An encounter with white wolves and musk oxen on the way to the North Pole.
In 1986 I was a member of the Steger International Polar Expedition. While at a remote weather station called Eureka located at around 80 degrees north in latitude, on Ellesmere Island in Arctic Canada, I had one of the most amazing encounters with musk oxen and white wolves. I was with Jim Brandenberg, the National Geographic photographer and writer who tells the story. .
From Ellesmere's tip to the North Pole measures some 500 miles across the
Arctic Ocean. During the winter, and for the first 50 or so days of "spring",
such as it is, the water is frozen six to eight feet thick most of the way to
the Pole. Unfortunately, even during the best of conditions, this ice has little
in common with the glassy ice familiar to figure skaters and cocktail
enthusiasts.
Across its craggy, snow-blown surface, the ice cap is wrinkled with pressure
ridges. These erupt in endless labyrinthine walls that can make forward progress
an agonizing, "leads" yawning cracks in the ice that reveal open sea water. When
a team of mushers encounters a lead, they have no choice but to circumnavigate
it or wait for the minus 70degree air to refreeze the brine and create the
several inches of rubbery ice needed to support a sled loaded with supplies.
In 1909, the legendary Peary with his men and dogs braved this unforgiving
habitat, aided by an army of Inuit assistants. But ever since Peary's North Pole
adventure, which took place without external resupply, there has been rampant
speculation as to whether he really reached the Pole. The reason for the
controversy is largely climatological. Peary's expedition began in early March,
when the sun momentarily rises above the Arctic horizon for the first time in
four months. Peary had only about seven weeks to make it to the Pole and back to
land before the ice cap break-up, a period many scholars consider impossibly
short.
Photo: Jim Bradenberg
Steger and co-leader Paul Schurke were determined to try a second,
unsupported trip to the Pole, putting the debate to rest, one way or the other.
Before the Steger team could even begin, however, they had to get their
expedition to the departure point, no small ordeal. Sleds, dogs, crew members
and tons of supplies all had to be carried, by a succession of ever smaller
aircraft, to the tip of Ellesmere Island in time for an Ides-of-arch send off.
The traditional first stop for all expeditioners is Resolute Bay in the
Northwest Territories, the most northerly spot serviced by commercial airlines.
From there, Arctic dreamers must cart their supplies several hours further north
to Eureka Sound, where a permanent weather station is manned by a dozen men. To
reach Eureka, it's necessary to charter 748s, DC-3s, or Twin Otters, the
smallish, highly maneuverable aircraft with skis for wheels, "the workhorses of
the Arctic." Finally, to traverse the approximately 300 miles from Eureka to
northern Ellesmere, expeditioners and their gear are ferried by Twin Otters.
The weather station at Eureka, surrounded by what is in essence a frozen
desert, made me think of what life must be like on a space station. My fellow
inhabitants were all technicians whose fives revolved around the collecting of
data and the combating of boredom. They drank, ate, slept, thought about
meteorology, played cards, watched satellite TV and looked forward to an
occasional risque video cassette. Depression was a problem, especially during
the long months without sunshine.
The Eureka personnel rarely took advantage of the natural world outside. To
be sure, the winter environment is about as hospitable to human flesh as outer
space: a half-hour without your proper "space suit" and you will almost
certainly expire. Still, after a few days at the station waiting out
expeditionary snafus, I felt myself getting extremely jumpy from boredom and
claustrophobia. For three days in a row, I had whiled away the hours by aiming
my binoculars through the murky blue twilight at a distant herd of musk oxen,
which looked like raisins in the snow. I thought it might be fun to take a
closer look.
Musk Oxen, NWT Canada. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Bob McKerrow, a Steger team member from New Zealand, agreed to go along. We
assumed the herd was very close, but after a half-hour of steady hiking we
realized that they were at least four miles away from the station. Lacking any
experience with the animals, we approached with great caution. There are no
trees to climb in the high Arctic, and we felt quite certain that the horns and
hooves of an adult musk ox could make short work of us. As we came closer, the
magnificent ancient beasts, living remnants from the Stone Age, came into
sharper focus.
Having grown up on the prairie, I had expected musk oxen to be similar in
size to buffalo. In reality, they are much smaller - about the size of cows,
though they are more closely related to goats than to cattle. With their
sure-footed hooves, they have little trouble scrambling along rocky precipices.
I could see the animals' extremely long guard hairs, almost a yard in
length. Thanks to these hairs, which are prized for yarn, as well as their
highly insulated undercoats, musk oxen are never affected by the cold, no matter
how low the temperature drops. Noting their indifference to the climate, it
occurred to me for the first of many times in the Arctic how nice it would be to
have a little more hair myself.
At one point, we evidently got a little too close to the herd, because they
quickly assumed their classic protective circle: a phalanx of horns and front
hooves radiating at every point on the circumference, flanks shoved together at
the center. This strategy, evolved over eons of living in a treeless
environment, is a very effective way to protect the young against Arctic wolves,
the major predator of musk oxen. It is not so effective against human predators
like the Inuits who found the musk oxen relatively easy to kill.
McKerrow and I backed off and the musk oxen resumed their grazing, pawing
holes in the snow to get at the frozen grass and sedge below. We studied them
for hours, until finally cold and fatigue got the better of us and we decided to
begin the long hike back to the station. The sun at this time of year lurks just
below the horizon for most of the day, creating a kind of permanent blue dusk.
