Gary Rolfe

Sled-Mounted Panasonic HDC-SD80 Video Camera

2012-02-19T13:35:00.001-01:00

For the last video before I head out for two months with my dogs, I mounted Panasonic’s HDC-SD80 video camera to my sled having broken the trail the day before. In the HD video you can see that the digital camera makes the most of the dawn-like conditions and ambient light reflected off the snow.

As we climb up into and down mountain sides my Rab Wind Suit can be seen as I go forward to release rope brakes from the prow of my sled runners after a steep descent. Included on my belt kit is a compass, a Gerber knife and the world’s smallest PLB (Personal Location Beacon), the ACR ResQLink.

With the sun not yet above the horizon, we travel past an area where seal nets are set under the sea ice.

Back in Ittoqqortoormiit we pass between hunters' dog teams on the frozen river below my house to complete the circuit.

If you think this video footage is exciting imagine what it was like running the same route earlier this winter in pitch black dark. Of course this could never have been done without my Petzl headlamps written about in the three-part Polar Lyon series.

The HDC-SD80 video camera is a delight to handle in the cold. Open the LCD screen and the HDC-SD80 switches on and automatically opens the lens shutter.

It is magically small which could have been a mighty hindrance in the cold because feature buttons are almost always recessed into other makes of camera bodies making it all but impossible to use without the removal of paw protection. I need not have worried.

The optical telephoto lens button is raised and easily adjusted even when hands are clad in bulky mittens. Brilliant. The lens enabled me to scan the ice edge (where land-locked ice meets open water) using the LCD screen as though looking through top-quality binoculars. I could see that nobody was out there hunting today.

Closer to home a polar bear had been spotted walking inland off the sea ice and from a high vantage point I filmed a friend hunting the bear. I was amazed at the video quality of the footage recorded in such low light.

The camera battery was strong even after being outside for most of the day at minus 25º C, not cold by our standards but a darn good test nonetheless. On top of that the record button is also very easy to use with mittens on and certainly gets the thumbs up from me.

I am looking forward to shooting more video footage on my upcoming journey.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Piteraq Warning

2012-01-10T16:51:00.000-01:00

Strong winds have hit Ittoqqortoormiit today and a piteraq warning has been issued in the area of Ammassalik (about 850 km south of us, our nearest neighbours). A piteraq strikes within minutes and with devastating violence.

Piteraq is a Greenlandic word. The nearest translation is ambush. It is a phenomenon caused by falling cold air hurtling off the ice cap.

One piteraq that comes to mind was that of February 6, 1970. The last wind-speed and temperature reading for that piteraq was 90 metres per second and minus 20 º C before the weather instruments were blown out to sea; 90 metres per second equals 324 km per hour or 201 mph (treble hurricane force).

One hunter survived by huddling up close to the dead polar bear he had shot.

Storm damage was so great that Tasiilaq was all but dismantled. After, there was talk of whether houses could ever be built to withstand such terrible winds. School children were flown to Denmark because their school was destroyed.

Tonight the piteraq warning lamp flashes and a siren sounds from the mast beside the church in Tasiilaq.

Spare a thought for the people of Ammassalik.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

The Trick Is...

2012-01-02T21:09:00.004-01:00

I was exhausted over New Year.

My dogs are fit. They have rest between conditioning runs. But I paid the price for long hours of burning candles at both ends preparing for a mid-February journey departure date. Plus I was pole-axed when I broke a rib on a Boxing Day run by falling on top of a sled upright. My body hurts. The trick is not minding that it hurts.

My main lead dog, Loads, is lame (fighting). Twins Shocker and Treatment have been alternating with Cracker as leaders. More heavy snowfall has meant I have been breaking trail in front of my dogs but there is plenty to smile about. Youngsters Blimey and Max are running hard as a pair. I have tonnes of food for my dogs. Right now whale blubber and a ringed seal are thawing on my kitchen floor. The seal is frozen solid and will take three days before I can skin and butcher it. Gear from my last dog run dries in the net loft, and new traces I have weaved (using polyethylene hollow-braided rope from Snowpaw) hang ready for action.

The wooden gate has been left there from when Girly was last in heat; she was an angel to have indoors. I have left the gate in anticipation for young Stunner who I am sure will do everything possible to have me eating my fists.

New Year's Eve was stormy here but as I played Lemmy's version of Run Run Rudolph I wasn't too tired to let off out-of-date flares to see in the New Year with a bang and a smile.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

I Think It's A Tulip

2011-12-25T23:24:00.002-01:00

I am proud to call Ittoqqortoormiit my home. With it comes a sense of belonging and peace I have never experienced anywhere else in the world. It’s not just like that at Christmas; it’s like it all year. People help, watch and care for each other. There is an atmosphere of what village life must have been like one hundred years ago. Christmas is magical here. On my running route yesterday the sweet smell of baking wafted as I took in all the waving, chatting, handshaking and smiling. People were walking through the snow on their way to deliver wrapped present surprises.

It has been nearly three years since I have seen trees or smelt garden flowers. Some flower bulbs were set and flown in before Christmas for us to enjoy their glorious blooms. The lovely petal colours have made me smile and remind me of my Mum.

I think it's a tulip

Life is precious. Mums give us life. When I was a kid my Mum never held me back. This must have been very hard because I was terribly boisterous and always getting into mischief. This spirit was left to thrive, to live life to the full. I ran myself for two hours today and later out running my dogs tonight through snowfall up in the hills behind my house I thought back to my Christmases as a kid when circumstances were sometimes very difficult. But Mum made them special times. On my return I telephoned my Mum and told her how much I love her.

We had so many wonderful presents kindly sent to us from family and friends that were also flown in before Christmas. Over the years I have collected model dog sleds as well as my old hunter sleds. For Christmas Jennifer gave me a wonderful one made by a friend of ours, Steen Pike. The model is 1:10 scale and in the picture (below) I have placed a .30-06 bullet to the side to give you a better idea of the sled's size. It is an amazing miniature and detailed in every way to an authentic full-size east Greenlandic sled. The .30-06 bullet is for Jennifer's new rifle. With this polar bear stopper, she can now safely venture further from home hiking and skijoring with dogs I retire for sled dog adventures of her own when I am not at home.

Scale model of an Ittoqqortoormiit dog sled

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Polar Lyon - Part 3

2011-12-23T11:36:00.001-01:00

I keep out of trouble with eyes in the back of my head. I can do this because throughout perpetual winter polar dark and Arctic cold Energizer (Canada) Ultimate Lithium batteries power, without weakness, devices like my Petzl (Lyon) Myo 3 headlamp, the light of which enables me to go about my daily life in winter. Pull a Petzl headlamp powered by Energizer Ultimate Lithiums out of my sled bag at forty below zero and it will work without that keep-the-batteries-warm palaver.

I don't use alkaline batteries because they are hopelessly inadequate in the cold. They contain water that obviously freezes rendering them useless and even warm they still do not last long. They are the kiss of death to headlamps in the cold. On top of that they are twice as heavy as Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries.

With Girly

In summer I leave Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries as part of journey depots. Turning my back on the depots I leave them for over seven months in nothing more than a crate throughout an entire Arctic winter using them as re-supply depots the following year.

This summer I set out new depots for another journey and more Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries were part of crucial supplies left to survive this winter and await the arrival of my dogs and me next year. Despite being left out for so long in the cold and because they are the world’s longest lasting AA battery, I have never had Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries fail to deliver.

On journeys my main headtorch is the Myo 3 but I also pack a Petzl Tikka 2 CORE. This is powered by AAA batteries. Energizer also produce a AAA Ultimate Lithium battery. At home I insert the lithium CORE battery and recharge using the USB cable plugged directly into my Panasonic Toughbook. The Petzl Ultra Accu 2 and the Accu 4 (belt version) batteries are easily recharged off the wall.

Recharging a Petzl Tikka 2 CORE via the USB port on my Panasonic Toughbook

In the following video I slip a nine-dog team and speed out in gentle snowfall by the peripheral light of Ittoqqortoormiit but soon the only light I am able to go by is that of my Petzl Ultra headlamp as we climb into the hills for an easy one-hour run. The barking is from other dog teams as we pass them by.

Behind my house the hills roll and mountains tower. Here is a summer perspective.

Walking Pirate behind my house in August

In winter this is an area used by hibernating pregnant sow polar bears. Male polar bears do not hibernate. The lights of Ittoqqortoormiit enable us to walk about, work and go about our daily business in safety. Children walk to school and play. Mums pull toddlers in sleds to nursery school. Polar bear sightings between buildings are not unusual or welcome. This year three dangerous bears were shot less than one hundred metres from my house.

The electricity lighting for Ittoqqortoormiit is powered by a large generator that also keeps our water from freezing in a huge reservoir that holds two million litres of water. The water lasts us (400 people) three to four months. You can see the silver water reservoir to the left of me in the Snappy Dresser video.

Greenland is the only place where I have been physically lifted off the ground by the wind. This happened on a day when I was feeding my dogs on my hands and knees and, just to try, I stood up. It was a stupid move because anything airborne would have taken my head off. As it was I was lifted and landed in a heap on the ground. This happened in the winter of 2007- 2008. It was the worst Ittoqqortoormiit winter in living memory.

A program for conditioning and training my dogs is of no value unless feeding is also of the highest quality. In this second video (below) I am giving my dogs drinking water and feeding them dried food (protein 34%, fat 30%) and whale blubber on the frozen river below my house. Twice daily I also clear away what comes out the other end, all by the light of my Petzl Ultra headtorch.

As a breed the Greenland Dog is nonchalant to pain. They give nothing away and if left unchecked will run themselves to destruction in their desire to pull as part of a team. Knowing this I check for injuries, teeth and dogs' paws because as the saying goes: no feet, no dog.

There is something primeval in seeing the sun rise above the mountains for the first time having not seen it for so long. We are patient. My dogs will continue to run by the light of my headlamp until the sun returns next year.

In a moment I'll be out of the door to run my dogs. Today amounts to our Christmas Eve because in Ittoqqortoormiit Christmas is celebrated on the 24th (tomorrow).

