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Magnetic North
The season is short but intense: The lodge is only open five or six weeks each year, but during that time you have all the wilderness you need at the front step of your yurt. Cunningham Inlet is one of the best spots in the world to watch migrating beluga whales, which come here in July and August to moult. I decline the bulldozer ride across the polar ice – which is, by most accounts, melting at an alarming rate – so I can see the High Arctic at its most beautiful and, I discover, its most dangerous. I pack my hiking boots knowing that I’m in good hands. Richard is the only person to complete seven expeditions to the North Pole, including one of the most extreme. In 1995, he and Russian doctor Mikhail Malakhov braved -60ºC temperatures to become the only unsupported trekkers to travel 1,500 kilometres from Ward Hunt Island to the North Pole and back. (They chronicled the trip in their book Polar Attack.) Josée, meanwhile, earned her legs as a guide on trips such as last year’s all-women expedition to the South Pole. On paper, they seem like the last people you’d expect to open an upscale resort. Although Arctic Watch is in the middle of precisely nowhere, we’re a pampered bunch: hot-water bottles for our beds, fresh-baked bread and steaming apple cider by the fireplace in the lounge. There, we spend evenings reflecting on the day’s activities, the tales becoming more absurd as the midnight sun toys with our internal clocks. Sleep-deprived giddiness takes hold. There’s still some degree of roughing it. Even in this harsh environment, Richard is an exacting guide, and our days are measured by 16-kilometre hikes and 14-kilometre kayak trips (though most groups, he admits, do less). Over the week, we will be introduced to the Weber Mile. As in, “We start the raft trip just over that ridge. It’s no more than a mile.” Forty-five minutes later, our ragtag group is still hiking up the ridge, the rafts are nowhere in sight and Richard is powering across the spongy permafrost and fractured shale so quickly that he has to stop every 10 minutes to wait for us to catch up. The Weber Mile – actually about four – illustrates a kind of self-deceit among explorers; this is the type of mind-play you need to survive when the elements and bears conspire against you. (Two armed guides don’t hurt.) |
Photo: Steve and Linda Henry