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A SHAREWARE TRIAL PROJECT YOUR SUPPORT WILL ENSURE THE SUCCESS OF THIS ENDEAVOR PLEASE SELECT "FOR FURTHER EMJOYMENT" FROM THE MAIN MENU THE ARCTIC CIRCLE AND BEYOND BY JIM PRENTICE COPYRIGHT 1990, JIM PRENTICE, BRANDON, MANITOBA, CANADA The Arctic. Hardly the place for a private pilot from Southern Manitoba. The conditions and expenses involved in a flight north of the arctic circle eliminate all but the very fortunate, or the very rich. The high arctic has it's own mystique. Countless reams have been written about the challenges, hard ships, triumphs, and defeats of Arctic travellers. I doubt if there will ever be a time which parallels the present for entrepreneurs north of the tree line. As technology grows in more southern climes, so grows the demand in the northern areas. The government controls much of the advances in technology in the northern communities, whether through political maneuvering, or outright favoritism. Whatever the reason, the task of getting the job done often rests on the more energetic and ambitious businessman. It is to my great advantage that I am a good friend of one of these businessmen. Gordon owns a plumbing and heating business in The Pas, in Northern Manitoba. He has many contracts in the local area, and does quite well by them. His business is different, in that he also has contracts in the high arctic. Through contracts with DPW (Department of Public Works), he has crews in the high arctic. They are installing plumbing and heating equipment in new construction projects, and refurbishing older installations. To some, this may seem to be a lucrative contract. In some ways, it is. If you discount the logistic problems involved in installing a heating system in a school, perhaps 1000 miles from the nearest high way, you may come to realize the complexities involved. Literally everything used in this project must come in by air. Men, equipment, tools, and material. The tools are not the simple box of wrenches required by a mechanic. Nor the assortment of screwdrivers and pliers of an electrician. The heating expert must bring in the equipment required to convert sheet metal into ductwork. The breaks, and rollers. The shears, hammers, formers and other heavy tools needed to transform the sheets of galvanized iron into a complete heating system. There are no suppliers up here. If an item is forgotten in the estimate, it must be flown in. Not from a nearby city, nor from the handy neighborhood wholesaler. It must be brought in from the home office. In this case, a flight of over 1000 miles. To explain my involvement in this, let me explain the situation. My logbook reflects that I had moved, with my family, from Gillam, a more remote community, to The Pas, on October 7th, 1977. With the unfathomable reasoning with which all bankers seem to be born, my local branch manager informed me that I would either have to sell my airplane, or live in it. I was trying to arrange a mortgage at the time. I sold my "creampuff" 1954 Cessna 170B, complete with the expensive 180 HP. conversion we had done the year before. We bought a house. After which my allseeing bank manager told me I could buy another airplane, "If I wished." I wished, for another 2 years, but that is another story. Actually, that other story leads right into this one. To keep it brief, I had bought and restored another airplane, a 1947 Stinson 108 3, I had done the restoration in Gordon's hangar. We came to know each other rather well. In April of 1982, Gordon phoned me with an offer. The auto pilot in his twin engine Beech Travelair had packed up. He had to make a trip to the arctic to carry supplies, and check on the progress of his men on a school project. You can imagine my surprise when Gord called me to go with him as second pilot, all expenses paid. As it happened, I was scheduled for a four day weekend from my own job. I phoned my foreman, just in case, and told him I was going up to the Arctic for a few days. April 9, 1982. Gordon and I, a full load of fuel, plumbing equipment, and survival gear, headed north. We stopped at Lynne Lake, Churchill, and Baker Lake for fuel. In early afternoon we arrived at Gjoa Haven, a small Eskimo hamlet on King William Island. We were more than 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. To be this far north was one thing, to have flown it was something else. Gordon had been up here many times before. He read a playboy magazine while I flew the aircraft. This wouldn't normally present a problem, except that the directional gyro was on his side of the panel. Each time I did an instrument scan, I had to lift his book to see the guages. Now you might ask, what is a VFR private pilot doing on instruments, north of the Arctic Circle? I may have asked myself the same question. I had done a bit of instrument flight, and Gord had a rating. All I was doing was holding altitude and course. I didn't have much choice. After our trip, I was asked to explain what it was like to fly the arctic in winter. The only way I can summarize the flight is like this: Assume you are standing at the center of the 50 yard line of a football stadium. The sky, the sidelines, and the seating area are all painted sky blue. The playing field is all snow white, and you are 1/4 inch