I dream, plan and work towards many things. Merry Christmas to you all and all the very best for 2012 in whatever it is you dream of most.

For more about Gary, his dogs and his Energizer powered Petzl headlamps go to www.garyrolfe.com

Polar Lyon - Part 2

2011-12-19T14:08:00.002-01:00

As a non-climber myself it might come as a surprise to learn that I use rather a lot of climbing hardware in snow, on ice and in the cold. There is a reason. My dogs are strong and have a tendency to reveal weakness in equipment.

Non-climbing hardware

The photo above shows a selection of stainless steel collar hardware that didn’t survive, breakages inflicted by single dogs. In the middle is what was left of a 5 cm steel ring that Knuckle snapped as if it were a twig.

In the picture below, ten Petzl (Lyon) Spirit snap gate carabiners and two screw gate carabiners are loaded with the power of ten of my 19 dogs. The Spirit is my general purpose carabiner. These crisp and confident snap gates attach my dogs' harnesses to the main centre trace. My dogs weigh in at over 45 kg each and all those carabiners withstand and tolerate up to 10 hours of strain, for days on end, nine months per year. At full tilt 13 dogs complete a full team pulling up to a half tonne payload over mountainous terrain.

I know of several unfortunates unlucky enough to have had their fingers torn from hands when snagged in rope attached to the power of their dogs. When I go out with a full team of fit dogs it is like the unison ignition of huge locomotive pistons exhaling clouds of spent air into the cold to drive their legs of stacked muscle. When I slip my quick release knot to unfurl that initial surge of power one almighty horizontal ice rocket propels itself in a spectacular rush that remains as exciting now as the very first time I experienced it. At that point a dog team would rather knock your teeth out and leave you for dead than stop. Click on this to learn how I do it without losing body parts. You can see Beal (Lyon) rope secures my sled before I release the knot and hear that rope whip and crack like a pistol shot. The rope was tied off to a Petzl William with its automatic locking Triact-Lock system carabiner. Looks easy doesn’t it? But, as with getting climbing protection device placement wrong on a serious climb, it can all go horribly, horribly wrong.

Trailing behind my sled is a snub line. It drags behind enabling me to grab it the next time my team leave me stranded. It is a rope I trust to be dragged for the entire duration of a journey behind my sled and every single step of the way it will go through water that will freeze, break off, re-freeze, slide over punishing rocks and razor ice. If this isn’t enough my dogs' crap on the fly and the rope gets covered in it until it freezes and flakes off like peanut brittle. If you have a dog team and they have never bolted and left you standing, they will. The last time it happened to me was December 2007. Also, to the left of my sled (picture above) clawed into packed snow is my snow anchor. This holds my sled fast enabling me to stop my dogs. The anchor has Beal semi-static rope run from it to the main centre trace bracing all the power. Here's a closer look at the snow anchor. It is a severe piece of ironmongery.

The only known snow anchor to halt an ice rocket

A Petzl Locker screw gate caribiner attaches my sled to my dogs' main centre trace. It is a potentially pivotal wear point that is pulled through snow and over ice and bare rock. You wouldn't want to come back as a caribiner responsible for working this position. It is a bad, dangerous place.

Bad day. The red dot in the middle is my sled as I work my dogs over a mountain section devoid of snow

Beal 6 mm and 8 mm cord makes up the construction of my sleds, enables me to lash sled loads securely and improves my tents. Most of the time I travel alone. Getting a tent up or down quickly can be a matter of life or death. Tents tend to come embossed with marketing hype exclaiming they'll withstand nature's fury and you'll sleep as if at home. Not so. Tents required for Arctic winters require modifications. I have never come across a new expedition rated tent that doesn't require alterations or improvements. Invariably I start to sew loops around the tent inner floor, following the tent pole framework and thread 3 mm Beal cord through the loops for tensioning. This stabilizes tent poles from the inside. It also creates a neat lattice high up above where the warmth of my stove dries gear. Click here to see how I improve my tents.

I have been rolled in a tent by the wind, with a blazing stove inside, an experience I never wish to repeat. So now, for staking out my tent or the ends of my dogs’ stakeout chain in hard packed snow I angle horizontally (15 º) 90 cm long aluminium pickets before clipping in one carabiner into each and securing. I always pack a mountaineering snow shovel. For a perpendicular pull anchoring technique called a dead-man, I dig a pit for the picket and clip a caribiner into the centre hole before digging a slot in the direction of pull.

Top left to right: Petzl Spirit caribiners and Laser Sonic ice screws with Ice Flutes
Bottom left to right: home-made dirt spikes and pitons

Sometimes there is no choice but to make camp on sea ice which means anchoring my tent with Petzl 17 cm long Laser Sonic ice screws. They are a cinch to place with mittens on and it is ever so easy to rid the tubes of ice. My ice screws travel inside Petzl Ice Flute protective holders. After any journey I am always sure to wash the saline residue off ice screws to avoid corrosion. I pack pitons because there are times when my only anchor points are exposed rock. For anchoring into frozen dirt I have 25 cm long bolts. These I drive into place with the back of a small Gerber Sport axe that I always carry.

At night I secure my dogs by means of a long chain. Dogs are spaced along the chain and given their own space to feed and rest. Snow or ice anchors secure both ends. On ice I use Petzl Laser Sonic ice screws, in deep snow I drop dead-men. Petzl Locker screw gate carabiners and Beal 10.5 mm rope complete the secure set-up.

Dogs secure, tent secure

In the winter of 2010 I returned home after a 33-day, 640-kilometre journey alone with 12 of my dogs to an area marked unknown or unexplored on the maps of Greenland.

Home safe

This winter we will go further. Below is the first picture ever taken of the region.

Preparations continue and include the packing of crevasse rescue equipment such as 60 metres of Beal Cobra II 8.6 mm (dynamic and dry treated rope), Petzl Locker screw gate carabiners and ST'Anneau Dyneema slings.

For nine months of my year Beal rope and Petzl climbing hardware is working outside 24-hours a day, whether at home or on a journey. It hardly ever rests and never fails to protect. I just wish that my dogs didn't like chewing it so much.

Beal rope. It is everything but fang proof

For more information about Gary and his dogs: www.garyrolfe.com

Polar Lyon - Part 1

2011-12-15T16:08:00.003-01:00

So, what has a dog musher got to do with climbing hardware? I shouldn’t think there’s anyone else who lives in the Arctic fulltime and uses Petzl (Lyon) equipment for nine months of the year in what amounts to the longest snow season for running sled dogs in the world. If there is, wonderful, because it'll reinforce a series of three blog entries I have written for you highlighting climbing related hardware, used in a dog musher's world.

Arctic winters not only bring indescribable cold but also 24-hours of perpetual darkness. Where I live the sun never rises from November until January. This is a time when we are beset by the polar winter. Infamous Greenland storms are like no other. They are brutal. They are also rarely written about because so few people experience them. There are even fewer accounts of Arctic winter gear tolerances. A handful of climbers make it here during the brief summer. What about in the depths of winter? Never.

With less than a week before winter solstice, headlamps seem an appropriate topic to start with. When it comes to headlamp technology and design, Petzl has raised the bar to incredible heights. Petzl has set the standard by which to judge what is the best available.

The cold is but one physical extreme for inanimate objects. For Man it is probably the most feared. Nobody likes being cold. This is what traveling at minus 50ºC looks like. Dress inappropriately and it feels what I imagine being burnt alive is like.

Arctic dark can be so black it's like being nailed inside a coffin. The picture is a video still shot over a decade ago. I was alone on the Mackenzie River in Arctic Canada's Northwest Territories. It was the middle of winter and bitterly cold. The headlamp was an old model from Petzl, a treasured and trusted belonging that helped me find my way and care for my dogs.

We had hurricanes last February and October (in Ittoqqortoormiit). In February my headlamp enabled me to rescue my own dogs and help other dog drivers in a dramatic dog rescue written about in the Sunday Times.

The depth of Petzl's headlamp range has enabled me to task orientate specific models to suit what it is I want from them depending on the time of year or my routine. The same could be said of a climber selecting rope or making a carabiner choice by what confronts him.

Weight isn't a consideration at this time of year for me but having a headlamp that will deliver the maximum amount of light for the longest time certainly is. This winter I have been conditioning my adult dogs and training youngsters on runs from home using the Petzl Ultra Accu 2 or the belt version, the Ultra Belt Accu 4. Converting the Ultra Accu 2 to the belt version is a cinch. Both battery packs are rechargeable and the energy gauge is a useful feature. The beam gives me the greatest range of peripheral vision but above all it produces the brightest and widest illuminated area of any headlamp I know of. It has to be the Rolls-Royce of headlamps.

Harnessing Cracker in the black of the Arctic winter by the light of my Petzl Ultra Accu 2

I also like the way the Petzl Ultra illuminates the same distance with different intensities. For instance when working close to hand, even on the very darkest of winter days, the lowest setting is ample light to work by. On the move and having to anticipate some distance in front of my running dogs (20 metres) the full beam is so intense and clear it’s like having a car headlight mounted on my head. On longer dog runs I use the Ultra Accu 4 simply because the battery packs last longer. The battery cable remains flexible in the cold so you know a lot of design thought has gone into producing what amounts to a serious headlamp. I also really do like the ease of changing battery packs on this headlamp. Another thumbs up is that the variable light intensity side knob is easy to use with hands festooned with gloves or mittens.

But it is the Petzl Myo 3 headlamp that has been a journey favourite of mine for seven years now.

By the light of a Petzl Myo 3 wearing a Yogi coloured Rab Infinity jacket

The Myo 3 has two light options. For working at close quarters with big, strong dogs going wild to run, harnessing them in the dark has to be done quickly. I want a bright, clean and precise light and get it from the three LED bulb light option. In the middle of work like this there is little worse than floppy headlamp tilt adjustment that will not stay in place. There is none of this with the Myo 3.

I have 18 dogs and that means 72 pads of hair to thin and 288 claws to trim. Why bother? Left unchecked, snow will ball up on pad fur between my dogs’ toes on runs causing a dog to eventually go lame. Consider it comparable to running with rocks in your trainers. Trimming pad fur is a tough job for bare hands and impossible in the middle of a polar winter without a headlamp.

