Wk 01 Tick, Tick, Tick...
Date Posted: 2.21.2007
Location: 44º58'N 93º14'W
Education Basecamp, Minnesota, United States
Weather Conditions: Sunny - feels like spring! 40° F (4°C)
It's only a little more than a week ago when the fax machine finally tick-tick-ticked with the official invitations from the government in Chukotka, Russia. One of the most remote regions on Earth, Chukotka is where we will be heading for the upcoming expedition. If you look at a map and find Alaska, look across the Bering Strait and there it is. For many years, no outsiders could travel into Chukotka; today, even Russian people need to get permission and a visa to go there. But, in order to get a visa, each team member first needed a letter of invitation from Chukotka so that they can go to the Russian Embassy and ask for a visa, which then needs to be granted to them. Sounds complicated? It is. Expedition leader Paul and Russian team member Nikolai have been working on this for more than eight months! As you might imagine, there was great relief by the sound of the fax machine!. And, Mille was so excited to see how every team member's name was written in Russian...
Now, of course, team member Nikolai doesn't need an invitation or a visa, because he is a Native Chukchi that lives with his family in Chukotka. The Russian name "Chukchi" comes from the Chukchi word, Chauchu, which means "rich in reindeer." That is because some of the Chukchi people live by herding reindeer on the land. You can think of it as a sort of farming but, instead of a farm with fields and cows grazing here, the reindeer roam on the tundra and the Reindeer Chukchi people travel with the herd. Nikolai is actually not a Reindeer Chukchi. Instead, his people are the Maritime Chukchi, which are also called Anqallyt meaning "the sea people." Nikolai explains, "My home community sits on the shore of the Arctic Ocean and we will be traveling there on this expedition. We are both Chukchee and Yupik people living there and we do not distinguish much between the two groups. Just like the Yupik—who are Inuit people—the Maritime Chukchi people hunt on the ocean for a way of life."
So, just how did Nikolai become a team member with GoNorth!?
Well, the long haul of an expedition and the making of a live adventure learning program begins long before the kick-off day... or when the snow hook is lifted and the mighty Polar Huskies blast off over the snowy terrain. This summer, barely even a month after Paul, Mille, and the Polar Huskies had finished the long drive home from Alaska from last year's expedition, Paul hopped on an airplane to fly back to Alaska. All the way on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Barrow, the most northern community of Alaska, he took part in the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. "Besides the thrill of exploring on Arctic expeditions for 15 years, I have been really lucky to take part in many cool events in my life—from standing on the podium at the Winter Olympics to hanging on to my boat tearing through the whipped waters of the Grand Canyon. Yet this conference was definitely one of those experiences that really stands out, with traditional drum dancing, Native games, and feasts of delicacies—from "muktuk"' (whale blubber) to "eskimo icecream" with tundra berries (Eskimo ice cream is made from the lining of caribou stomach whipped and frozen). Arctic peoples gathered from around the globe to talk about Arctic issues such as climate change—which is really affecting all of these people, the Arctic environment, and their way of life right now! Paul continues, "There was also a delegation of more than 20 people from Chukotka. Since they all spoke Russian—or a Native dialect—I did not understand a word they were saying. But I have to say, they are easily the "smiliest" people I have ever met! I quickly noticed this one very energetic guy that seemed to be the one everyone looked to for help and advice. That was Nikolai. I sat down next to him during one lunch. We started talking, and that was the beginning of Nikolai becoming part of our team."
Since then, Paul has been trying to learn some basics of the Russian language, but that is no easy task. To be honest, language is one grand challenge for this upcoming expedition. Mille says, "Being that I am a foreigner—a Dane—living in the United States every day, speaking in a language different from my mother tongue I really appreciate the hurdle of not speaking the language where we will be traveling. And no, most people in Chukotka don't speak English!" She goes on, "Not a day goes by where I am not frustrated with not knowing a word or when I come up with some funky expression for a lack of a better word... this does make people around me laugh, though! But, communicating with the people living in the communities along the expedition route is a very important part of this program, so I am very happy Nikolai is part of the team to help out."
It is actually pretty much safe to say that without Nikolai we would not be set to head out on the expedition trail very soon! Nikolai and Paul have been working as a tight-knit team across the 13-hour time difference from Chukotka to Expedition Basecamp in Michigan to make everything come together. This has includes activities from how to get food supplies (for both the two- and four-legged) to the remote communities, to Nikolai meeting many times with government officials in Chukotka to ask for permissions and support.
Imagine a land larger than the size of Texas—or the size of Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, The Netherlands... oh! and Denmark ,combined. The land has no highways, no road system, and no scheduled air service... Though old, there are many airports, but not many aircraft aside from seven or eight helicopters. That's Chukotka for you. The people of Chukotka live off the land and whatever supplies they do get mostly come to them via barge (a flat-bottomed shipping vessel). They travel between the communities using their knowledge of the land and, as we have learned, they definitely do not use detailed maps much!
Getting maps to figure out the expedition route has been quite the challenge for Paul. To give you a picture: On last year's expedition, we traveled about 750 miles (1,207 km) across the Alaskan wilderness. For this, we used 18 maps of the scale 1:25,000. This year, we set out to dogsled about 1,000 miles (1,609 km) and we will have only two maps!! This is because the most detailed maps we have been able to get are maps used by pilots on the scale of 1:1,000,000,000. Good thing maps make no difference to lead dogs Disko, Tucker and crew! To make up for this and to study the ice conditions (since we will mostly be traveling on the ocean shore), Paul has used satellite mapping a great deal to get a feel of the land. Check out his movie flying the route in 3-D!