high. That is what it is like to fly VFR in the winter Arctic. There is absolutely nothing to relate to. The horizon is obscured by ice fog, the sky above is clear blue. The land below is a continuous stretch of featureless white snow. During the flight to Gjoa Haven, I was curious. Would we see any Musk Ox, or Caribou? I kept looking over the side, hoping to see some wildlife. Between looking for animals, and flying the twin, I began to get a bit queasy. I asked Gord to take control as I swung the yoke over to his side. "I noticed you were getting erratic about 20 minutes ago." he said. "I thought I would leave it to you for a while." I think that was the greatest compliment I have ever received on my flying. Here we were, about to cross the arctic circle, and Gord is waiting to see if I could handle it. I must admit, if I had been alone, the results would have been disastrous. I had vertigo so bad I wasn't sure if we were right side up. Gord took control and continued the flight. I concentrated on the artificial horizon, trying to reestablish a reference point for my equilibrium. There was no use looking out the window, there was nothing but ice, snow, and blue sky. I relaxed for an hour, at first concentrating on the gyro horizon, reestablishing where "up" was. I read Gord's book for a while, then did some dead reckoning computations to estimate our location. We were about one hour out of Gjoa Haven when I resumed control of the airplane. At last we began to receive the faint signal from the Gjoa Haven beacon. We were within a few degrees of our proper course. We had been flying by dead reckoning for an hour. The beacon at Baker Lake only serving us long enough to establish our drift corrections. Our calculations indicated we should soon see King William Island, on which Gjoa Haven is located. The view was the same in all directions, I asked Gord to take over control, I wanted to take some pictures. I tried to focus the camera, there was nothing to focus on except the wingtip. I set the lens at infinity and took shots straight ahead, downward, and to either side. Again I found myself looking for wildlife, to no avail. Have you ever asked a person where they were going and had them reply: "Nowhere"? Now I knew where "nowhere" was. There is no sense of movement, the unbroken expanse of ice and snow stretches to all horizons. I felt as though I was hanging on a string. The slight oscillations of the aircraft, and the reading on the airspeed indicator, had to be coupled to the drone of the engines to believe we were moving. The only time I could actually see anything below was when we flew along the coast of Hudson's Bay. The tidal action of the bay waters caused ridges in the ice along the shore. I was scanning the white nothingness in front of us. Straining to find the tiny hamlet. At last I saw some black specks, slightly to our left, about 10 miles distant. Gordon agreed. Throttling back, he began the descent. The landing strip is located about a mile from the village. I searched for the airport, nothing but black spots, a sharp contrast after five hours of pure white. Suddenly, Gord applied power and pulled up into a climb. "That's not Gjoa Haven," he shouted. He was right. I could see now that we had been set up for a straight in approach to a pile of rocks on the west end of the island. Gjoa Haven was a few miles farther on. If I had not spotted the rocks, Gord would have continued the approach to the beacon. Our fuel stop at Baker Lake had been incredibly cold. The wind gave a chill factor equivalent to nearly 100 degrees below zero. I dreaded the thought of leaving the aircraft again. We were now 350 miles farther north, it would be even colder. I was pleasantly surprised. It was 15 degrees warmer, and the winds were calm. A balmy twenty five degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. We hitched a ride to the village in an old truck. The buildings seemed to be scattered at random around what appeared to be the shoreline. Sled dogs were tied up everywhere. Their incessant barking followed us as we walked to the school. The law of the land requires the dogs to be tied at all times. A dog on the loose may be shot on sight. I could see part of the reason. Most of the houses had boxes of Caribou meat sitting outside. The hides of the animals were draped over railings. The dogs seemed vicious. If they were loose, I assure you, I would not walk the village unarmed. I have no doubt they would devour all the meat in sight. The thought of a fight between these large, muscular, animals raises thoughts of the jungle. We had lunch in a crude, sectioned off portion of what appeared to be an old warehouse. The homecooked meal, though plain, was excellent. We walked over to the school, the subject of Gordon's contract. It is a new building, several classrooms and a gymnasium. The latter could have been in a modern school in a major city. The floor is sprung in the modern way, in that it gives underfoot, then springs back. The classrooms are equally bright and cheery, equipped with all modern conveniences and teaching aids. The school is built on stilts, several feet above the ground. The purpose is to prevent the heat of the building penetrating the soil, thus melting the permafrost. Once the permanent frost melted, the building