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National Geographic : 1974 Mar
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Ice cover reflects c itons met by Irwin during hiss month journey. Permanent ice (white) blocks navigation by f surface ships year round. Vessels cnimove through drifting pack ice (broen blue 7 lines) during the briefArctictsummer. Tackling the pathless Arctic without a compass, Colin relied for direction on the position of the sun and the imprint of prevailing winds on the snow. He set out from Repulse Bay in early February, reached the settlement of Tuktoyaktuk by dogsled on June 14, and covered the last 600 miles to Alaska's Point Barrow by motor-powered down to -60° F., and a spring heralded by the percussions of cracking ice. I would finish in July, not by dogsled, but in a canoe on the flowing summer sea. WHILE RESTING in Pelly Bay, I bought ten new dogs from local Eskimos. John retrieved our sled and equipment, and a few days later a plane flew him home to Cambridge Bay in less than three hours a trip that would take me four weeks. My companion for the next stage of the journey was another old friend, Tipana, who would trek with me as far as his home at Cambridge Bay, some 500 miles to the west. Like other seasoned hunters of his generation, Tipana, in his fifties, was wiry, weathered, and wise-possessing little formal education, but a vast knowledge of the Arctic. He fit my rule of thumb for a traveling companion in the Far North: If he speaks more than a few words of English, disqualify him. Before leaving Pelly Bay, we replenished our supplies of sugar, tea, coffee, flour, and tobacco. We loaded our 18-foot sled with four rotten seals to be used for dog food; we also carried rifles for hunting caribou. I hoped that we would have better luck in taking game than we'd had on the first leg of the trip. Certainly, I did not want to write another entry in my diary such as the one for March 2: We both had a little caribou stomach half way through the day as we have no meat left. I don't mind eating rancid seal, but I don't care at all for such leftovers as innards. If this carries on much longer, I'm afraid I'm going to eat one of the dogs.... After traveling for two days out of Pelly Bay, we realized that we had missed our planned route through a high mountain pass. We came across a hunting party-two men and a boy-and they led us to a new course along a lake in a valley cut by glaciers of National Geographic,March 1974 300
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