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| The Game | ||
Log Date: August 10, 1998
Author: Doug Cabot
Location: Baffin Island
Sightings: Ice, rocks, polar bear
Baffin Island!
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We are there - Baffin Island!
We have dropped both our stern and bow anchors inside a little cove on the very southern
tip of the Blunt Peninsula, at the end of the Hall Peninsula. Today, starting at
2 AM when the sail went back up after a three-hour lull, we made some 70 miles to
get to this place. We were already within a few miles of the coast as of last night,
but, with the steady northeast breeze, we all agreed to push on southward for another
day's solid progress.
Click on the pictures below to view enlargements.
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The Viking sagas identify Baffin as "Helluland," which means "Slabland."
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With that, I excuse myself from all ordered thought. So much has happened today.
It's 2 AM again, so I'm pretty scattered already. All I'm going to do is deliver
the news in one jumbled pile, then crawl off to my sleeping bag.
In addition to anchor watch, we also now have "bear watch." As journal
boy, I am first on watch - the first hour of being awake and alert for not only anchors
dragging, but polar bears clambering over the side belongs to me. Here's how it came
about: today, as we rowed into the first spot we had chosen to anchor in, John Abbott
- who was rowing right next to me - said, "Hey, what's that up on those rocks?"
He nodded towards a sea-sprayed wall about a hundred yards away. I saw a pale yellow
thing, shapeless, notable only for a color which was different from the gray, slate
blue and occasional streak of white snow that seem to define every visible thing
up here. "Could it be a bear?" he asked eagerly. Too eagerly, I thought.
"No," I replied.
"Why not?"
Because, it's got to be something else. Because you don't just pull up and see a
polar bear sleeping on the first piece of rock in sight. Just a moment earlier, I
was vying for a spot on the raft with the first landing party. Get ashore, test my
sea-legs, dance around a little, sing the first two words of O Canada - that
sort of thing. To stumble across a polar bear in the first three minutes would have
dampened the vibe somewhat. But I didn't say any of this. I was now staring at John
Gardner, who was saying that he could smell it. I looked again - everyone did. And
it moved. It looked at us for a second and then went back to sleep. Very sorry, Mister
P! You were right and I was wrong! And by the way, thanks for saving my life. Will
we see any more bears? I sort of hope not.
We weighed anchor and moved out, rowing a few weary miles to this new anchorage in
the Chapell Inlet. We are feeling rather grateful to that bear for alerting us to
the possibile presence of others of his kind.
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What else did we see today? A couple of walrus swimming near the boat, one of which
stopped to look at us. Our first pitch-black night. Besides that, a lot of water
and a lot of rock. No vegetation -not even lichen - to color the view. Sheer, scree-covered
cliffs rising from the ocean and disappearing into the low cloud cover. Rain. And
icebergs everywhere. We passed close to a small one, which rocked in the swell. This
one piece of ice seemed to capture for me the spirit of the place: a solid, bleak
and cold beauty that takes no heed of any meaning we might try to attach to it. It
does not celebrate our arrival the way we do. It is so much bigger and older. Though
it may be changing in form, slowly and constantly, it seems that it has been like
this forever.
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