If at first you don't succeed
Flung around like a rag doll on the end of a stick, I pick myself up again and hang forward in my hauling harness. My eyes are blazing and I’m biting my tongue to hold back mounting frustration. Despite the fact that I’m in the Arctic, rivers of sweat run down my face and drip from my nose onto Victoria Island’s endless expanse of jagged, ice-shattered limestone. Through a lull in the music on my iPod, the creaking and groaning of my expedition partner’s Paddleable Amphibious Cart (PAC) – a homemade kayak on wheels – behind me is all but drowned out by my own ragged, panting breaths. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Whose stupid idea was it to try to cross the world’s ninth-largest – and largely unexplored – island on foot? It was a shared dream, but one that was rapidly becoming a nightmare.
Giving it all we had for up to 11 hours each day, Clark Carter and I struggled to cover even four kilometres. This was a far cry from the 15 kilometres we needed to travel every day in order to get to the far side of the island – some 1,000 kilometres away – before our food ran out. The terrain was impossible to negotiate. A patchwork of lakes and swamps meant that our wheels sank into knee-deep mud, broke through thin ice, and jolted over boulder fields. The tow point – the part connecting us to our 250-kilogram PACs – was the one section of our trailers that we definitely didn’t want to break. But on day 13, we both tore through the ten-centimetre lengths of three-millimetre-thick steel and our PACs ground to a halt behind us. Herds of muskox lifted their heads in alarm as obscenities roared out across the tundra. After half a day of repairs, we were under way once more, but it really was futile.
By the time winter’s icy fingers began clutching at the island, our supplies were running low. We had traversed a mere 300 kilometres. Such is the price of venturing into the unknown. No-one – save a few pilots who had flown over the area – had any idea what we could expect. Google Earth didn’t even exist back then. And so, in September 2005, after 58 days alone in the Arctic, Clark and I returned home to Sydney, defeated. We immediately began plotting our revenge on the island.
Pac men
Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20. It also weighs nothing, which is fortunate, as we took vast quantities of it with us back to the island in May last year. The biggest equipment change was the design of our PACs. Rather than return with a half-decent kayak and a half-decent cart, we designed an awesome cart that could float when needed.
The car tyres we used in 2005 were too small. We needed a larger diameter to spread the load over soft ground and ice, and to enable the PACs to roll over larger bounders. We explored every option, from aeroplane wheels to those from an all-terrain vehicle, and eventually settled on tractor inner tubes. They were perfect: cheap, only six kilograms in weight and inflating to almost 150 centimetres in diameter. The only problem was that they were only two millimetres thick and punctured easily when we simulated Victoria Island’s razor-sharp limestone by savagely stabbing them with a screwdriver.
We tested various fabrics for abrasion resistance and bought 25 metres of ballistic-grade Kevlar (the fabric used in bulletproof vests) as well as a four-kilometre spool of Kevlar thread. Digging my dad’s old industrial Singer sewing machine out of the cupboard, Clark and I set to work: first, we learned how to sew, then we made puncture-proof Kevlar covers for the tubes. These covers had the extra advantage of restraining the size of the tubes, enabling us to achieve a tyre pressure of about 0.7 bar. This, in turn, would reduce the friction involved with rolling a squashable tyre.
The next design problem was the wheel rims. Clearly we couldn’t use a tractor rim, so with the help of EMP Composites, we spent numerous weekends developing carbon-fibre rims. They were brilliant: each comprising two stackable half-rims joined together with Hyperbolt aluminium bolts. All eight half-rims nestled perfectly inside each other, allowing the whole cart to accompany us to Canada as check-in luggage.
After reading introductory textbooks on mechanical engineering that discussed yield and sheer strengths of various cross-sections of metal tubing, I designed the frame for the cart. We opted for a simple frame slung with netting, rather than a watertight hull, into which we would throw all of our gear in waterproof bags. In a bid to reduce the metal-fatigue fractures that occurred at many of the welded joints in the previous PAC, we clamped all joints with a rubber gasket to take out shock loads.