Trimming pad fur by the light of my Petzl Myo 3. The jacket is a Rab Neutrino Endurance

The zenon halogen bulb setting is for concentrating on longer focused distance work. From my sled to front lead dog the distance can be over 20 metres. Running my dogs at night by the beam of my Myo 3 headlamp I watch my dogs’ gait. I’m very attentive because the gait is a good indication that all is well or subtle changes indicate otherwise. Anything wrong they tend to drop their heads on the down stride of a sore leg, else they look behind to let me know all is not well. Or sometimes a tail will drop. Most of all I watch their feet. Unattended problems can render a dog lame.

Rotating the headlamp bezel is the only way the light can be turned on or off, a no hassle manoeuvre with hands bundled up inside mittens. There’s none of that switching itself on nonsense to blaze away unnoticed at the bottom of my sled bag draining away critical battery power. The Myo 3 floods a helpful wide beam. I watch river, lake and sea ice conditions. I always look out for polar bears.

With dustbin lid sized paws polar bears fear nothing and have a tendency to eat people. I look out for their kills and determine male footprints from protective sows with cubs. I also watch for stalking bears attacking from downwind. In poor light they appear yellow. In pitch black their eyes are a blue-ish green colour. In bright light they’re perfectly camouflaged. Lone male polar bears never hibernate. They kill year round. Seeing springtime cubs I make a wide detour. Coming between a sow and cubs always gets mum mad. Charging bears tend to spoil my day. At night it is my dogs that warn and pinpoint the approach of a polar bear into camp. Inside my tent and I hear my dogs’ low “gruff…gruff…gruff” means only one thing and it is never to be ignored. The best headlamp in the world is what you want and with it my dogs’ heads will all be pointing like arrowheads in the direction for me to take care of business.

A journey luxury I allow myself to pack is the little lightweight Petzl Tikka 2 CORE headlamp. I tend to use it inside my tent because the powerpack isn't at the back of the head like a rock when I lay stretched out on my sleeping bag system.

The Petzl Tikka 2 CORE headlamp

And what of summer headlamps? We get over 70 days of perpetual 24-hour summer daylight but I still pack a headlamp. Working as a polar bear monitor protecting field groups involves a lot of helicopter flying invariably to a wide range of locations and with it comes a great deal of serious responsibility for bringing pilots safely into a prepared landing site. In mountainous regions this is best done signalling with a mirror. In cloudy conditions I reflect the beam of my headlamp on to my signal mirror, the pilot responds and safely lands.

When I run and train myself in summer there is no need for running using a headlamp. But as September daylight swiftly diminishes and winter sets in I do some of those early winter runs wearing my Petzl Tikka.

I can do all of this because I never have a dud headlamp.

Clockwise: The Petzl Ultra, the Tikka 2 CORE and the Myo 3

For more information about Gary, his dogs and his Petzl headlamps go to www.garyrolfe.com

South Pole Centenary (and...the polar scientist)

2011-12-14T00:35:00.000-01:00

One hundred years ago today the South Pole was reached for the very first time by a team of Norwegians led by Roald Amundsen. He used Greenland Dogs. And as everybody knows Scott and his men reached the South Pole one month later and all tragically died on their return. It is stirring stuff. Both men have rightly gone down as legends and heroes for different reasons.

Amundsen opened up vast frontiers with dogs and led the way. In his wake scientific base camps were established around Antarctica’s peninsula to penetrate the interior for scientific studies. For decades dog teams were the only means of travel.

Less than 90 years after the feats of Amundsen and Scott, scientists and bureaucracy banned dogs from Antarctica. Dogs, the most environmentally friendly means of polar transport.

If you believe that Antarctica is still one great huge wilderness, think again. The Americans have built a 1,600 km road for their scientists called the South Pole Traverse and this leads from McMurdo on the coast to the South Pole. It took four diesel-burning years to build. And its purpose? The Americans control the South Pole and have built monstrous buildings there, all to do with science apparently, except for the gift shop where you can buy your I Love The South Pole T-shirt. Scientists as the saviours of Antarctica? They don’t exactly practise what they preach. It is all the more pathetic when you think back all those years and acknowledge that this was a place first seen by explorers and dogs with backbone that sacrificed everything to explore the unknown but are now banned from the continent.

Somewhere along the line the pursuit of science has become very fashionable and the pursuit of exploration and adventure considered less worthy. The joy and love of pure adventure should not be an outdated sentiment. The spirit of exploration runs deep in mankind. It is an integral part of the human condition. Explorers take the risks to get us there. Science follows. Three cheers for the explorers.

One thing that makes the achievements of Amundsen and Scott even more remarkable is that they had to (with cap in hand) raise the vast funds for their journeys on their own and spent years after paying off the debts (in the case of Scott, his widow). That was true dedication to their dreams and goals.

It is so transparently obvious that the real reason why the South Pole is now used as a scientific centre is to create some kind of validity to what goes on there. Generally I have a very low opinion of polar scientists. In all my time of living in the Arctic I have already met more than my fair share and from what I have seen, I am sorry to say they are, as a breed, conceited and rude creatures with double standards. But don't take my word for it. When I lived in Arctic Canada the term JAFA (Just Another F*cking Academic) was rife among locals. In my experience scientists passing through Arctic communities leave little behind but memories of incessant demands and condescending behaviour.

This is not a day for scientists.

Amundsen and Scott, tonight I salute you both. You did it your way and in ways that should never be forgotten.

Three cheers for the explorers

I suggest that as a mark of respect the site of the South Pole should be declared a world heritage site. Which leaves me with one simple question: in a world full of environmental awareness, why in God's name aren’t dogs being re-introduced to explore Antarctica?

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

High Tails And Bright Eyes

2011-12-11T14:53:00.002-01:00

This has been a memorable week for The Awesome Foursome. Yearlings Max, Proper and Stunner eagerly followed Blimey individually for their first runs in harness.

Max, all calm and confident, being harnessed for the very first time

Proper, equally calm and confident, after his first harness run

And Stunner harnessed ready to go

There was minimal fuss, no tangled traces but plenty of high curled tails and huge bright eyes as though they had come back from the greatest adventure of all time.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Blimey's Christmas Wish

2011-12-06T13:04:00.061-01:00

Do you remember this little fellow?

Blimey, October 2010

He's grown.

I have never been very good at holding on to presents until the big day. Besides, I had every intention of running last year's litter in harness before Christmas. So at noon on a minus 20ºC day Blimey’s Christmas wish came true.

Blimey's first run in harness, December 2011

When the video starts Blimey is positioned beside his father (Mikkey, black furred doing a loop-the-loop). I was careful in my selection of who should be paired with Blimey for his first time in harness. I chose King. I was hoping for a good start and got it.

I wanted to ease him gently into what was expected of him. His tail was down so I knew he was a little unsure. King was wonderful. It was as though he was whispering encouragement to the youngster.

Even with a small team of seven dogs our take off was going to be too fast without a rope brake over the prow of my sled. When I stop after 100 metres you'll see I drop a snow anchor to hold my sled fast before rushing forward. The rope brake is what you see me pulling off.

I don’t harness dogs until they are at least one year old. By that time they are skeletally sound and physically big enough to be paired up alongside an older dog of a similar size. Early days in harness set the tone for a dog’s education within my working team.

As yearlings my dogs have a seriousness about them that has surpassed puppy play. Play that to me disrupts what should be a very good experience on their first outing in harness. A harnessed puppy fooling around alongside my mature dogs is likely to get a hiding from his new teammates that he is never to forget. Another reason for not rushing youngsters.

Unlike premier sled dog racing kennels I do not have a kennel of 150 dogs, train 60 to end up with a first-class 15. Racing sled dog breeds are new (less than 100 years old). The traits required are not prevalent enough in many dogs expected to race at the higest level. Big racing kennels accelerate the genetic process required for the specialist traits expected: confirmation, coats, feet, attitude and of course, speed. Consequently sled dog racing breeds are in the infancy of their development and that must be very exciting for the racing community.

But the Greenland Dog as a breed has a heritage of over 2,000 years. The Greenland Dog was brought into the country with the last major migration from Canada, the Thule Culture, at around 1100 AD. In all that time Greenland’s dog population above the Arctic Circle is believed to have been totally isolated from the rest of the world. There were no stud-books. No need.

For over 2,000 years the selection process was, if you pulled hard, you lived. And those that lived through those generations passed on very special genes. What remains are incredible canine traits: powerful dominant dogs that are incredibly strong-willed. With huge chests and fur over twenty centimetres thick they are the Panzer tanks of the dog world and stop at nothing. They are aggressive in their appetite to do what they've been bred to do and that's pull massive payloads in brutal cold.

Blimey is one of the finest youngsters I have ever seen and, despite Christmas being weeks away, his wish has been granted. As soon as he was in harness and we were under way 2,000 years of Greenland Dog instinct kicked in.

He was wonderful.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

A Letter To Santa

2011-12-03T15:49:00.000-01:00

This morning I found a letter. It read:

DeAr FaTHeR cHRiStmAS,

My NaMe iS BliMeY I Am 1 ¼ YeARS OLd AnD I HaVe A WisH .

mY wiSh IS To ruN and PUll tHe SleD Like thE BiG DogS

ThIs is THe onLy wiSh I have ever hAd .

ThAnk Yo u

LoVe fRoM BLiMEY

PS aNd i HaVe bEEn A vErY gOOD dOg

Blimey photographed in April

We will have to see if Blimey's wish comes true.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Snappy Dresser

2011-12-01T08:48:00.001-01:00

I have said this before but will say it again: I love the cold but hate being cold and that’s why I choose to wear Rab clothing for twelve months of the year. For nine months of any Arctic year my clothing gets very serious.