would lose its solid foundation. It would sink into the deep moss of the tundra. We inspected the battery of ten furnaces, seven of them designed to heat the school in even the severest arctic conditions. Four of these could keep the building reasonably warm, three were backup systems. Having unloaded and delivered the needed supplies and equipment, the aircraft was ready for the trip home. On our return flight, we duplicated the fuel stop at Baker lake. Gordon went over to the Meteorological office to check the weather. I was left to fuel the aircraft. No full service here. If you want fuel, pump it yourself! The fuel "office" is a long narrow building which was, at one time, a mobile home. There is no heat, and the doors do not close. I dragged the heavy hose to the aircraft, connected the grounding wire, and began the refueling. I was wearing a heavy skidoo suit and a down filled parka. The hood was pulled up and the "schnorkel" was pulled out in front of my face. I wore heavy wool mitts encased in leather shells. The wind was out of the north at 25 MPH. the temperature was minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit. The Beech has 4 fuel tanks, 2 per wing. It seemed to take hours to fill each tank. The wind cut through my clothing. First my feet began to get cold, then my knees. I had to open the "schnorkel" hood in order to peer into the tank. The wind felt like a hot knife on my face. I turned away for relief. At that moment, the tank over flowed. The supercold fuel ran off the wing, onto my leg. The pain was excruciating. My mitts were soaked with the stuff. I should have quit and ran to shelter. I continued the process, topping up each of the four tanks. I pulled the hose back to the fuel shed, leaving just enough room to taxi the aircraft. By now my feet, legs, and hands were numb. My face burned from the vicious wind. I ran to the fueling office, expecting some heat. The door was partially open, blocked by a snowdrift. I shouldered the door. My 220 pounds forced it open. Entering the building, I found the snowdrift extended nearly 20 feet inside, tapering to nothing from it's initial depth of nearly three feet. It was cold in the building, but I was out of the mankilling wind. I stamped my feet and swung my arms, I had to get some circulation going. Removing my mitts, I unzipped my parka and snow suit, placing my hands in my armpits. I was still doing my dance routine when Gordon returned. "I'll start the engines and get the heat on, then you come out." He shouted, above the howl of the wind. The Beechcraft has a fuel burning heater in the nose compartment. I had complained on the way up that it was too warm. I certainly felt different now. I had my boots and mitts off, soaking up the heat as Gord taxied for departure. As he turned onto the runway I turned to him, saying, "Now I know why you brought me along." He laughed and replied, "Sure. I'm getting too old for that nonsense." An hour out of Baker Lake I was again at the controls. I wanted something to do to take my mind from the pain of chilblains. Once again we were in the area between beacons. We had left Baker Lkae behind and could not yet hear Churchill on the ADF. An inner sense seemed to tell me we were off course. The directional gyro seemed to be indicating a turn. I tried to correct it. Suddenly, I realized the gyro was precessing! I used the turn and bank, along with the gyro horizon, to return to straight and level flight. Gord, slumbering in the left seat, woke with a start. "What's up?" He asked. I was trying to reset the instrument. "We lost the gyro," I replied. "It just started to precess, I'm off course, and still nothing on the ADF." I was getting nervous! We were midway between the only two airports! No ADF, no VOR, and now no gyro. Map reading was out of the question. No identifiable terrain. Gordon took his note book from his map case. He did a computation based on our last known Latitude, the time in GMT, added a number and multiplied. "Fly straight into the sun!" he commanded. I did as I was told, holding a steady course straight at the fiery globe. Gord reached over and reset the D.G. The error had been nearly 100 degrees. "Now resume your original heading, we should be very close." He stowed the book and began scanning the frequencies on the ADF. I thought about his procedure, it made sense. Later I asked him for the formula, it might come in handy to me some day. We flew on in silence. I concentrated on the instruments, while Gord alternated between dead reckoning and the ADF. At last we began to receive the Churchill beacon. Weak and varying at first, it slowly increased until we had a dependable reading. We were less than three degrees off course. The formula had worked! We landed in Churchill, fueled, and had coffee from the vending machine. After a stretch, and a visit to the men's room, we continued our journey. We were, of course, below the tree line in a few moments. This definite line, the sudden transition from no trees to a solid spruce forest is always a welcome sight. I was back in my own element now. In the company helicopter, and in my Cessna, I had flown more than a thousand hours in this region. At last I had a reference besides the instruments. I relaxed. Soon we could see the flashing strobe lights on the