continued..to the Cape / Whiskey and Lard

Whiskey and Lard

Continued....To the Cape

The polar bear business in Churchill would have taken a bit longer to evolve if not for two key ingredients. You can argue these two things were essential for survival in northern climes long before anyone figured out how to make a buck hauling visitors around. Whiskey and lard were staples in any one's grub box. The importance of the two varied according to who you were travelling on the land with. The guy's I hung with would overlook the fact someone forgot a pound of lard to grease up the fry pan but you could get shunned right quick and delegated to clean up duty if you forgot the whiskey. You never forgot twice. When Len loaded up Buggy1 for the trip to the Cape you know there was more than a few bottles of Canada's finest shipped aboard and no doubt more than a few pounds of lard. Reason being, Len, like any other northerner who has yet found Jesus, loved to drink whiskey and Dan....well Dan was determined to sedate and stabilize the entire polar bear population of Cape Churchill with Crisco.

Feeding or baiting, depending on the interpretation, is not allowed under law but Cape Churchill, although only fifty or so kilometres from civilization, might as well be on another planet; it sure felt like it at times, so abiding by the rules was optional.

If not for Dan's unfettered compassion for the well being of the bears, the distribution of lard might have been challenged. But he was unapologetic and claimed any of the bears showing signs of being malnourished needed to be fed...and hell might as well give the rest a boost while I'm at it. It was Dan's rules, like 'em, live with them or you weren't invited back.

So off they went in Buggy1 heading for the Cape, Len at the wheel and Dan and co-harts wedged into the two rows of seats amongst a ton of gear. Unbeknown to the passengers, the odds were stacked against them ever reaching their goal. Anyone other than Len who built the buggy and knew the strengths and weaknesses would be foolish to think he could pull it off. Others made this trip to the Cape before but not at this difficult time of the year and not with a piece of homemade untested machinery. Len was indeed a pioneer and no-one aboard other than Dan knew what they were getting themselves into. Dan's complete confidence in Lens ability was the foundation the bear business of Churchill was built on.

The terrain Len had to cross would cause anyone to rethink the whole thing. The first half of the trip was done travelling east, a bit inland and parallel to the Bay. To the west, the edge of the tree line blurred the horizon, the last stand of Boreal forest before it gives way to Hudson Bay Lowlands. Straight ahead nothing but an endless stretch of tundra, covered white with snow; now and again broken by islands of stunted black spruce and dwarf willow. The only relief was an anomalous blip called Knights Hill, a pile of rock debris left over from the glaciers that when seen from a distance seemed to reach the clouds but once close barely reached thirty meters above sea level. Other than a few shaky observation towers that disappeared with bad weather it was the only real reference point you had.

Deep ruts embedded in the muskeg left by military machinery during the fifties marked the route that Len had to follow. This trail was highly visible during summer and fall. It all but disappeared under a sheet of ice and snow when winter set in. Buggy1 could only make it if the ground and scattered lakes and ponds were froze and the creeks could be crossed by an ice bridge. Len had to look well ahead to catch signs of the trail where the wind blew it clear. No shortage of obstacles to overcome. Blowing snow would screw you up and turn you around and before you know it you are off the trail and in a heap of trouble. Breaking through ice when crossing a lake was always good for the heart as was hitting a ten foot bank of snow and burying the buggy well past it's axles. If mother nature didn't test you well enough you were tested with beat and busted buggy parts that had to be fixed or jury rigged to get you going again. It would not be that much of a stretch to say Len spent equal amounts of time under the buggy fixing as in the buggy driving. No walk in the park at twenty below in gale force winds, not discounting the odd polar bear cruising around.

After fighting their way through the first part of the trip things switched up. A different set of obstacles amongst a different landscape. The stakes were a bit higher. From travelling over snow covered muskeg to now travelling on the sea ice. This happened where the Cape started to extend at a right angle into the Hudson Bay, the base of the hitchhikers thumb.

When the north winds started blowing and the temperature dropped a rim of ice would start to form along the edge of the coastline. This new ice attached itself to land and built steadily outward. The width varied, at places barely a buggy width other places could be a few kilometres. This band of land fast ice rose and fell with the four meter tides and the stability was far from predictable. You didn't want to suffer any breakdown when travelling along this stretch of the trip. Getting caught on the sea ice in a storm with a strong north wind pushing sea water over top and swirling around the buggy tires can cause serious reflection as to what the hell are you doing this for. This band of ice was the floating highway to Cape Churchill.

They made it. The timing is such that you have to travel when winter first arrives encasing everything in ice and snow but not enough ice and snow that the bears at the Cape have already gone onto the ice to hunt.

