Open the below pictures in a full-screen slideshow by Flickr
August 3rd, 2009 – At Sea 70 02N 132 12W
by Herb McCormick and David Thoreson
(August 3): Before the longhairs came along and wrecked everything, the late, great Rod Serling was the epitome of 1960s-era cool. With his chiseled features and neat, close-cropped black hair – often turbaned in a swirl of cigarette smoke – Serling was the creator and narrator of the seminal TV show The Twilight Zone, a program that delved into science fiction and the supernatural that was years ahead of its time.
Yesterday, as I approached the entrance to the community icehouse in the Canadian Arctic village of Tuktoyaktuk,
 |
| The fish camp in the village of Tuktoyaktuk. |
the visage of Rod Serling suddenly, and chillingly, came to mind. Caves and caverns have always given me the creeps – there’s a reason I’m a sailor and not a spelunker, and that reason is claustrophobia – and as I entered the small shed at ground level and peered down the long, dark shaft plunging into the very bowels of the earth, I sensed the first familiar stages of fear and panic that have prefaced similar excursions. As my skin began to prickle, and a slight sheen of sweat glistened on my brow, I could almost hear Serling’s deep, ominous tones:
“Consider the icehouse, a subterranean cellar for the storage of fish, as familiar an item to the Inuit hunter as a kitchen refrigerator in a suburban home. But once you descend the 30-foot ladder into its cavernous depths, the striated ice lining its corridors are etched with dark, cold secrets that are quite unknown to your innocent household appliance. As the door shuts behind you, your little errand to fetch supper turns into an excursion quite unlike any other. So go ahead, zip up your parka, pull your cap over your ears, and take that first, fateful step down…into the Twilight Zone.”
 |
| Cleaning fish in Tuk. |
Today, after a three-day layover in Tuk, Ocean Watch resumed its eastward journey toward the next scheduled layover in Cambridge Bay. But first, after rounding Cape Bathurst, the crew plans to stop somewhere in the vicinity of the Parry Peninsula in the Amundsen Gulf. There is still a significant ice plug to the east of the peninsula, and once there, we’ll regroup, download the latest ice charts, and plot our next move. The ice situation in the Northwest Passage is quite different than the last two summers, and we’ll be addressing that topic in greater depth as the week moves forward.
As so often happens when Ocean Watch fetches up in a new harbor, photographer David Thoreson hits the ground running, a big pack of camera gear in hand, and he always manages to meet interesting people and find incredible stories. In that respect, Tuk was no different than many of our previous stops. Here’s the saga of how his latest photo essay came to be:
“Tuk is a small town and easy to walk around in. There are summer ‘fish camps’ set up all about the shores, both right in town or dotting the small islands of the Mackenzie River delta. Two years ago I stopped in Tuk sailing from the east and took a walk around that ended on the shore near our current anchorage.
“I remembered the place very well, in particular the tidy fish camp and the beautiful racks of whitefish drying in
 |
| Racks of whitefish drying in the open air. |
the open air. There was a radio tuned in to the CBC, a fire going and a thermos of coffee, but the owner of the camp was nowhere in sight. Still, I stopped for a bit and took a lot of images.
“Fast forward two years: Soon after our arrival on Ocean Watch last week, I scanned the horizon and noticed the full fish racks at the same camp. My short walk around Tuk once again ended at the camp. The first thing I noticed was the radio tuned in to the same CBC station and the beautiful drying racks of smoked whitefish. This time, however, a compact, fit figure emerged from the ‘smokehouse’ and Inuit hunter and fisherman Wayne Thrasher appeared.
“What followed was three days of observing, listening and hands-on lessons as Wayne went about his chores managing his summer gill-netting operation. This gentle and insightful man moves and speaks at a pace equal to that of the Arctic – slow, methodical, and calculated, with absolutely no mistakes.
“Wonderful stories emerged of his great grandfather, a whaling captain on a boat in the 1930s, and Wayne’s own work on the ubiquitous Arctic DEW (Distant Early Warning) stations where he cleared the grounds of bears. Wayne told me about making his own ‘mukluks’ for the upcoming hunting season from caribou skin and then showed how the musk oxen horn could be used for armor against deadly bear jaws. He also shared some tragic stories including a recent boating accident that killed a couple of his longtime friends.
 |
| Wayne Thrasher and Captain Mark Schrader. |
“In the oral tradition of the native people in the north, Wayne’s father had passed on a story about a family who was mistreated in the area in the ‘old days’ and kept migrating east, eventually reaching Greenland. ‘People from Tuk founded parts of Greenland and will tell you the same story there,’ explained Wayne, while we snacked on ‘bipsi’ (whitefish) and raw beluga. This was confirmed when a Greenlandic contingent visited Tuk during an Inuit circumpolar conference in the 1990s and told the same tale.
“This summer, over a period of twelve days, Wayne had caught and smoked over 300 whitefish and cleaned out a Beluga whale. He was nearing the end of the process and needed help putting his winter food away in the community icehouse.
“My fellow sailors on Ocean Watch, Zeta Strickland and Dave Logan, met us at the door and we took turns climbing down the thirty-foot ladder and into the frozen world of the permafrost. Wayne explained how it had taken twenty men, wielding pickaxe and shovels, to build the place over two years in 1964-65. There are nineteen rooms, although only five or so are currently being used as more residents turn to ‘modern’ refrigeration. Even though it requires tremendous effort, Wayne continues to lay up food for his extended family and the community.
“Back at the camp, we jumped into his little aluminum rowboat and hand-pulled our way along his nets, which were suspended by used, plastic, motor-oil containers. Wayne demonstrated how to size the fish immediately using the net itself. We brought in another half-dozen whitefish to clean while freeing the same amount of smaller fish. I marveled at his efficiency. Everything in his possession was recycled in some way down to the old desks being used as cleaning tables.
 |
| Zeta Strickland enters the ice house where Inuit fishmen store their catch. |
“Like most native people throughout the north, Wayne worries about the future of his village. He sees a new highway working its way north; water quality changing in the Mackenzie River delta; increased seismic testing in the area; and erosion tearing away at the shorelines. As I said goodbye, I marveled at his great experiences but wondered about the future of Wayne and those people like him, clinging to ancient traditions in the new, emerging Arctic environment.”
David, Zeta and Dave Logan had finished helping Wayne when skipper Mark Schrader and I took a tour of the icehouse the next day, and I had my Twilight Zone moment. The icehouse was indeed a fascinating place – a warren of four long corridors lined in ancient ice with a series of individual rooms down each hall. Each was less than six feet high with ceilings made of fresh ice crystals, so that when you entered one you cocked your head so as not to brush off the crystals. A less tolerant observer than myself might’ve compared the place to either a very effective dungeon or the popular Hell address for a Holiday Inn.
Sailors are a superstitious lot, and I’m no exception. The icehouse was fascinating, and I’m glad I had a look at it, but things were getting rather close and clammy when just ahead of me, the captain, in his headlamp, pushed open door number 13 and said, “Hey, you’ve got to check this out. It’s a long hallway with a turn up ahead, and if you…”
Let’s just put it this way: Seconds later, I was up the ladder and gulping big mouthfuls of glorious fresh air. As for the skipper’s description of room 13, I never heard the end of it.
- Herb McCormick and David Thoreson, who also took the photographs
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.