smelter stack towering 500 feet above the mill at Thompson. Beyond the flashing strobes we soon saw the lights of Snow Lake. Minutes later, the smelter stack of Flin Flon appeared off our right wing. I tuned the VOR receiver to The Pas. The welcome Morse identifier "Y Q D" welcomed us. Gordon gave no indication of assuming control for the landing. He normally handled this part of the flying. I throttled back and adjusted pitch for a gradual descent, straight in to the long concrete runway. We touched down, with a thud, and taxied in. We normally operated from the short gravel strip at the flying club beside Grace Lake. We had departed from here as we were at maximum gross weight and needed the extra runway. Gordon gave me the keys to the truck, which I drove the 20 miles to town. He flew the Beech. It had been a great trip. A real memorable experience. You can imagine my response when he asked me to accompany him on another trip. This time is was in warmer conditions. We left The Pas on the warm, sunny morning of September 17th, 1982. We retraced our route of the previous winter. The snow had not yet arrived. It was a completely different trip. Once north of the tree line, the hundreds of thousands of small lakes and ponds were evident. Looking behind, I could see the sun reflect from their surfaces. There seemed to be more water than land. I could fly visually, enjoying the scenery, bleak as it was. Gordon had successfully bid on a contract for the new air terminal at Baker Lake. The structure I had used for shelter the previous winter was being replaced. It seemed someone had kept the names and changed the location. The contrast between seasons was incredible. Lakes, rivers, and trails across the tundra. Some of these trails were over 100 years old. The more recent tracks of vehicles scarred the surface. The mosses of the tundra, having such a short growth period each summer, take decades to repair the damage caused by the passage of one vehicle. The tracks below, stretching to the horizon could have been 50 years old. Or, they could have been made yesterday. Occasional rocky outcrops and scattered willow bushes broke the monotony of the scene. Four hours from The Pas we were on approach to Baker Lake. Now I could see the lake. On our previous trip it had been undiscernible from the surrounding landscape. It had appeared as a large flat, snow covered plain. Now it was a beautiful lake, wind blown waves sparkled in the noon day sun. As we taxied to the terminal site, Gordon spoke, "I want you to take a walk, take your camera, and walk the town. The beach area extends for about a mile. I won't tell you what to look for. Just have a look around. I'll be busy here for about two hours." I hitched a ride into the village, about 2 miles distant. The houses seemed to be scattered haphazardly about. Behind most homes were old refrigerators, stoves, and washing machines. I laughed aloud, "Who said you couldn't sell an icebox to an Eskimo." The Iglu Hotel is a modern structure. It's high peaked roof, and rounded rafters are similar to a Quonset hut, except higher and sharper. A small convenience store is located off the hotel lobby. Eskimo children are waiting in line for slices of Pizza, warming in the microwave. They each clutch several twenty dollar bills. Beside the hotel is a pile of talc, or soapstone as it is known. The rock is flown in from Quebec for the natives to fashion into "authentic carvings." Very few of the carvings sold in the south are made from local material, it is of an inferior grade. I made a mental note to take a piece home with me. I would like to try my wood carving skills on soapstone. Walking through the village I arrived at the lakeshore. The natives had divided the waterfront in a system that allows each person about 20 feet for his equipment. Boats, canoes, motors, snow machines and caribou hides lay scattered along the gravel shore. Gordon had once mentioned the waste incurred in the Arctic. Now, even seeing it, I couldn't believe it. I stood at one point and studied the surroundings. Like a tracker of the old west I could read the story. A fisherman had hit a rock. The lower section of the 9.9 horse power Mercury had been damaged. The bottom end of the motor was disassembled. The wrenches, sockets, and ratchet used to tear down the motor were still there. Rusting on the beach. Beside the pile of pieces was a boat with a new motor on the transom. Obviously, it was easier to get a new outboard, than to fix the old one. This was just the beginning of my educational tour. There were dozens of similar sights. Outboards, snowmachines, and fishing nets littered the entire beach. Damaged boats and canoes were pulled away from the water, making room for their successors. High powered rifles; Winchesters, Remingtons, and old Mausers lay in the boats and on the rocks. Oil cans, fuel drums, and fish boxes at every step. Above the water line sat a huge front end loader, one of the large tires was flat. A dump truck sits atop a ridge of gravel. Toward the end of the beach are thousands of empty steel drums. I stepped around the bow of an old freighter canoe, its twenty foot length had hidden a treasure. On an old wooden sawhorse hung two antique outboard motors. I had seen similar models in museums and boat shows. An old