Here I am, waiting for the guys to get the boats and skidoos ready.
The water was very calm, which was good for my motion sickness reflex!
Our method of transportation may be of surprise to you, the reader, as it was to me. Little did I know that skidoos act as all-terrain vehicles in the summertime in the North. Nor did I know that you could put one on the back of a boat and drive it up the river, offload it, and use it to travel out onto the land.
In short, if you have some plywood, and put it across the back of your boat, and then get a 2x6, and create a ramp from a dock up to the plywood, you can drive your skidoo onto the back of the boat. See Exhibit A, below:
As long as you tie it on tightly, there's a good chance you can get from point A to B without it falling into the river. Once at your destination, you search around and luckily find a piece of wood on the shoreline that will act as a ramp to get the skidoo from the boat to the shore.
Now, there were two skidoos, and four people. The solution, of course, is to tie sleds (called "boggans" up here) to the back of each skidoo, where the passengers and cargo (including an auger, plastic bins, and other supplies) will sit, as they are dragged across the tundra. Life vests are provided for extra comfort for the knees, as you kneel and hang on for dear life while traveling over bump after bump.
We travelled this way for about five minutes, Deon and I being dumped out of the sled once already, before stopping to drill our first hole. Once that was complete, I ditched Deon in the sled, and hopped onto one of the skidoos... because as the one driver so nicely put it "yer as small as a kid, you can ride up here in front of me!" How could I say no to that offer? So, I sat on a skidoo, with someone standing up behind me driving the skidoo, while poor Deon continued to be towed behind in a sled because two men just don't fit onto a skidoo.
One thing that should be noted is the fact that although tundra looks smooth, since it goes on for miles and miles, it is actually very, very, very bumpy. There are tufts of vegetation, and places where the ground has heaved due to freezing and thawing, and there is absolutely nothing flat about the landscape. That, combined with the thousands of little creeks that run throughout the landscape make for a bumpy and wet ride.
Taking a quick break to observe the landscape...
Beautiful fall colours across the tundra...
So, we looked for gravel, took samples, took pictures, and wrote notes, and had a little fun too. The guys from Aklavik sure love to joke, and are constantly trying to see how gullible we are. The jokes were abundant last time when we went out with four local guys, and they were still flying this time around. At one point, one of the guys told Deon that it takes four or five days to slowly roast caribou so that it doesn't have a gamey flavour. A little while later, Deon relayed that message on to me, at which point the guy burst out laughing and said he was only kidding. Very funny...
Also funny was when Deon was about 20 feet away from myself and our two local friends, and facing the opposite direction, and they decided to do some target practice on some leftover caribou horns quite a distance away. One of them fired a shot, and needless to say, Deon was a little surprised by the bang. Later on though, Deon was offered a chance to take a shot of his own:
The target...
I was pleased to see both of our guides show up with their rifles, since the best we had was a can of bear spray, and apparently there is a bear who frequents our boat landing spot, "Blueberry Hill." At the beginning of our trip, they asked if we would mind if they hunted caribou if we came across any- of course we didn't mind, as we would have been given some of the meat and antlers for sure. Although I'm not sure I would have enjoyed witnessing the actual hunting process, this is a part of the local culture which they have been practicing for thousands of years, and it is taken very seriously by the local people. It would have been a learning experience to see how the caribou is skinned and prepared on the spot.
We made a quick stop for lunch, where one of our friends offered us some caribou roast. It was delicious, tasting mostly like roast beef, with a bit of a wilder flavour.
The day continued on, and we continued our travels across the land. At one point we came to a beautiful ridge that looked down on a nice creek. The landscape was beautiful, as the hills are red right now with fall colours. The blueberries, blackberries (crowberries), and cranberries were abundant as well.
Checking out the rocks...
Me, overseeing the workers below :p
Finally it was time to head home, which is always gruelling after a day out on the land... especially when you have a few hundred pounds of gravel to haul into and out of a boat.
All in all, a good day of work with more new experiences for us both.
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