That all said, the most important step in planning where we travel on the expedition is actually when we come in to the communities. While in the communities, we talk to Elders and hunters on how they traditionally travel in the direction we are looking to go. Then again, it will be crucial to the success of the expedition that Nikolai can translate the knowledge to the rest of the team and help out with his own native knowledge of the region.
Team work is what the GoNorth! expeditions are all about. To make an expedition happen like GoNorth! Chukotka 2007, it involves the skills and dedication of all members of Team GoNorth! And for us, team members are not just the people on the trail! As a group, we need to trust one another to do a good job and complete tasks efficiently. Each of us is responsible for one part of the whole. Separately, we cannot accomplish what needs to be done. Together, we have been able to develop curriculum, feed the Polar Huskies, fix sleds, visit schools, work with teachers, develop the website, work with sponsors, write grants, format the curriculum, acquire and test new equipment, build the web site, fix old equipment, keep up with accounting, attend trade shows, train the Polar Huskies... (Get the picture?).
Last weekend, the Polar Huskies and most of the team —Aaron, Paul, Mille, and Teacher Explorer Jeff Sipper— came together for a weekend of final training and preparation. Last fall, the Polar Huskies left Expedition Basecamp in Michigan to spend a couple of months in northern Minnesota in hopes of training with sleds on snow (and that it would be cold enough for them to grow in their heavy winter coats early-on). They do have great coats, but with the very little snow, we have had to train them mostly by pulling a four-wheeler or an old snowmobile. This weekend was different though. Going to the very end of the road deep into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area—the most-visited and eighth-largest wilderness area in the United States—the Polar Huskies could pull sleds across the Gunflint Lake. His first time running a team of 11 roaring Polar Huskies—"What a blast!" says Jeff. Besides being an avid adventure learning teacher for his 5th graders, Jeff is also a man of phenology, and it was really fun for the entire team to learn from him and his observations. No birds, tracks, sightings, or weather change goes unnoticed with Jeff around! On that note, make sure to join Jeff and his students by adding your phenology observations in the Explore Zone at PolarHusky.com. The rest of team GoNorth! will be adding theirs, too—together, we should be able to create an incredible map of what is all going on outside around the U.S. and across the world!
Watch Teacher Explorer 2007
Jeff Sipper
In a few days, it is time for the Polar Huskies to load in the boxes on the dog truck and set out on their journey across much of the world to the expedition starting point in Providenia in Chukotka, Russia. First, Paul and his support crew will drive from Grand Marais, Minnesota, where the Polar Huskies currently are, to about 3,300 miles (~5,300 km) north to Anchorage, Alaska. According to Mapblast.com, the distance with no detour is to be exactly 3,224.8 miles (~5,188 km) and it should take 57 hours and 34 minutes. That's not quite the case traveling with a loaded trailer and 24 Polar Huskies through weather and wilderness roads. "I expect it to take us about ten days" says Paul (and we expect that Paul will have much time to listen to those Russian tapes while driving!).
Once in Anchorage, the gear, food, dogs, and people will load on to a plane and fly to Nome, the western-most community in North America. In Nome, Mille will join the team, coming from Education Basecamp at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Loading everything and everyone onto a small aircraft, they then fly across the Bering Strait to Provideniya, the expedition starting point, where Nikolai will join the team. The last two team members—Aaron and Jeff—will join the team for two weeks once they make it around the corner up onto the Arctic Ocean. They will have quite the journey traveling through Europe and Moscow to get to the rest of the team —another promising adventure!
That said, the clock goes "tick-tick-tick," and there are still a few things to accomplish and wrap up before the team goes anywhere. The dogs are ready, though!
Just like a house dog can sense when the family is going somewhere, the Polar Huskies can sense the intensity as we are getting ready. Every move we do preparing to get ready is being monitored very closely, and hearing the sound of the door opening on the dog-truck even a quarter mile away from the dog yard gets the Polar Huskies to explode with howling.
No single dog is noisier than this week's Polar Husky superstar, Peto. Just turning 12 years old, Peto will be the oldest dog on the expedition, but by no means the mellowest. Peto can still match any youngster in craziness, plus he sure can out-pull any of them with his incredible technique and never-ending eagerness to go anywhere in the world where the team —and especially Paul—is going. As Aaron explains, "Peto can simply drive me nuts if I am running him in second team following Paul. If and when we stop, you will hear Peto when the second the sled comes to a halt until he gets the pleasure of starting it again. He just cannot go fast enough." And that is a good thing, because that's exactly the kind of spirit, technique, and experience the team needs. Peto's love of doing his jobs is infectious.
(left) Polar Husky Superstar 'Peto'—raring to go!
Whereas Peto earns his star for his enthusiasm (a key to great team work!), this week's other Polar Husky Superstar, Trigger, earns his star for having shown such terrific improvement and eagerness to learn. Trigger is a super-intelligent and very sensitive dog that really wants to please and do right. At the same time, it seems that if he doesn't understand, Trigger is very insecure and can be somewhat short-tempered until he figures it out—probably because it makes him a bit nervous! This season, besides from being old running buddies with Peto—who taught him to bang in the harness (and be noisy!)—Trigger has really found a good running partner in Saami. Learning from Saami and feeling confident with his equally-strong personality, Trigger has learned to be a very steady and alert puller who digs in and keeps pulling when the load gets heavy. Today, Trigger is not just as wild and eager, but also a steady puller as the other seasoned Polar Huskies are raring to go!