Everyone has favourites. Mine tend to be objects that help keep me alive, like clothing: specifically Rab’s Vapour-rise. I shouldn’t think there’s a system that can match Vapour-rise for versatility. I have worn Vapour-rise as my main layering system since it first appeared in the Rab range. All I do is layer it. At worst I’ve worn two, sometimes three layered Vapour-rise tops and pants. Like Russian dolls, larger sizes fit over smaller ones. It isn’t bulky and layered becomes Arctic windproof. So what? It breathes like nothing else I’ve used. Back in 2008 I said Vapour-rise is special and that word will spread. It has.

In the video (November 22nd, last daylight until February) I start dressing with two layers of Vapour-rise Pants (trousers). The latest in the Vapour-rise range are the Guide Jacket and Guide Pants. Now that Rab has developed a range of base layers I have taken to trying these out. My first top layer is a long sleeve Aeon Tee followed by two Vapour-rise tops.

In the Arctic brutal cold reigns supreme. The yellow down all-in-one is Rab's Expedition Suit for serious warmth. There was one day in 2006 that I will never forget. That day the cold almost triumphed but I unanimously credit my Rab Expedition Suit as the single most important item of clothing that kept me alive.

The down Expedition Suit might look bulky but it is so cleverly designed that it doesn't feel that way and is a joy to wear. Alternatively I sometimes wear the Expedition Jacket and Expedition Salopettes.

My final layer in the video is Rab's Expedition Wind Suit, another continual favourite of mine. It too is very versatile and has an excellent cut. My Rab Expedition Wind Suit not only protected me through hurricanes in February and October this year, but I wear it almost every time I run my dogs, so you can appreciate how often it gets used and why it is a favourite.

For mittens I love the Rab Expedition Mitts and the Summit and McKinley glove and mitten series from Outdoor Designs.

The gear bag in the video is a Rab Expedition Kitbag. These bags pack neatly on to my sled on journeys. Rugged, they hold everything from spare clothing, food to cookware and sometimes an injured dog.

All the equipment I have written about here is the best of its kind in the world and that is why so many other outdoor clothing manufacturers copy Rab and brand it their own.

If Rab gear is capable of keeping me warm (living in the Arctic full-time) you can rest assured that where ever you choose to wear it, you will be kept warm and protected too.

By the way, Rab doesn’t make underpants. Until they do my Mum has said that she will continue to send me new ones.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

The Longest Dog Sledding Season In The World

2011-11-27T20:25:00.000-01:00

As the rest of the dog sledding universe hopes, prays and pleads for more snow, Ittoqqortoormiit settles into its routine as probably the place with the enviable distinction of having the longest dog sledding season in the entire world. The sun will not rise here again until next year but hunters have been out hunting musk-ox and seals with their dog teams and larders are swelling full of Christmas fare before the festivities. It’s a wonderful atmosphere with dog teams going here, there and everywhere. On a personal note, my dogs are looking great and running wonderfully. I am very excited about this winter.

For more about Gary and dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

The Queen Of The Arctic

2011-11-23T16:47:00.000-01:00

Girly is in heat, and because my puppy-rearing pen and surrounding area is buried under three metres of snow, the Queen of the Arctic is now living inside my house and enjoying the benefit of PetLife’s Flecta Vet bed at the bottom of her flight crate. My house remains calm, quiet and intact.

Girly, the Queen of the Arctic

Girly is an angel really with delightful manners and is very good company. Stunner is my only other bitch and I expect her second season (heat cycle) to start imminently. Her manners are not so delightful as her mother's and I really do fear for the house. The prospect of one-year old Stunner let loose and on the rampage inside the house is filling me with dread. She will have me eating my fists, I just know it.

Who me? Teenage Stunner

Do not be fooled. Stunner has reached a time in her life that reminds me of the teenage girls of my era who always seemed to be preoccupied with either daubing their face parts with experimental make-up, shoplifting useless girl stuff, watching boys torching nicked cars or, avoiding pregnancy.

I’ll keep you posted.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

21,000 Sled Dogs Slaughtered

2011-11-21T20:25:00.000-01:00

What on earth happened to all the working dogs of Arctic Canada and why have the Canadian police (the R.C.M.P.) been accused of slaughtering 21,000 dogs during the 1960s and 1970s?

To find out read my review of the documentary Qimmit: A Clash of Two Truths in the latest issue of Mushing magazine.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

My Nuclear Fallout Shelter

2011-11-15T10:48:00.000-01:00

So here it is.

Ittoqqortoormiit had a visit from the Beredskabsstyrelsen (Danish Emergency Management Agency or DEMA), a Danish government agency whose directive comes from the Danish Ministry of Defence. DEMA's mission is "…to cushion the effects of accidents and disasters on society and to prevent harm to people, property and the environment". Our visit was from the Nuclear Division.

Ittoqqortoormiit has joined the rest of planet now that airborne radioactive pollution is being monitored here to let us know if (or when) the world blows itself up with its nuclear this, that and the other. Because we are so remote, we were last settlement in Greenland to have these new safeguard precautions.

I asked the officer (a very good-natured and enthusiastic fellow) what we have to do in the event of disaster. He said I would be instructed by the local police, who would be co-ordinating with DEMA, and depending on the circumstances could include it being a good idea to stay inside my house. And what of my dogs? He said that it would be a good idea to bring them inside too. Yogi, Stunner, Blimey and Proper all thought this was wonderful news and can’t wait for imminent disaster.

I would do anything for my dogs but I can’t stop thinking that 19 sled dogs in the six by four metre floor space of my 1920s Greenlandic house is a recipe for disaster of another kind.

Hold on. What's that? It's Yogi, he's now calling for a practise drill.

Loads (my main lead dog) is calling for everyone to keep calm. And Girly is trying to stabilise the situation by saying help is on the way. Too late. Yogi is now brandishing an axe. Oh dear, I have to go....

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Anything With A Pulse

2011-11-10T21:30:00.000-01:00

We already have well over two metres of snow and because of weeks of almost perpetual stormy weather any ice that has formed over the sea has been broken up by the wind. Lulls in the wind have been bringing in floating pack ice.

Bearded seals live mostly on pack ice and to bag one is a boon because they can sometimes weigh in at over 350 kg. That’s a lot of dog food.

18 bags of dog food next to Jennifer

Anything with a pulse is considered fair game for dog food although we do have strict seasons and quotas for polar bear, walrus, musk-ox and minke whale hunting. Personal quotas govern the hunting of narwhales and full-time hunters have precedence over part-time hunters. All hunters are licensed and most hunt to feed their dogs fresh meat so I wouldn’t consider it a good healthy place for anything that swims or has four legs. Flying wildlife is safe at this time of the year. Nobody eats ravens. They have nasty habits.

Dogs eat meat the world over, be it out of plastic bags or tins. What you pay for is someone else doing the killing, processing and packaging. There’s nothing wrong with that, same as there is nothing wrong with providing for your dogs by hunting for them yourself. It is only realistic to expect that because Man is part of the food chain he will hunt to survive, even if that amounts to economic survival.

So with the last few remaining days of daylight left before we head into another long polar winter, I filmed my dogs eating and looking full after scoffing hefty portions of a rather large bearded seal. A raven perched himself on top of my ice chisel for an excellent vantage point of the feast. As scavengers, ravens are not fussy and they are patient given that they’ll hang around until dog turd appears. At the sight of which the raven develops a certain fastidiousness until steaming poo freezes. Only at that point will ravens eat it. That’s why, if you believe in reincarnation, love the Arctic and always want something to eat, come back as a raven.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

ACR's New ResQLink PLB

2011-11-05T16:39:00.001-01:00

Satellite telephones are not durable. They are fragile. Get a satellite telephone wet and it will fail. Guaranteed. Satellite telephones are fickle. The batteries have to be warmed up in the cold. And reception is unpredictable. I have been let down by a satellite telephone when my life depended on making a call. My last resort was to flip a PLB (personal locator beacon) switch. That was in March 2006.

What would you expect from a PLB?

A PLB is intended to raise the alarm for a person in distress who is beyond the range of normal emergency services. They are small electronic devices that send out an SOS signal with GPS co-ordinates to a satellite. They all depend on the Cospas-Sarsat which is an international search and rescue satellite system to relay information to the proper authorities to begin a rescue. PLBs are not to be confused with an EPIRB (emergency position-indicating radio beacon) which is used to signal maritime distress or an ELT (emergency locator transmitter) used to signal aircraft distress. But the principle is the same; initiate the device and the signal scrambles the search and rescue authorities.

Unfortunately the term PLB is a generic one for devices with greater or lesser capabilities. A distress beacon that does not automatically inform search and rescue authorities that you are in dire trouble and does not provide your location information is not an authentic PLB.

One example is the TracMe (TracMe Beacons Pty Ltd of Australia) which operates on FRS (Family Radio Service) Channel 1. FRS signals only work on line of sight so in moderately uneven terrain it is easily blocked. When activated, the TracMe transmits (every 15 seconds) a beep, followed by a recorded message: “help…emergency”. This analog transmission does not serve as a distress alert unless someone just happens to be monitoring or talking on Channel 1. All this is even more hopeless when you learn that the antenna for these systems only has a range of a few kilometres. I don't know why anyone would want this device as a last resort.

Real PLBs have a direct link to search and rescue and are built to work wherever you are in the world (Cospas-Sarsat), unlike SPOT. SPOT transmits to a satellite network operated by the dreadful Globalstar, a satellite system that does not have worldwide coverage. It's a weak system that is unreliable under the canopy of trees or even dense cloud cover. Even less reassuring is the fact that SPOT signal coverage does not include the Arctic or Antarctica as well as other vast wilderness regions of the world. So its coverage is far from global. On top of that you will be lumbered with a subscription charge.

If you are looking for a PLB, ACR Electronics makes the world’s best.

Their new ResQLink is the smallest 406 MHz GPS personal location beacon in the world. It weighs only 130 g with palm-sized dimensions of 3.3 cm x 4.8 cm x 9.9 cm. It will work at minus 40ºC. All PLBs from ACR Electronics are tough.

Mikkey and Gary with the new ACR ResQLink PLB

How do I know ACR make the best PLBs? The PLB switch I flipped in 2006 was my last resort. Everything else I had that could initiate a rescue had failed. The PLB was made by ACR.