Evinrude single cylinder, its cast fuel tank crusted with the corrosion of many idle years. The second one was unfamiliar. It's shape similar to the Evinrude with a different tank arrangement. These motors had to be at least 40 years old. I wondered if I could find the owners and take them with me. I happened upon a strange machine, it had a gasoline engine, a hydraulic pump, and a series of hydraulic cylinders. The cylinders were connected to a type of flat ram, and two large pointed contraptions. The shape of the latter reminded me of the steel broad head arrow points used for big game hunting. Gord later explained the purpose of the machine. There are steel drums stacked in many places throughout the arctic. The numbers may well run into the millions. They have been brought in by exploration crews, bush pilots, and the military. The construction of the DEW line radar system required tremendous amounts of fuel and other liquids. The barrels remain. A project to salvage the barrels was proposed. Funded by a government grant, this machine was designed, built, and moved north. The idea was to salvage the steel. A barrel was placed in the machine. The large arrowheads were forced into each end, producing X-shaped cuts. Next the machine lowered a table like ram, flattening the barrel to a fraction of it's size. There is a fortune in salvageable steel in the Arctic. I said "is" because it is still there. Pilots, refuelling from barrels, normally adjust the pump to leave several inches of fuel behind. This reduces the possibility of fuel contamination from dirt, water, or rust. As a result, nearly all the drums have liquid in them; avgas, motor oil, kerosene, antifreeze, diesel fuel, alcohol, and more. Any conceivable liquid that could be shipped in barrels can likely be found in these repositories. This was the problem that spelled the end of the project. Environmentalists, seeing the streams of fuel and chemicals running into the sea, stopped the process. The salvage crews thought of emptying partial barrels into selected drums to avoid spillage. Too labour intensive. They thought of pumping the residuals into a ship, anchored offshore. The various liquids were worthless, possibly dangerous if mixed. The ship didn't have enough tanks to keep them separate. Result? The drums are still there, rusting away. Eventually they will begin to leak. When they do, they will be too fragile to move... Hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous waste will flow into our arctic seas, causing untold damage to our marine and wildlife. I asked Gord about the great pile of curved steel plates I had seen near the beach. He told me another little known story. Apparently, the territorial government decided to install a huge fuel tank to eliminate the use of barrels. Fuel oil would be pumped ashore from tankers during the annual resupply trips. The contract was let. The tank was prefabricated in Quebec. It was shipped down the St.Lawrence River, up the Atlantic coast, into Hudson's Bay, and upriver to Baker Lake. By the time it arrived, the territorial building code had been changed. The tank no longer met the requirements of the code! There it sits, just as it was unloaded. I had three rolls of 35MM film with me. I exposed all of it, 105 pictures. I still did not capture everything there was to see. I marvelled at the waste. As a taxpayer I was angry. Millions upon millions of dollars, wasted. I was told of a government decision to replace all the oil burning furnaces. They merely required servicing, or minor repairs. Stories of misuse by government officials are legion. Someday the media will do an expose'. Perhaps this story will trigger some action. I returned to the airport. We were to remain for two more days. I helped the crew with plumbing and heating work, learning a bit about the vacuum sanitary system. Treatment of fresh water, and disposal of waste is a major problem. In order to reduce the load on the facilities, the amount of water used is reduced drastically by the use of a vacuum system. You can imagine my surprise when, after using a toilet, I heard a roar like freight train. The sewage system uses the force of a vacuum instead of water to carry away waste. The main storage tank was located at one end of the hotel, our room was at the opposite end. A vacuum is maintained in the tank by the use of pumps. The toilets resemble those found in railroad cars. When the valve is tripped, there is a great roar as the contents of the bowl are sucked downward and along a pipe. I swear I could hear the contents of the bowl smack against the inside of the distant tank. It may be efficient, but it sure is noisy. This is the type of technology one would expect to find on a space station. But then, the arctic is about as close as you can get to outer space with out leaving the ground. I had hoped to spend a day fishing but the high winds created hazardous conditions on the lake. The Arctic Char will have to wait until my next trip. September 19, 1982, 9:00 AM. Airborne again, flight planned to The Pas. We would be 4.2 hours enroute. From 10,000 feet, the tundra stretched to the horizon in all directions. The mottled brown and green speckled with reflections of sunlight from millions of lakes and ponds. A sight witnessed by too few Canadians. THE END