On the way back, I trailed behind, taking photographs of the landscape. McKerrow
was about a quarter-mile ahead when it happened.
Ellesmere Island is a vast, lonely land
whose inhabitants must struggle to make out a living.
Wolves are tireless travelers who roam the thousands
of square miles of their territory in search of prey.
Photo: Jim Bradenberg
A pack of six Arctic wolves, trotting in a direct line of march over a
nearby rise, appeared like ghosts materializing from the blue ether. At first, I
thought I must have been hallucinating from cold, hunger and fatigue. Three of
them split to my left. Three others swung around to a steep embankment that
flanked a nearby frozen creek. They trotted to the top and sat there, eyeing me,
their bodies silhouetted against the murky horizon. One wolf, which I thought
might be the leader of the pack, sat on the ridge and inspected me with a kind
of fearless, bemused curiosity. Much later, when I returned to search for a pack
to live with and photograph, I would remember this individual wolf and be
convinced he was the same alpha male I would come to know as Buster.
At that moment, however, I was not thinking about the future. I was, to say
the least, flabbergasted. Reflexively, I pulled out my camera and began shooting
photograph after photograph. It was at this moment that I first learned the
difficulties of shooting in the Arctic when you are excited. The combination of
exhaustion and exhilaration makes huffing and puffing inevitable, and one breath
on the viewfinder enamels the glass with an I/ 16th-inch coating of ice. This
must be scraped off with your fingernail, which means removing your two sets of
gloves, which means freezing your fingers.
After scrutinizing me for several minutes, the wolves stood up and resumed
their pursuit of the musk oxen. Suddenly realizing that I might be able to
capture wolves and their natural prey in the same photographic frame, I turned
around and raced after them as best I could. A weary biped is no match for a
species superbly adapted to the Arctic.
a windblown signature in the snow. Photo: Jim Bradenberg
The paws of a wolf are large, and they can splay their toes so wide that
their tracks in the snow almost resemble human handprints. Their weight is
distributed evenly across the snow, so they can walk on top of the crust. In my
mukluks, was breaking through on every other step. After 20 minutes, I was
exhausted. As the dusk deepened, I snapped a few last shots of the distant
wolves approaching the even more distant musk oxen. Then, with muscles aching, I
turned back to catch up with McKerrow. When we were a half-hour away from the
weather station, a Twin Otter flew overhead and dipped its wings a not so subtle
sign of concern and a reminder it was time to come in from the cold.
Back at the station, my mind reeled with wolf images. I'd been wrong in my
interpretation of Will Steger's Ellesmere anecdote: sled dogs would not be
necessary to lure wolves. Evidently the wolves' own curiosity, fueled by the
absence of unpleasant experiences with humans in this remote comer of the world,
was enough to allow some close encounters with the pack.
A few days later, we flew to Ward Hunt Island and waited for the first
glimmer of sun to inaugurate Will's trek. On March 5, the sun appeared for a few
moments on the horizon and winked at us before dipping down again below the
earth's rim. This was the signal to begin, and off Steger and company went, in a
cacophony of canine barks and human cheers that would soon turn to grunts. I was
on hand to photograph the departure, and then flew back south by Twin Otter to
Eureka.
At three points during the expedition, a Twin Otter was scheduled to fly in
and airlift out sled dogs, a humanitarian alternative to Peary's policy of
eating any dog no longer needed to pull supplies. The plane, of course, would
not bring any supplies to the expedition. The Geographic had arranged for me to
fly on these trips to photograph the team's progress.
In between shoots, I found myself with time on my hands and thoughts of
wolves on my mind. I flew from Eurel to Resolute Bay and from there to
Washington, D.C., where National Geographic has its editorial offices. For years
I had been discussing with various editors the possibility of shoo shooting a
wolf story if ever a suitable opportunity arose. Ellesmere seemed ideal. But I
had scarcely started in with my propose when I was told that the Geographic had
already commissioned a wolf story.
So I suggested instead a story I had proposed ten year earlier. The idea was
to photograph the white animals of Ellesmere Arctic fox, Peary caribou, hares,
weasels, snowy owl ptarmigan, polar bears, beluga whales and wolves. When I
first suggested this story, I'd been turned down because of the expense of
sending a rookie to such a remote place. Now, wit time on my hands and the
expenses already incurred whether I did extra work or not, Geographic editor,
Bin Garret decided that it only made sense to go for a "two-fer." The white
wolves, I figured, might be an interesting sidelight to this larger story.
larger story.
Photo: Jim Bradenberg
In the end, Steger and his team would make it to the Pole in triumph, and
their exploits would be celebrated in Geographic cover story. The Ellesmere
piece, with its well-detailed depiction of an exotic habitat, would also prove
quite popular. But the wolf story, which evolved into a several year obsession,
would prove the most significant work of my career. For more on Jim's fascinating story click here. Thanks to Jim Bradenberg for permission to run this article. All photos are Jim's except for the one of mine of the Musk Oxen.
9 comments:
I'd take hanging out with Jim Brandenburg in the Arctic over winning Lotto any day. His photographs have been an inspiration to me for as long as I've known of his work. Thanks for this, Bob.
Likewise Pete, Jim inspired me when I first met him in 1986, and it was such a joy to be out at -50oC looking for wolves and musk oxens. Hope you are well?
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