The final design feature was a carbon-fibre hardtop. This consisted of a series of panels that could be folded back in order to gain access to the bags underneath. When the two carts were snapped together, the panels formed a stable platform that was perfectly shaped to fit our customised tent. We kept the tent partially set up with poles permanently sleeved, and stowed sleeping bags and Therm-a-Rest mattresses inside. The tent could be sprung upright from flat within seconds. No longer would we have to spend hours searching for a suitable tent site among a sea of sharp rocks and swamp. Joined like this, our carts were even able to float across water as a raft, buoyed by our enormous tyres. In the end, we spent several nights sleeping onboard while drifting down the Kuujjua River. It became the ultimate all-terrain cart.
Hi-tech, low temperatures
Electronic technology had also come a long way in the three years that separated our trips. Just before we left in 2008, Panasonic released the AG-HSC1U, the world’s smallest three-chip, high-definition video camera. Entirely solid state and shockproof, it records to virtually indestructible Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. We bought one and tested it inside a warehouse freezer at –40°C. It performed brilliantly.
Our other big power consumer was our laptop. Our Asus Eee PC was a vast improvement on the second-hand computer we used in 2005. This little solid-state, shockproof netbook weighs less than one kilogram and costs a mere £200.
Each evening, we’d update our website by attaching the laptop to our Iridium 9505A satellite phone. We sent lengthy updates using GMN’s XGate compressed satellite email interface. Being able to share our experiences and receive encouraging emails was a real boost, and our website was visited by up to 13,000 people every day.
We learned a lot about photographic gear, too. On the first journey, we just took a digital SLR camera. But it isn’t practical to have a bulky SLR constantly hanging around your neck. We missed some breathtaking photo opportunities, including playing catch with an Arctic wolf, when we were away from camp without a camera. As a result, we agreed to carry compact, all-weather Pentax Optio W30
cameras at all times for those moments when the Canon EOS 1D Mk III was out of reach. (The 1D was equipped with a 100–400-millimetre stabilised zoom lens, as well as a 1.4x tele-extender that doubled as a polar-bear-spotting telescope.)
All of our stills and video cameras recorded to SD cards. We packed 60 four-gigabyte cards and treated them as single-use only, rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket and downloading images and footage to the laptop’s hard drive each day.
Tundra tools
Being about 1,000 kilometres from the North Magnetic Pole, traditional magnetic compasses were rendered useless – not only because the magnetic variation shifted enormously from one side of Victoria Island to the other, but also because the compass needle wanted to point straight down. We relied on our two Garmin eTrex Vista GPS units, which impressed us no end with their battery life and ease of use.
In the end, however, battery life wasn’t really a concern, as each PAC had two flexible 32-watt solar panels draped on top. These lapped up the 24-hour sunlight into a central gel-cell battery, from which we charged our devices.
In addition to the usual safety kit (which included two McMurdo 406 MHz FastFind Plus personal locator beacons, two Iridium satellite phones and a first-aid kit complete with injectable painkillers), our most important safety item was a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. This was loaded with ‘bear bangers’ (pyrotechnic scarers) and backed up with solid slug bullets. We also carried bear spray. We had encounters with polar bears on both trips, all of which were, thankfully, non-confrontational.
Being in such a remote area, we gave careful thought to the tools we needed to bring with us for repairs. The very same Leatherman multitool came with us on both trips, and proved to be an invaluable self-contained toolbox that we constantly used to prise apart frozen shoelaces, cut through carbon fibre, or file down chafing points on the PACs. We also used the Leatherman to hold our hand-drill, the handle of which we had removed to save weight. Hacksaw blades, a small pop-rivet gun and a bag full of rivets, nuts, bolts, puncture repair kits, epoxy, carbon-fibre matting and other items completed our extensive repair kit. We ended up using almost all of these supplies on various repairs, including shortening a buckled axle and narrowing the whole cart to fit.
