctic (to which he returned for the second St. Roch voyage in 1944) into words: There is something about the Arctic that gets into you at some stage of your life, and if you ever succumb to it... theres an inner feeling.

Don Starkell April 1995

june 14, 1990 At Churchill, Manitoba (Hudson Bay).

Every day is a new adventure. Here I am, now fifty-seven and a half years old, at Churchill, Manitoba (population 1,143), on Hudson Bay in Northern Canada. I have checked in to a complimentary room at the Tundra Inn after a thirty-five-hour train ride north through Manitoba from my home in Winnipeg. Stark lands with caribou, ptarmigan, and Canada geese sightings en route.

Once again I am very scared.

Ten years ago I was on the Red River, somewhere between Grand Forks and Fargo, North Dakota. I was heading south with my sons, Dana and Jeff, on what eventually turned out to be the longest legitimate canoe voyage in history - 12,281 miles in twenty-three months. All the way by paddle and portage from Winnipeg to the mouth of the Amazon River at Belem, in Brazil, as recorded in my book Paddle to the Amazon. Then it was thirteen countries now its only one. Then we faced the military, police, pirates, and drug barons now I will be meeting tough and raw nature with ice, wind, tides, bears, cold, loneliness, fear, and the unknown. Then we were heading south - now Im heading north.