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.