Three months after leaving his home port in Alberta, bison producer Ben Gray has made it to the Nunavut community of Gjoa Haven in the central Arctic.
Gray must now wait there for the wind to break apart the Arctic ice so he can travel north to Resolute Bay, around Baffin Island and east to Greenland.
The ice in the bay around Gjoa Haven has cleared, but 160 kilometres further north, it is packed solid, making travel impossible.
“It’s all weather dependent,” said Gray by telephone from Gjoa Haven.
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“We really need the wind to shake it up.”
Ice has been a constant factor for Gray and his crew since mid-July when they encountered it near Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories.
When he first planned the trip, Gray envisioned the ice as a solid block with small cracks that would allow his boat, the Idlewild, to sneak through open water.
Instead, he said the ice is like a bunch of pancakes of varying shapes and sizes, continually being ripped apart or bunched together by the wind.
If too many of the pancake-like ice floes are jammed together, the Idlewild must travel several kilometres around to find a way through. In many areas, the water surface is 70 to 80 percent covered with ice.
“It gets more difficult as the plates get bigger.”
Gray said only once near Herschel Island has the ice caused excitement, when they had little experience travelling in ice-covered water.
A combination of strong wind and thick ice forced the crew to take refuge in port when they were afraid the ice was about to close in around the boat.
“The ice is always interesting. It changes so much.”
Despite the constant danger and challenges, Gray said the Arctic travel is easier than navigating through the shallow rivers that the boat travelled when it left Dunvegan on the Peace River in northern Alberta on May 24.
“It’s not strenuous, it’s pretty relaxing,” said Gray, who added it requires only one or two people to watch for ice through the fog and manoeuvre the 55-horsepower boat through the water.
At the start of the summer, the Idlewild was one of eight boats trying to sail around northern Canada. Three have given up and five are attempting the northern Arctic sea route.
Every evening the crew touches base through a radio network in Cambridge Bay. A radio operator gives ice and weather reports and talks to the boats travelling in the area.
At each of the ports the residents have welcomed the crew. In Cambridge Bay they were lent all-terrain vehicles to tour the area. Within an hour of arriving in Gjoa Haven, they had two invitations for supper.
“The people continue to be so kind and helpful,” said Gray.
While they haven’t seen a polar bear they did see 25-centimetre-wide polar bear tracks near an old whaling station.