Chris Bray –is an accomplished hiking, hauling and sailing adventurer. He is also an award-winning photographer. Visit www.chrisbray.net for more information. For more about Chris and Clark’s epic crossing of Victoria Island, visit www.1000hourday.com
June 2009
Giving it all we had for up to 11 hours each day, Clark Carter and I struggled to cover even four kilometres. This was a far cry from the 15 kilometres we needed to travel every day in order to get to the far side of the island – some 1,000 kilometres away – before our food ran out. The terrain was impossible to negotiate. A patchwork of lakes and swamps meant that our wheels sank into knee-deep mud, broke through thin ice, and jolted over boulder fields. The tow point – the part connecting us to our 250-kilogram PACs – was the one section of our trailers that we definitely didn’t want to break. But on day 13, we both tore through the ten-centimetre lengths of three-millimetre-thick steel and our PACs ground to a halt behind us. Herds of muskox lifted their heads in alarm as obscenities roared out across the tundra. After half a day of repairs, we were under way once more, but it really was futile.
By the time winter’s icy fingers began clutching at the island, our supplies were running low. We had traversed a mere 300 kilometres. Such is the price of venturing into the unknown. No-one – save a few pilots who had flown over the area – had any idea what we could expect. Google Earth didn’t even exist back then. And so, in September 2005, after 58 days alone in the Arctic, Clark and I returned home to Sydney, defeated. We immediately began plotting our revenge on the island.
Pac men
Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20. It also weighs nothing, which is fortunate, as we took vast quantities of it with us back to the island in May last year. The biggest equipment change was the design of our PACs. Rather than return with a half-decent kayak and a half-decent cart, we designed an awesome cart that could float when needed.
The car tyres we used in 2005 were too small. We needed a larger diameter to spread the load over soft ground and ice, and to enable the PACs to roll over larger bounders. We explored every option, from aeroplane wheels to those from an all-terrain vehicle, and eventually settled on tractor inner tubes. They were perfect: cheap, only six kilograms in weight and inflating to almost 150 centimetres in diameter. The only problem was that they were only two millimetres thick and punctured easily when we simulated Victoria Island’s razor-sharp limestone by savagely stabbing them with a screwdriver.
We tested various fabrics for abrasion resistance and bought 25 metres of ballistic-grade Kevlar (the fabric used in bulletproof vests) as well as a four-kilometre spool of Kevlar thread. Digging my dad’s old industrial Singer sewing machine out of the cupboard, Clark and I set to work: first, we learned how to sew, then we made puncture-proof Kevlar covers for the tubes. These covers had the extra advantage of restraining the size of the tubes, enabling us to achieve a tyre pressure of about 0.7 bar. This, in turn, would reduce the friction involved with rolling a squashable tyre.
The next design problem was the wheel rims. Clearly we couldn’t use a tractor rim, so with the help of EMP Composites, we spent numerous weekends developing carbon-fibre rims. They were brilliant: each comprising two stackable half-rims joined together with Hyperbolt aluminium bolts. All eight half-rims nestled perfectly inside each other, allowing the whole cart to accompany us to Canada as check-in luggage.
After reading introductory textbooks on mechanical engineering that discussed yield and sheer strengths of various cross-sections of metal tubing, I designed the frame for the cart. We opted for a simple frame slung with netting, rather than a watertight hull, into which we would throw all of our gear in waterproof bags. In a bid to reduce the metal-fatigue fractures that occurred at many of the welded joints in the previous PAC, we clamped all joints with a rubber gasket to take out shock loads.