Oh, and there is no subscription charge.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Hauling Water

2011-10-28T09:26:00.001Z

Self-reliance and simplicity are values I hold in very high regard. Many people in Ittoqqortoormiit live without running water in their homes, myself included.

I haul my household and dogs' water from one of the three water houses in Ittoqqortoormiit. If I want a shower or want to launder clothes I use what is known as the service building, a place that is well cared for and always clean. I don't consider the routine as hardship. Live like this and you appreciate the value of water and where it comes from.

Jennifer helps bring in water for my dogs.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Shocker

2011-10-21T13:22:00.001Z

With less than a month before we plunge into 56 days of perpetual darkness, the setting sun of late has been showing off The Twins' (Shocker and Treatment) new coats after a summer of diligent grooming.

Temperatures have dipped to minus 15ºC.

This is Shocker.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Hurricane Number Two

2011-10-16T04:12:00.000Z

The weather-station predicted big winds today. And they were right again.

With wind speeds topping 150 kilometres per hour we’ve experienced our second hurricane this year. Cups and glasses were dancing a lively jig on the shelves inside my house.

In this video, shot from inside the house, I was clearing snow from outside the window so I could keep an eye on my dogs. The wind rippled my cheeks and clattered my head even though I was in the lee of the wind. My dogs were in better shape than I was. I worry to death about them when the wind is like that. They were fine.

While outside I also snapped off the icicles from the roof of my house preventing the spear-like projectiles from potentially impaling my dogs. I worry a lot.

It was also the second hurricane of the year for my champion Rab Expedition Windsuit, Cebe peeper protecting goggles and my blazing Petzl headlamp, which helped guide me when I checked my dogs in the early hours of the morning.

I have up-graded my Rab Expedition Windsuit and now call it my Expedition Hurricane Suit.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

New Snowshoes

2011-10-13T19:13:00.000Z

We already have lots of snow and I have new snowshoes from Tubbs.

The timing of their arrival is excellent with the start of the sledding season fast approaching.

Earlier in the year, I posted a video showing how I break trail in front of my dogs using snowshoes when snow is deep.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Birthday Snow

2011-09-19T12:32:00.056Z

Today, last year’s litter is one year old.

There has not been a shortage of seal blubber or whale meat to eat. Stunner now weighs 28.5 kg, Proper 37.8 kg, Max 38.1 kg and Blimey 44.1 kg.

It has been a splendid summer. Welcomed visitors are now long gone but have left us with memories of pleasant conversations and good company. Even looking back at all the hard work and all that had to be achieved has left behind a good feeling.

It has snowed at least one day of every month this year but the birthday snow meant summer was really over. Winter is coming. Now life gets really interesting.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

The Weekly Whirlybird

2011-09-01T12:29:00.047Z

Greenland is the only country in the world not connected within by roads or railways. To travel from one settlement to another has to involve helicopters, aeroplanes, boats, snowmobiles or dog teams.

Supply ships bringing goods from the outside world must have ice breaking capabilities. On the east coast (where Ittoqqortoormiit lies snug on the rocks) reaching us by boat is only possible in summer, a couple of weeks either side of August. But regardless of the month, trouble-free passage is never assured.

To reach Greenland by air is a two-pronged affair: all international flights arrive via Iceland or Copenhagen (Denmark) and to reach your final destination within Greenland will likely involve a short helicopter flight. The helicopter is also the only means of sending and bringing in mail to Ittoqqortoormiit.

From March until November Ittoqqortoormiit has two flights per week. In the winter months this goes down to one flight per week when the possibility of delays are fifty-fifty because of Greenland's infamous weather. Flight delays are intrinsic to living in the north. We hunker down and wait patiently.

The longest I’ve known Ittoqqortoormiit to be without flights due to bad weather was five weeks. That was either side of Christmas 2007, and has gone down as the worst Ittoqqortoormiit winter in living memory, when over 70 storm days dumped four metres of snow. Jingle bells were silenced. We were totally cut off. No mail. Nobody in. Nobody out. No medical evacuations were possible.

You may ask: with all these logistical hassles, why bother? Greenland is indescribably beautiful, the people are kind and we are home to about the longest dog sledding season in the world. It's worth it.

The helicopter landing site in Ittoqqortoormiit has seen much joy and sadness. The helicopter brings in loved ones for reunions and for funerals. It takes out families going away on holiday and residents requiring advanced medical care. Since expectant mothers must leave Ittoqqortoormiit to give birth, new arrivals are a wonderful occasion with entire extended families waving small Greenlandic flags to greet the incoming helicopter. Beyond the age of 15, Ittoqqortoormiit children who choose further education fly out to either west Greenland or Denmark. Some go further afield. Saying goodbye is hard.

The staff at the small airport and helicopter pilots that service Ittoqqortoormiit work hard under challenging conditions. And we rely on them.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Passion, Bite And Fire

2011-08-29T22:56:00.136Z

Within two weeks I was back out on the water en-route to establish the third depot for a journey I have planned this winter. I won’t forget the day before departure in a hurry. I ran for nearly two hours before manually moving three tonnes of dog food that had come ashore off the supply ship. After which followed a four tonne delivery of sand and gravel to be shovelled level around my dog boxes. In the afternoon I had time to lie down, be it on an operating table, for another attempt to remove the metal plate and six screws from my hand.

My hand was all but held fast in a vice to hold it rigid because scar tissue had grown over the screw heads. There was a lot of metallic scraping and what I thought were surgical instruments moving about. The six screws had four different screws heads.

Although I did not know it, the doctor had anticipated the different screw heads and had made a visit to Ittoqqortoormiit's metal workshop. He'd used a combination of one surgical screwdriver and three Allen keys from the toolbox to successfully remove the screws. I nearly had a fit before he told me that they’d all been sterilised. Reassured, I was impressed with his resourcefulness and thanked him with a big smile.

The following day’s outward boat voyage took 30 hours but this time I slept for two of them. In my favourite combat trousers from Arktis and boots from Hanwag, the next seven hours of grunt work hauling supplies, fuel and the sectioned crate inland was the culmination of severe focus and an anvil-hard will not to leave until it was done. The stitches in my hand didn’t bleed much.

At that moment I wanted to be nowhere else in the world. It was a beautiful, clear and bright day.

When I was building this crate I wanted it bigger rather than smaller, thinking it could not only store supplies but also act as an emergency shelter. In a flash I remembered the miniature huts that were hauled up the face of Everest by British climbers to weather out storms and avalanches in the 1970s as they successfully pioneered new routes. Whose idea it was to build those huts in the first place I have long forgotten but here, inadvertently, I had the makings of one myself.

When I was a kid the mountaineering world seemed to be dominated by the exciting exploits of talented British climbers. In later life, I enjoyed reading the resulting books enormously. They comforted me in a way that is hard to describe. The best I can do is to tell you that it wasn’t so much the climbing of mountains that grasped my imagination but it was the way these driven climbers lived their dreams with passion, bite and fire. This was a time in my 20s when everything was indescribably grim. It felt like there was no way out and I fought my battles alone. But eventually, because I didn’t give in, I found a way to break free.

Now living a life full of adventures with my dogs, I clutch the dream close without ever a thought of letting it go.

Most of the stitches held while setting up the depot.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Reconnaissance

2011-08-18T17:33:00.002Z

Despite being stuck in Nuuk for a month last spring, on my return I was quickly out again deploying two food and fuel depots for the coming winter. 200 kilometres out I ran into two Russians climbing mountains previously never summited.

On the 13th of August I was going out again. This time beyond the second depot to suss a route for a journey I have planned with my dogs next winter and to determine where I wanted a third depot.

After boating for 30 hours without sleep, the boat was anchored and I stepped ashore. I carried my survival gear which included Rab clothing, my Gerber mulititool, Zeiss binoculars, medical kit and because I never trust satellite phones, an ACR location beacon packed neatly into my Lowe alpine backpack.

For the next nine hours I explored and came back having seen what it was I feared about this section of the route. I suspected the area I was making for was going to be crevassed. And it was.

Two months previously I ran an advert on mountaineering websites, free of charge, thanks to kind editors. It ran something like this:

Ski-Mountaineer Wanted For Greenland Dog Expedition

Winter journey planned through crevassed areas

Timeline? February – March 2012

Crevasse skills vital

No experience with expedition dogs necessary

Expenses are your own

Once the advert was posted I forgot all about it. There was work to be done.

The reconnaissance trip was a success. Now the immediate plan was that in two weeks time I was to return, again by boat, to where I’d stepped ashore previously. But this time with hefty supplies that included dog food, human food and fuel to cache into a depot crate.

To establish a depot I had to make a crate in sections so that it could be dismantled easily, transported by boat, taken ashore and carried to where it would be screwed back together again to safely house critical supplies.

So for the wood I went scrounging. I helped take down an old building for what I needed. I might add that the building was lawfully dismantled.

For what materials remained elusive I visited the dump for more salvage operations before setting about building the depot crate.

In the middle of August, as happened in July, we had snow flurries and the temperature remained unsympathetic to painting outdoors. So, undeterred, I carried each section on my back across Ittoqqortoormiit into a heated workplace to paint my handiwork.

Before heading to sea once again, one of the many other tasks I had to do was make crevasse marker poles, more gear to be left in the depot crate.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Coffins, Tapeworms And Surgery

2011-08-10T11:17:00.007Z

We had a vet visit. There’s nothing noteworthy about that unless you know that they had to fly 1,500 kilometres (as the raven flies) to get here. This was only the second vet visit to Ittoqqortoormiit, on business, in five years. They made their rounds and I made an appointment. I had dogs to be examined for minor ailments and medicines were ordered. During conversation the vets mentioned to me that the dogs of Ittoqqortoormiit appeared to be the healthiest, biggest and best cared for in the whole of Greenland. Heady praise indeed and it had to be shared so I made a point of mentioning it to friends here. The news brought lots of smiles.

Now I had peace of mind that all continued to be well with my dogs. The dogs set back to relax and enjoy summer, sniffing the air as melting snow finally gave way to bare ground and different smells. I like to think that there were plenty of dreams of fresh snow and new adventures.

