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 The journey continued northeast down the Owl River.
Remember I said I wondered what wind and clear skies would be like? Well, on day six, we were to find out. Clear skies and strong winds
on our backs:  ambient temperature -25°C
- with wind-chill, -47°C. Chilly. It was strong enough for me to stand still on the ice and be
blown forwards; strong  enough to blow the pulk ahead of me, towing me
along with it; strong enough to sit on the pulk and be blown along. Wow. That was fun for a while,
then we realised that we really
needed to get serious about protecting our faces and moving on to generate
body heat. That really was very very very cold - bollocks to brass
monkeys! Then I found out what frost nip is all about - I felt my face burning with cold and it felt a
 little odd as I helped a team member
change his film. Basically my right cheek and nose froze.
Apparently it looked like my skin was coated in candle wax. It was
quickly cured by my mate placing his hand on the frozen bits - I was
pissed off he didn't take a photo first! It happened again a little
later, at which point I thought the full face balaclava, to become an ice
encrusted gimp was an attractive option!
 Occasional glances back revealed the lost valley
disappearing behind us with the sun surrounded by a huge halo, the like of
which you can only see in the extreme cold. Incredible
scenery.
 The final part of the journey was less spectacular but
interesting nonethless as the terrain became flatter, the valley widened
out, it started snowing and we took a wrong turn. We ended up in a
river valley strewn with boulders. Tricky enough without snow, ice and
pulks, but with all three, the chances of a broken leg were quite
high. So we climbed out of the valley with two to a pulk. Hard
work but a good lesson to illustrate the 'Incident Pit' - how not identifying
and rectifying a simple problem up front can quickly turn into a much
harder or even impossible situation to get out of. At the edge of
the pit, it is easy to fix a problem, the further you slide into it, the
harder it is to get out. It also illustrated how, when faced with a
problem, people tend to rush at it to get out as quickly as
possible. This is quite the wrong thing to do - for us it would have
meant massively increasing the risk of injury and getting hot and sweaty,
later leading to dehydration and cold. In the end, no harm done, but
lots learned.
Finally, we decided to opt for a pick up
by skidoo, to take us quickly across the last 40 miles. This because
none of us could afford to miss our planes home. We chose to go at
that time because the weather was good enough for the skidoos to come
out - to delay would have risked another weather change and us
getting stuck. Well, by using the radio in the penultimate hut, the
pick up was arranged. Our pulks were loaded onto one big sledge and
us into another, each towed by a skidoo. This would be fine for a
short ride, in the warm across flat terrain. But it was night, still
25 degrees below and falling, the ice NOT flat, the sledges open topped
with NO suspension (doh) and the exhaust pipe conveniently located to
direct all fumes into the sledge. I took a spell in the sledge but
then switched to the back of the skidoo 'cause my kit was warmer.
The journey took 3½ hours. It was described as like being
asphyxiated in a deep freeze whilst being beaten by a piece of 4x2!
On arrival, the team in skidoo were mumbling about hypothermia (whimps, I
say) apart from Mark, who was toasty in his sleeping bag (the others
didn't appreciate being informed of this irrelevant piece of
trivia). As for me, my body and face were warmish but my knees stuck out
on the skidoo (it's designed for Inuit proportions) and froze. When
we stopped, they thawed - ever had chill blains? Bet they were only
of the fingers but I bet they hurt. Chill blains of the knees?
Ow. TOP TIP - don't do it unless you have to! TOP TIP
2 - if you do do it, wrap up in everything you have, including your
sleeping bag - maybe take a tarpaulin you can cover yourself with.  Qikiqtarquaq,
Broughton
Island provides warm bunkhouse accommodation. The toilet is outside
- a bucket that you go in if you have to, or near if you can (one chap
(names withheld to protect the innocent .. but he's from Lancashire) had
directional difficulties, bearing in mind the bucket was full, and ended
up going 'near' even though he intended to go 'in' - he was knicknamed the
Yorkshire (sic) Whipit).
Showers - well you need chat up the local nurse (as we did ... "no,
shit Sherlock?!!") to get one in her house. Otherwise, water is delivered by
bowser into a big vat in the nissen hut. If you are lucky the hut
would have been used recently. If not, any remaining water will be
frozen solid - how do we know that .. 'cause it was when we arrived.
Still, there is a huge gas fired boiler that chucks out vast quantities of
hot air. And, by the time you get off that damn skidoo, you will all
go down on your knees and worship that heater as your new found God - you
will offer sacrifices to thank it for its kindness and beg for mercy to
keep it going!!! Yes, we WERE cold when we got there. But the
hut and it's heater WERE total heaven.
   We
chilled out there for a day playing cards and liar dice. We went
shopping for food and souvenirs. We had a parade of local people
coming to visit to offer us carvings, things they'd made, skins etc
etc. We bought a bit. We wandered out onto the sea ice in bay
and visited an iceburg that had got trapped there the previous autumn, and
we met local children who showed us there igloos that they had built as
part of a school project.
  
  
We
also worried about our flight out. There had been blizzards in
Iqaluit for the previous three days preventing planes from leaving to
reach Broughton Island. However, they cleared in time and we caught
our flight on schedule. We did indeed fly back over where we'd just
walked and were totally gob smacked by what we saw and all said 'did we
walk that?' Will I do it again? You bet!! 
  
[ Why? ] [ Preliminaries ] [ Getting There ] [ Days 1 and 2 ] [ Day 3 ] [ Days 4 and 5 ] [ Days 6, 7 and 8 ]
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