The final design feature was a carbon-fibre hardtop. This consisted of a series of panels that could be folded back in order to gain access to the bags underneath. When the two carts were snapped together, the panels formed a stable platform that was perfectly shaped to fit our customised tent. We kept the tent partially set up with poles permanently sleeved, and stowed sleeping bags and Therm-a-Rest mattresses inside. The tent could be sprung upright from flat within seconds. No longer would we have to spend hours searching for a suitable tent site among a sea of sharp rocks and swamp. Joined like this, our carts were even able to float across water as a raft, buoyed by our enormous tyres. In the end, we spent several nights sleeping onboard while drifting down the Kuujjua River. It became the ultimate all-terrain cart.
Start the slideshow (10 pictures)
Hi-tech, low temperatures
Electronic technology had also come a long way in the three years that separated our trips. Just before we left in 2008, Panasonic released the AG-HSC1U, the world’s smallest three-chip, high-definition video camera. Entirely solid state and shockproof, it records to virtually indestructible Secure Digital (SD) memory cards. We bought one and tested it inside a warehouse freezer at –40°C. It performed brilliantly.
Our other big power consumer was our laptop. Our Asus Eee PC was a vast improvement on the second-hand computer we used in 2005. This little solid-state, shockproof netbook weighs less than one kilogram and costs a mere £200.
Each evening, we’d update our website by attaching the laptop to our Iridium 9505A satellite phone. We sent lengthy updates using GMN’s XGate compressed satellite email interface. Being able to share our experiences and receive encouraging emails was a real boost, and our website was visited by up to 13,000 people every day.
We learned a lot about photographic gear, too. On the first journey, we just took a digital SLR camera. But it isn’t practical to have a bulky SLR constantly hanging around your neck. We missed some breathtaking photo opportunities, including playing catch with an Arctic wolf, when we were away from camp without a camera. As a result, we agreed to carry compact, all-weather Pentax Optio W30
cameras at all times for those moments when the Canon EOS 1D Mk III was out of reach. (The 1D was equipped with a 100–400-millimetre stabilised zoom lens, as well as a 1.4x tele-extender that doubled as a polar-bear-spotting telescope.)
All of our stills and video cameras recorded to SD cards. We packed 60 four-gigabyte cards and treated them as single-use only, rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket and downloading images and footage to the laptop’s hard drive each day.
Tundra tools
Being about 1,000 kilometres from the North Magnetic Pole, traditional magnetic compasses were rendered useless – not only because the magnetic variation shifted enormously from one side of Victoria Island to the other, but also because the compass needle wanted to point straight down. We relied on our two Garmin eTrex Vista GPS units, which impressed us no end with their battery life and ease of use.
In the end, however, battery life wasn’t really a concern, as each PAC had two flexible 32-watt solar panels draped on top. These lapped up the 24-hour sunlight into a central gel-cell battery, from which we charged our devices.
In addition to the usual safety kit (which included two McMurdo 406 MHz FastFind Plus personal locator beacons, two Iridium satellite phones and a first-aid kit complete with injectable painkillers), our most important safety item was a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. This was loaded with ‘bear bangers’ (pyrotechnic scarers) and backed up with solid slug bullets. We also carried bear spray. We had encounters with polar bears on both trips, all of which were, thankfully, non-confrontational.
Being in such a remote area, we gave careful thought to the tools we needed to bring with us for repairs. The very same Leatherman multitool came with us on both trips, and proved to be an invaluable self-contained toolbox that we constantly used to prise apart frozen shoelaces, cut through carbon fibre, or file down chafing points on the PACs. We also used the Leatherman to hold our hand-drill, the handle of which we had removed to save weight. Hacksaw blades, a small pop-rivet gun and a bag full of rivets, nuts, bolts, puncture repair kits, epoxy, carbon-fibre matting and other items completed our extensive repair kit. We ended up using almost all of these supplies on various repairs, including shortening a buckled axle and narrowing the whole cart to fit.
Chris Bray –is an accomplished hiking, hauling and sailing adventurer. He is also an award-winning photographer. Visit www.chrisbray.net for more information. For more about Chris and Clark’s epic crossing of Victoria Island, visit www.1000hourday.com
June 2009
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