The first supply ship of 2011 was two weeks late because its slow and awkward passage was prolonged by masses of sea ice along Greenland’s east coast.

The ship anchored offshore and the supply containers were lowered on to a barge with a shallow draft. Fitted on the backs of trucks were cleverly designed hydraulic frames that lifted the containers off the barge before being driven ashore and distributed accordingly.

The rich and varied assortment of goodies and essentials brought ashore included, of all things, coffins.

After two days of kerfuffle getting its cargo ashore the ship blew its departure whistle, lifted its anchor with a chain that clattered loud enough to wake the dead and set sail. I was running at the time but I am sure that I wasn’t alone in inwardly thanking the crew and their captain for bringing us yet another year of supplies.

Work continued and I had jobs to do that included worming my dogs, to rid them of possible tapeworms and ascarids (roundworms).

It wasn’t a relaxing time. I still had the metal plate in my hand and the doctor was making noises about removing it. I finally relented after he reassured me that without mistake the screwdriver needed to remove the screws had been delivered. Injected with a local anaesthetic, and at ease, I settled back with my hand already sliced open, listening to the Ramones on my headset and enjoying the show as the doctor, with scalpel and screwdriver, set about what had to be done.

At this juncture it has to be said that I have a sense of humour that is based on the puerile, the insensitive and the uncouth. So when the doctor said to me that the screwdriver was the wrong one and that the operation could not be completed I laughed out loud in appreciation of what a great joke that was. The room fell heavy with tension when everyone looked at my face realising he wasn’t kidding.

As I lay there, with my bloody gaping hand and with the inkling it was going to feel a little sore later on, I could not help but feel really bad for the doctor. He was not to blame because as far as I know those who had implanted the bloody fixture in the first place were the ones who sent him the tools for the removal job.

Suffice to say my hand was stitched back up and we discussed a future appointment. There wasn’t much laughing by this stage.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Greenland Dog Sled Collectables

2011-07-29T16:17:00.106Z

I love my dogs, Greenland and where I live in a house full of old dog sleds as furniture. So it will hardly come as a surprise to know that I have a collection of Greenlandic dog sledding memorabilia.

The part of the collection not yet fit to bring indoors, according to my girlfriend Jennifer, includes harnesses (east Greenlandic translation: aniili) made from rope, toy dog sleds, childrens' sleds, an old hunter's sled bag (puurardar), an ice chisel (door), whips (noqqartaali) and traditional homemade harnesses some with old gloves sewn in to prevent dog shoulders from chaffing. There are collars (nuujaali), traces (nuraalad) with toggles, sled uprights and slats, a floe edge hunting boat (umijaasar), oars (ipuli), an antiquated Sirius Patrol tent and various hunting bric-a-brac that includes rifle bipods (qamulid), knives (tsavii), rusty rifle barrels and a gaff (nitser). The dog skulls are ones I have found.

In the video the small sled, with what looks like a cab on top, is the sled design used to push babies around in winter; a practical Greenlandic pram. Big or small, the sled lashing technique is the same.

The side windows in the Sirius Patrol tent are strategically placed in the best position to look out and check on resting dogs without having to go outside. Or, if dogs raise the alarm of an incoming polar bear it’s nice to know which direction the brute is charging from. The tunnel door design is a throwback to what Amundsen’s or Scott’s tents were lumbered with. The hole in the floor is for digging out snow to melt into drinking water or for taking a crap. I am given to believe that this design feature is not popular.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Sled Maintenance

2011-07-24T15:39:00.162Z

Today’s Greenlandic dog sled is a masterpiece of over one thousand years of design ingenuity that has been handed down through the generations to create what amounts to a work of art. In those days dog men used whale bones and caribou antlers with drift wood lashed together using walrus hide. It must have been a painstaking process. Who these men were nobody knows. Only their legacy remains where dogs continue to run the way they did long, long ago.

Where I live the Greenlandic word for a sled is a kaatuuli. The sled prow (front end) is a narsi. The uprights are called napaajar. The upright crossbar is called a nuluular and the cross slats that are lashed to the runners (usually 12 per sled) are igaangili. The Greenlandic dialect spoken in Ittoqqortoormiit is unique to only the 400 people who live here.

To me, not looking after my working sleds feels disrespectful to all those long gone dog drivers responsible for the design genius that remains ingrained into the techniques that continue to be used to build Greenlandic sleds today.

Since the weather was pleasant and daylight hours were long, I laid out the power cable and set about the repair and maintenance work that had to be done on two of my sleds. Long since pensioned off sleds I used as a worktop.

My journey sled is four metres long with a 90 cm by four metre packing surface. This I sanded down and gave a couple of licks with the clear stuff that preserves the wooden houses here.

The sled next to my journey sled is my heavy training sled, built in my first Greenland winter. This sled was built with old-fashioned iron runners. The ironwork on my training sled in the video is being shod with new slick high-density plastic.

Even with modern tools and materials, sled building and maintenance still require skill and patience.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Ittoqqortoormiit’s Weather-Station

2011-07-19T12:52:00.015Z

This year, the river ice below my house was two weeks late breaking up compared with previous years. Inland, river ice bulged and soon broke up after weeks of perpetual 24-hour daylight and cloudless skies. There was to be no more walking over lakes with confidence as glorious sunshine warmed and rotted the surfaces of ice, ten months old.

During the Second World War Greenlandic hunters, along with Danish and Norwegian trappers, were trained as wireless operators and stationed along Greenland’s east coast (including Ittoqqortoormiit) with the dual task of transmitting weather reports to the Allies and to patrol their designated vicinity of coastline for evidence of Nazi infiltration.

The reason for this activity in such a remote region was because the Allies knew very well that to lose their strategic grasp on Greenland would mean losing the advantage of predicting the European weather systems, so vital for planning major offences. The Normandy landings come to mind.

Nowadays there is a weather-station staff of four: Tore, Eric, Mikkel and Niels. Their job description no longer includes wireless operation or slotting Nazis.

The Ittoqqortoormiit weather-station remains very important for predicting European weather and if you just so happen to be here and look up in an easterly direction at 11 a.m. or 11 p.m. you might see the white weather balloon being launched with its transmitter. But remember, local law is, that you must not shoot at it for the first three minutes after it has been launched.

The weather-station also houses a fine photographic portrait collection of Ittoqqortoormiit residents’ taken by Jørgen Chemnitz. Jørgen was very kind to present me with a copy of the original he took of me, a picture my Mother cherishes.

Having filled it with hydrogen, Eric launches the weather balloon.

The weather forecasting here is the best I’ve ever known. All the major storms, while I have lived here, have been predicted which is very reassuring. The most recent of all was last February’s hurricane. After those five days, when wind speeds hurtled off the Beaufort scale at over 200 kilometres per hour, came a large snowfall that buried some of my equipment.

When the river ice below home finally broke in July I was able to search for and rescue some of the dogs' stakeout chain.

Throughout winters of shovelling snow by the tonne I become very attached to things that don't let me down. It took almost six months for my favourite shovel to surface and I was very pleased to see it.

And with that shovel I was finally able to rescue the other end of my stakeout chain that was lost under six metres of snow and left for dead in early February.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Running Ground

2011-07-13T18:41:00.087Z

If not on a journey I train twice daily (even throughout polar winters) and three times every other day. The extra session is a killing weight training one. If you would like to know more about what’s involved read Cold Sweat, an article published in Summit magazine from the time when I lived in Arctic Canada. Read it and you’ll find out the routine and the reasons why I continue to put myself through it all. Another article along similar lines is Sessions From Hell first published in British Runner magazine. Rab Vapour-rise continues to be my favourite clothing to train in.

Accessible only by air or boat, there are no roads leading into or out of Ittoqqortoormiit. But we do have tracks, potential ankle busters. The uneven terrain and dubious footing could lead to perpetual running injuries but my Sorbothane insoles help avoid these.

In winter I stay within the periphery of Ittoqqortoormiit to avoid bumping into polar bears in the dark. In summer I run further afield to the back of beyond and have to do my best to avoid bears. I have yet to beat last summer’s record which was, running into six polar bears on different occasions.

The opening video shot looks at the stunning south facing setting of Ittoqqortoormiit, a view that is never without ice or snow. To the west is an area known locally as Qinngaaiva (Walrus Bay) that captures the beauty of where it is I run past sleeping dog teams, flitting migratory birds and Arctic flora gazing up into the perpetual daylight. It is also a wonderful area for enjoying leisurely hikes with family and friends but not without a firearm for protection against bears.

I treasured times with my main lead dog, Loads, for company as I filmed or took photographs.

The only sunglasses I have had to wear all summer are the ICE model from Cebe. Combined with my disposible contact lenses from Ciba Vision my eyes remain healthy which is very reassuring living in such a remote location where professional eye care comes in from the Outside once every two years.

On one occasion while hiking this summer I stumbled across a large and rather impressive whalebone.

On the same day I found a hot spring shared by two polar bear skulls and a musk-ox head. The whole voodoo looking arrangement was bubbling away at a water temperature good enough to boil an egg rendering the fetid air as rank and thick as a dormitory full of cabbage eating schoolboys.

It may well have been summer but with temperatures never topping 10ºC there was no convincing this broad-leafed fireweed (Greenland’s national flower) to unfurl its beautiful petals. I love this flower with its purple edged leaves.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Scissors And Clippers

2011-07-08T19:26:00.037Z

It’s usually after Christmas that I move my dogs down on to the frozen river below my house. When I decide my sledding season is over and the river ice isn't far off from breaking up, I bring my dogs back up around my house for summer.

This video shows me bringing my main lead dog, Loads, to his place near my home.

Well into July some hunters continued to head out on to the sea ice for late-in-the-season hunting forays. I was glad to turn my back on the 2010-2011 sledding season with all its disappointments and quickly busied myself with the coming summer.

The new yearlings I’d purchased, those I’d re-named Geezer, Treatment and Shocker, came to me in a bit of a state with their coats matted in seal blubber. Eventually, flattened and filthy with seal blubber a dog coat is rendered useless to the elements. I tackled the most stubborn tar-like mess with scissors and battery operated clippers knowing that their new coats would grow back during the summer.