Cape Churchill is a wondrous place with polar bears so big they defy logic, with a morning sun rising fiery red from behind the sea in the east and setting in a burst of colour reflected on a frozen lake to the west.

To be continued.......

Next...Living with the bears at the Cape/lets grease them up.

Len and Dan,

Len was built low to the ground, barrel chested with hands thick from gripping wrenches. When the work day was nearly over he liked to gulp whiskey and cola from eight ounce red plastic cups chilled with ice chipped from the windshield of his pick-up truck. Len played hard and worked harder. He built big four wheel drive buggies that could handle any terrain the rough country around Churchill had to offer.

Stately is a word that comes to mind when thinking of Dan. Ram rod straight in stance and very much a gentleman. Picture Mark Twain dressed for 40 below. A biologist and photographer with a passion for Polar bears. A man with a vision. Under any other circumstance there was no reason why these two men should meet. Given Dans' quest it was inevitable they would. Dan sipped scotch.

Cape Churchill juts into Hudson Bay like a hitchhikers thumb. Follow the coast east from town for fifty kilometres; when it drops sharply to the south there you are. This was where Dan needed to go and was looking for someone to take him. Len was just the guy.

Dan Guravich got a taste of polar bears while on the SS Manhattan, an ice classed oil tanker testing the frozen waters of the Northwest Passage, looking for a viable route to ship crude. He was hired on as official photographer. Seeing a polar bear in the wild is always an intense experience so I can't help but think when Dan spotted his first polar bear from the deck of the ship he was smitten. His concern for the well being of these iconic animals grew and eventually led him to my home town of Churchill, a small historic seaport on the west side of Hudson Bay just south of the fifty ninth parallel.

Almost arctic, this scrappy little town was first a trading post when Canada was in its infancy. The town endured. Those that chose to live here also chose to accept hardship and isolation in exchange for freedoms only found on the frontier. Like the tidal waters of Hudson Bay the town's prospects ebbed and flowed but nothing was ever secure. Still isn't. But Dans' vision and Len's hard work and tenacity brought an era of change and hope and a chance for a new identity, one that would be recognized world wide.

What Dan wanted was some kind of vehicle that could take a small group of people including himself to a place everyone knew but few knew of its significance. Cape Churchill was always a bit of a mystery if only for the fact it was near impossible to get to by land during the summer months and for every other month held no reason for anyone to go there. We knew the Armed Forces did cold weather training around the Cape way back when. A few military observation towers still stood as testament to those days. But Dan had heard, through his colleagues at Canadian Wildlife Service, come fall of the year the Cape was host to a large contingent of Polar bears. Something he must see. This gathering of bears at Cape Churchill would come to be called “a celebration”.

Getting to the Cape by land to witness the gathering was a logistical nightmare. Timing was critical, a small window of opportunity presented itself to anyone willing to trek over land and over ice to get there. The challenge was given to Len. Could he build a vehicle that would be capable of carrying the adventurers to the cape and if they got there offer a place to sleep and eat protected from the elements but most importantly safe from polar bears?

Len Smith was not the kind of guy that would say “getting there is half the fun. For him “getting there” was all the fun. He never tired of building something to get somewhere be it an air boat to fly up the river during the spring high water or an open deck four wheel driver buggy to get his hunting buddies to where the birds were. He was a scrapyard innovator with a big hammer and twenty ton jacks; a farm-boy from the prairies who came north as a young man to ply his trade as a mechanic. He was also a business man. No doubt Len had a notion if he could get this guy to the Cape nothing but good would follow. He accepted the challenge and when Dan returned the following fall Buggy1 was ready.

Buggy1:

Frame up a metal box just over twenty feet long about eight feet wide and seven feet high. Wrap in white aluminium sheeting. Fit drop down windows from an old school bus along both sides. Decide on the back, put a door in, build a small deck. Have two rows of bus seats, five on the left, six on the right. Behind the row on the left put a beat up old propane heater with a stack going through the roof directly overhead. A bit of shelving after that squaring off the sides and wall. Behind the seats on the right, with spare pieces of plywood, box in from floor to ceiling a space three feet by three feet with a bench across one side just big enough to sit on. Cut a hole in the bench to sit in. Place a five gallon bucket underneath the bench where the hole is cut. Screw toilet paper dispenser to the wall, hang a small mirror.

Put this box on top of an old heavy frame on top of big fat farm tractor tires. Slide in a gas engine underneath the floor with an extra long stick shift leading up to the drivers seat. Angle two pieces of window glass across the front as a windshield. Install original intermittent wipers. Build a door with a sliding window for the driver. Install a steel ladder that tucks away underneath the frame out the back deck that pulls out and drops down to let the customers up and in. There you have it.

To be continued...............

Going to the Cape.