Into the Tunda: Part Four

The following is an account of day four of our trip to the arctic circle.  If you missed day three, you can catch up in quick fashion with a recap found here.

It was a chilly night in the tent.  We had a little propane lantern going before bed, and that helped to heat the area, and of course my bag was cozy, but the morning air was not.  I was happy I had splurged for a sleep sack, which boasted an extra 25 degrees of protection.  I don’t know about 25, but it was soft and well worth the extra layer to keep in body heat.

The provisions from the outfitter included a two-burner stove and a kettle; the latter we had filled with lake water the night before, and had it ready in the vestibule.  Edgar broke up the thin layer of ice that had formed overnight, and got coffee going, since one of us is not such a morning person (cough, cough, me, cough cough) and he kindly served it to me in my sleeping bag so I could warm up before I got up.

Once we were properly caffeinated, we greeted the morning at first light.  We couldn’t get over the beauty of our camp site.  The water was blue and clear, and clean enough to drink.  I’ve never been camping anywhere where we just took our water bottles down to the edge of the lake and scooped up a bunch to drink, but that’s what we did all week with no arguments from our digestive systems.  (Special thanks to my friend who gave me a life water tube to use just in case – I did try it out just so I’ll be ready if it’s needed on the next trip!)

My stomach wakes up slowly, but Edgar woke up starving and decided to have a Mountain House spaghetti for breakfast.  We didn’t know what to expect from the ready-to-eat packs, but we found them surprisingly tasty.  We poured a couple of cups of hot water right in the pouch, let it sit, and in no time it was ready to eat.

The guys who stayed at the camp prior to our arrival had killed several of their caribou after spotting them right from camp, so our binoculars were never far away, and we glassed in between making coffee, and packing gear.  It wasn’t uncommon for one of us to be making a sandwich, and the other to take a quick climb up the hill to see what we could see.

We decided to head to a small hill not too far away and put our binoculars to work.  The caribou seemed to be coming from the south and heading north into a valley.  We made some pb&j sandwiches, filled up our water bottles and layered up for the day.  We also packed meat bags, knives, a bone saw, and other items we’d need if we were successful in our hunt.

Once we found a comfy spot, we leaned against our packs and looked over the tundra, up on the hill, around the rocks and back to the tundra again.  At first my eyes deceived me.  Everything that dotted the landscape looked like a caribou.  I’d stare at a dark speck with a shiny side, slide off it and then move back over.  Did it move?  No.  Rock.   We did this for an hour or two, snacking on mini snickers, but eventually the sun warmed us so nicely that we found ourselves dozing here and there.  We woke up a while later to see a cow and calf crossing the tundra.  They moved pretty leisurely for a long time, before suddenly trotting away.

A while later we saw another cow and calf hanging out by the river… which was easily a mile from us but still in our view. We walked up the river bed for a closer look, and to get a better understanding of the best way to travel.  Prior to our trip, the one warning we got more than other wasn’t about low temperatures or grizzlies, but about the challenge of walking on the tundra.  The land is boggy; it sits on permafrost.  Trees can’t root down through it, so we saw grass and small shrubbery on top and some sort of plant that looks like a head of broccoli, called a tussock.  Sometimes when we’d step, we’d get grass.  Sometimes our boots would sink under mucky water, and sometimes we’d land on a bouncy tussock.  The river bed was mostly gravel, and much more inviting, and we traveled it whenever it was going in our general direction, even if we had to wind around a bit.

Just down river, no bulls were in sight, so we had to be content with enjoying the scenery, which was easy enough to do.  It was so quiet that at one point I heard a noise and couldn’t figure out what it was.  Eventually I placed it.  It was the rustle of a bird’s wings as it flew above me.

At dusk we headed back to camp to build a fire and enjoy a warm meal of beef stroganoff.  We made a plan to move into the valley the next day, where the animals all seemed to be headed.

In part five, our patience pays off along with our waders and pack out bag, and we hit our record for number of miles traveled across the tundra in one day.