King loves to be groomed and because he is considerably bigger than most, his large dense coat means he gets lots of attention, which he adores. But for a while he had to put up with watching the new trio get most of the grooming attention.

There are summer days when the beautiful Ittoqqortoormiit coastline is free from drifting pack or glacial ice but these days are rare.

In summer the ice from the outer coast enters and drifts its way south. Anti-clockwise the ice bobs and jostles its way into the Scoresby Sund fjord system (the world’s biggest) and eventually out again, although some icebergs are so big that they remain snagged on the ocean floor, unmoved, for years. Don’t consider Greenland’s east coast as a safe passage for a boat in the summer because it is not. At times the ice is so dense that boat travel is out of the question. Not so bad if your boat is small because you can rest it on an ice floe and wait for the ice to open. If you want to know how to lift your boat out of the water alone, just watch the end of my video shot last February.

But, there is an upturn to all this ice; polar bear sightings are almost a daily talking point. I’m not sure that bears appreciate their spectacular surroundings while on the move but they do hitch a slow ride on drifting ice as a mode of transport. They do this because, not being territorial, they follow open water in search of their favourite prey, the ringed seal. These they bludgeon to death.

Polar bears love killing. And because they’re so good at it they can afford to be picky and only eat what they love best, seal blubber. They waste and leave the meat and guts. Polar bears will slaughter in a frenzy of wanton killing just for the hell of it, even when not the slightest bit hungry. Which is very naughty really.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

The First Year

2011-07-05T01:00:00.010Z

This is my fifth year of living in Greenland and my first with a blog. For those new to the blog here’s a quick look at the highlights and not-so-high-points of the last year.

I began my blog March 2010 after a successful 33-day journey. Before leaving I was told stories by Ittoqqortoormiit locals of mysterious encounters with Inuit they call The Little People who still hunted seals deep inside the fjord using harpoons and dressed in furs. Nobody knew where these people came from and nobody in living memory had been as far into the fjord where I planned to go. Nobody could tell me what I might find. For more, click here for the press release.

April was wretched when Frank died. In May I’d had enough of reading all the press cuttings sent to me from the Outside and had something to say about eating polar bears. Spud arrived on the scene in June and my dogs and I were featured in the adventure travel series Departures. Greenland – Episode 11 – was first broadcast in Canada on OLN and has since been repeatedly aired on National Geographic Channel worldwide. In July I was planning for puppies and made time to make more furniture (table, stool, chair and writing desk) from the old Greenlandic sleds that I love so much.

In August Mikkey and I gave the V-sign to global warming after we found fossilised trees on Jameson Land. Girly obliged with the puppies in September after my polar bear monitor stint for some geologists. October was about Girly’s Awesome Foursome; Proper, Stunner, Max and Blimey were the cutest puppies of all time. In November I just happened to mention a certain iceberg that in the New Year wrecked havoc in Ittoqqortoormiit. December meant The Chase.

January 2011 featured fun on the sea ice for Girly’s puppies and a series of videos with my adult dogs that included one of my favourite videos of the year, Hooking-Up And Heading Out.

They say it comes in threes. February slammed that in my face good and proper. A hurricane and the before mentioned iceberg resulted in a dramatic dog rescue. When Mettle died it was about as much as I could handle at the time. I made sure Mettle’s resting place was a fine one but the awful wasn’t over, although there was a brief period of fun in March with the puppies’ first training run, answering a Q&A for Rab and writing another series of articles for Snowpaw plus an interview, advice about harnessing and more. We had a polar bear invasion to reassure the world they’re fine and, the cherry on the cake, my tent ice cream recipe.

And so it hit, the third whammy. In April I was hospitalised to have my right hand sliced open for six screws to secure a metal plate to the bone. With that out of the way it was great to be back home for some action in May and in June learning about dehydrating your own expedition food with an eye on meeting Roald Amundsen.

What’s new for early July? Three new dogs I've named Geezer, Shocker and Treatment.

Here's Geezer.

And siblings Shocker and Treatment.

The blog will continue thanks to my Panasonic Toughbook, digital video and Lumix cameras.

Also, if you would like to look at all my blog videos in one place visit Vimeo.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Summer Solstice

2011-06-21T12:00:00.002Z

Everyone living in the Arctic has a polar bear story. I have mine. The trend now though seems to be for global warming ones. Here is a short one from me.

This is a picture of my house taken exactly a year ago today.

This second picture was taken today, from the same spot.

Hmmm.

Dust Down The Time Machine.

2011-06-20T13:55:00.002Z

Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole. Dogs were critical to his success. The dogs Amundsen used to reach the South Pole were from Greenland. I know this because Amundsen credited his dogs with the praise they deserved in his book The South Pole. I’ve read it several times. It is a brilliant book and still in print.

Amundsen writes in detail about his dogs, refreshing since most polar explorers don't. In his own words he describes how he negotiated with the Royal Greenland Trading Company to provide him with, “100 of the finest Greenland dogs and to deliver them in Norway in July, 1910”. Actually he goes into more detail to say 97 dogs (including 10 bitches) were loaded on to the schooner Fram ("Forward") before setting sail with his crew on the 16,000 mile, five-month, voyage to Antarctica. Imagine that, a boat 38 metres long and 10 metres wide with years of supplies below and 97 dogs on deck. Bloody marvellous.

Originally Amundsen had plans to nail the North Pole but on hearing Peary's claim to have been the first to reach it, he headed south. I once asked the late Wally Herbert, if we could go back in time, what questions would you ask Peary. Many believe Peary's claim to have reached the North Pole was a lie. Some say Wally, in fact, was the first. The controversy continues. Anyway, forget Peary.

Amundsen's watchword was: dogs first and dogs all the time.

This coming December (14th) will be the centenary day Amundsen reached the South Pole. No disputing that.

Somebody dust down the time machine. I want to meet Amundsen.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Spring Into Summer

2011-06-17T12:04:00.002Z

As spring drifts into summer we have warmer weather. By warm I mean a few degrees Celsius above freezing. My dogs don't like the heat so to slacken off the pace and wind down the season I've been out for some fun runs with fewer dogs. Less dogs equals slower pace. The picture of Cracker, Loads (leading), King and Feller was taken upriver from my house. Here we're running over frozen river ice, the drinking water source for Ittoqqortoormiit. The river and sea ice will soon break, heralding summer.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Vacuum Packing Expedition Food

2011-06-16T18:49:00.001Z

Why vacuum pack food? Every year I leave journey supplies in strategically placed depots for months at a time. These cache locations include dog food, fuel and my food. For peace of mind I vacuum pack so the depots do not attract animals. Have a polar bear find a depot and nothing would be left. My spaghettis, chillies and curries are not for sharing. Also, to vacuum pack means it will preserve dried food even longer and keeps dried food dry. Commercial fodder peddled as so-called ‘expedition food’ uses artificial preservatives instead.

In the video, the vacuum bags come on a roll so you can cut the size you want, seal one end with a vacuum sealer, add contents and seal the other end. At the same time all air is obviously sucked out.

My dehydrated meals are vacuum packed into three-day rations and weigh 450 g (150 g per day). I eat meals bone-dry or add equal parts water-to-dry to re-hydrate.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Dehydrating Expedition Food

2011-06-14T00:00:00.001Z

Dehydrating your own food is easy.

On my website article page appears a published feature of mine from a past issue of Summit magazine. The feature is called Fast Food and in it I say that "…most dried grub sold as ‘expedition food’ is nasty. If you’re serious about what you eat there’s no trusting what goes into this stuff…."

True. Except onions and garlic, they’re in everything. I detest onions. And garlic. You might have might have a more serious aversion to these foods or others because of food allergies. I got into dehydrating my own food because occasionally I’d go down with anaemia and wanted more meat in my journey diet. I also wanted a light and nutrient-dense food that could be eaten at once, if necessary, without water. Try that with a purchased dried meal and you’ll have a mouth full of concrete. Plus any supposed meat content is farcical. Or should I say minimal.

In the video you’ll see Jennifer spreading out ingredients on to two different trays; sheet and screen trays ready to load into my food dehydrator. Vegetables and meat are spread out on to screen trays. Sheet trays are used for messy ingredients such as baked beans, juicy fruits, mixed sauces or tomato paste.

The meat has been cooked first in a frying pan without oil. I've found beef to be the best, the leaner the better. Forget pork. It’s a good idea to break up the clumps so the meat dries evenly. The vegetables are frozen. I like using frozen because they are pre-washed, consistently cut and do not contain stalks or peelings.

Once the ingredients have been evenly spread out on to the trays, the machine is loaded and the temperature and timer are set according to what foods are to be dried. My machine dial has simple instructions to help with the settings.

My Excalibur food dehydrator from UK Juicers will dry one week of food in seven hours. After 5 hours check and break up any more food clumps because a greater surface area will dry faster. Feel for moisture. Mince meat should end up with the consistency of instant coffee. Bite a veggie or fruit and there should be absolutely no moisture in it once it’s done.

The end result is lightweight, nutritious food good enough to sustain me at forty below zero. Approximately one kilo of my dried food lasts a week, the equivalent to a day’s ration in weight if it were not dried. That’s a lot of calories weighing very little. It doesn’t say that on the bag, but it should do.

Here are examples of what weighs what after being dehydrated in my Excalibur food dehydrator:

420 g baked beans (excluding tin) down to 104 g
500 g of minced beef becomes 147 g
900 g of peas and diced carrots weigh in at 170 g

Give dehydrating your own food a go: even if it’s only to dry your own onions.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Ittoqqortoormiit Springtime

2011-05-20T22:28:00.026Z

It's almost June and with springtime temperatures not much above freezing we still have plenty of snow.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

18 Dogs = 72 Pads + 288 Claws

2011-05-10T15:41:00.050Z

I have 18 dogs and that means 72 pads of hair to thin and 288 claws to trim.

Why bother? Left unchecked, snow will ball up on pad fur between my dogs’ toes on runs causing a dog to eventually go lame. Consider it comparable to running with rocks in your trainers. Trimming pad fur is not a job for bare hands. When choosing scissors I go for handles that take gloved fingers.

Don’t go thinking claws give dogs traction on ice. Flesh on the dogs’ pads does that. If claws get too long they can cause toe bruising. This can take what feels like forever to heal. I trim claws to an even length, again to prevent my dogs from going lame. I do this by clipping away the claw whites down short of the black. Nip into the black and you hit blood. Some dog claws are entirely black so care must be taken not to cut into the nail bed. Do that and the dog will remember and associate pain with you handling his paws.

To get the job done with badly behaved dogs would not be good. So, my dogs learn this routine as puppies. Even the most boisterous dog (Mikkey) has learnt not to fuss. Apart from King who always says it tickles. He lets me know this in the closing scene of the video.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Great To Be Home

2011-05-04T21:54:00.001Z

The flight home from Nuuk went via Iceland - a round trip of 3,700 km - and was only the second time I'd been outside Greenland in four years.

I was really taken aback by all the well-wishers who welcomed me home. Eventually as I neared my house I dropped my bag and walked along the river towards my dogs. They went berserk.

What a great feeling to be home. It was time for some action.

In the video you can see how puppies Blimey, Stunner, Max and Proper have all grown.

With the exception of being on the operating table my Rab Wind Suit has hardly been off my back all winter. I wore the suit (pictured above) throughout the hurricane dog rescuing drama Matthew Campbell wrote about in The Sunday Times this February.

How is the hand now? It's on the mend thank you. I’ve seen our doctor and asked for the metal plate and screws to be removed as soon as is best since I have a very good feeling the entire configuration will bother me greatly in the cold. Also the metal sends my compass off kilter. I've got over worse. I live life hard and dangerous. It comes with the territory. Actually I am feeling very brave right now rubbing my finger over the scar to feel the bumpy screw heads through my skin. The doctor recommended July as the earliest for the removal procedure. He has also assured me that he will make sure he has the correct screwdriver before opening me up to unbolt the metal plate. He wasn’t joking.

I am going to ask him if I can keep it as a souvenir. In the meantime gloves from Outdoor Designs keep my hands warm. Cebe goggles and glacier glasses have kept my peepers protected throughout the last four years from all things airborne and harmful such as wind, snow, stones and ultraviolet light.

The snow keeps falling here and dogs will keep running well into June at least despite 24-hour daylight trying to bring on a thaw. Polar bears tracks looked like those of a giant on my first dog run from home.

Walking down to feed my dogs, the first night after returning from Nuuk, a young man stopped to chat. He came out with something I will never forget. He said, “A man without dogs must be very sad”.

I feel privileged and honoured to be able to say Ittoqqortoormiit is my home. Eight-month-old Max feels the same.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Still In Nuuk

2011-04-26T10:44:00.007Z

The return home took longer than anyone could have imagined. I was expected to be home within a week. All hope of that was dashed.

It took an entire month to get back to Ittoqqortoormiit. Terrible weather and flight cancellations forced me through an experience that was beyond my control. My dogs are always on my mind. In Nuuk, I was 1,850 km away and the anxiety to see home again was fierce.

Just four days after the operation on my hand I was running through the icy streets of Nuuk getting back to my twice-daily training routine. The nurses didn’t stop me. I just got changed into my running gear, ran and came back to hospital to sleep, eat and dry my clothes out.

As days turned into weeks, I was forced to scupper winter plans and set forth on planning ahead. I knew that my dogs were being well looked after so I didn’t have that to worry about. I worked like hell on my running and focussed beyond this winter. I had to. I fought and strived to make the most of my time.

I had my eyes tested since we’ve not had an optician visit Ittoqqortoormiit for three years. The Nuuk optician was of the professional opinion that one of the reasons my eyes are so healthy is because I wear Ciba Vision DAILIES, the top brand of contact lenses.

My time in Nuuk was long enough to get a library card. I set about reading all I could lay my hands on about past expeditions with dogs. Some of the books I had read years before but it did not matter. It was the nearest thing I could attain to the realism of being at home. I derived a great deal of pleasure from those books and it helped keep me buoyant and scribble down new ideas for future journeys.

16,000 people live in Nuuk, that’s a third of Greenland’s population. There are only 400 people living in Ittoqqortoormiit. But, for all the people and activity, there is not a single dog team in Nuuk, commercial fishing is their big industry. I’d think of home and dogs, the living link that still exists to Greenland’s past.

I walked the streets and along the harbour and thought of Nansen, Amundsen and Rasmussen.

Nansen spent several months in Nuuk (Godthåb) after he made the very first crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1888. Knud Rasmussen was in Nuuk before his incredible Fifth Thule Expedition (1921-1924) that took him from Greenland and across Arctic Canada with two Greenlanders and dogs to document the cultures en-route.

Nansen was Amundsen’s mentor. Amundsen set sail to Antarctica with 100 Greenland Dogs from the Royal Greenlandic Trading Company bought from Qeqertarsuaq (Disko). Amundsen himself always attributed his South Pole success to Greenland Dogs. At the side of Nuuk harbour I thought of that history.

There are two Nuuk museums and I recommend both of them as well worth a visit for ancient carvings, clothing, hunting artefacts, kayaks and even 2,000 year old mummified Greenlandic bodies, women with their faces still clearly tattooed. Their babies looked like dolls.

Three very old sleds and a toy exhibit captivated my attention and imagination for ages.

But sadly - for me - the lack of documented dog history on view was sorely disappointing. On asking the question about why there are not many dog museum pieces the staff let me know this isn’t entirely the way they want it either. Apparently over the centuries Denmark took custody of vast amounts of Greenland’s cultural treasures. But I was pleased to learn that an agreement has been reached and many of the artefacts are going to be returned and will go display where they belong, in Greenland.

There were skilled carvers selling their wares in Nuuk. There were the traditional Greenlandic carved animals but some had carved the names of English football teams like Arsenal and Liverpool out of reindeer antler and musk-ox horn. I thought of the days I’d chant – alongside 50,000 others - for Arsenal at Highbury in the days of standing terraces.

Since there's nothing remotely resembling a restaurant in Ittoqqortoormiit, it had been a long time since I’d walked into a café. Usual plan is to find a remote spot to eat. I did this and felt I was being stared at. It was true only because I’d sat under the TV. I went scarlet.

After my walk-a-bouts in town I’d return to the hospital with fruit and chocolate for my ward buddies and everyday hoped there would be a message for me saying tomorrow I’d be bound for home.

For information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

Screwed Hand

2011-04-24T15:17:00.017Z

I've been away. Hospital.

On March 19th, with my dogs mighty fit and just a few days away from setting out on another journey, misfortune struck. I broke my hand while out with my dogs on a conditioning run, two hours from home. Once back in Ittoqqortoormiit, and with one hand, I unhooked my dogs and packed away the gear before walking to our little hospital.

The doctor examined the hand and on hearing the crunch I was shocked to see the nurse recoil and almost choke on her sharp intake of breath. Her look indicated she found the crunching experience deeply disturbing. She wasn't alone. The pain sent me through the ceiling. At that point I knew I was in deep trouble.

The hand was set in plaster before X-raying. The doctor gave me a stern warning: ”Gary, this means no working your dogs because if this doesn’t set properly it’ll mean surgery”. Despite my best effort, a week later another X-ray revealed the hand had not set properly.

A complicated hand fracture meant I was flown 1,850 km to Nuuk - the capital of Greenland on the west coast - to be operated on. My right hand was sliced open and six screws secured a metal plate to the bone.

On waking out of anaesthesia a nurse told me my heart rate is very slow and asked if I run up hills. “Yes”, I replied, “but right now I feel like Keith Richards”.

Once wide-awake, coming to terms with what was now inside my hand had me overwhelmed by nausea. I’d seen the X-ray taken after the metal was in place. I kept thinking how the plate looked like a miniature version to the ones we use for sled runner repairs, dirty and rough edged. I couldn’t even look at the thirty stitches for the first week. I know I would have retched. The nausea was part due to the prescribed morphine too. I was assured the metal wouldn’t rust.

In hospital it was good to get showered. The nurses were amazed to hear I live without running water. The bed was good too although that first night I was really worried I was going to fall out. No bed at home either.

I was given a few hospital clothes before surgery, a loose top and what I took to be long baggy shorts. I didn’t think a lot of spending most of my days in bed so I asked to take my meals in the hospital cafeteria instead of having them wheeled to my bedside. Walking down the corridor a nurse stopped me and said, “Here, wear this gown instead of walking around in your undies”. My mistake.

I was in a ward of four men. None spoke English but somehow we were always laughing. Downside was, they all snored like champions. After that first night a nurse wheeled a trolley by and I noticed what I thought were earplugs on top. “I’ll have a pair of those please”. “Certainly not”, said the nurse. They were big green tablets some poor sod was expected to swallow.

Word had obviously got around about my being hospitalised because former Ittoqqortoormiit residents, now living in Nuuk, surprised me with their visits to my bedside. They cheered me up no-end. But I still felt sad and longed to be back in Ittoqqortoormiit with my dogs.

I didn’t know it but I was soon to be in for another shock.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Expedition Recipes - Tent Ice Cream

2011-03-19T07:59:00.059-01:00

I love ice cream and make my own, even on journeys when it's usually a rest day treat.

Gary's Tent Ice Cream Recipe

Mix one litre of water into one cup of powdered milk
Add vanilla sugar
Add dehydrated fruit
Mix the concoction
Leave outside your tent or house if you live in the Arctic. The next best thing is to place it inside your freezer.

The trick is to stir the creamy mixture often. The fun part is to add whatever takes your ice cream flavour fancy.

If you’d like to try this yourself you might want to do what I do and use bagged frozen fruit. Reason being it's already been washed and there are no stalks, skins or peelings. Before journeys I use my UK Juicers food dehydrator on the fruit first. If I am at home, I just add the frozen fruit to the recipe.

I make biscuit treats for my dogs by adding hydrated dog kibble to seal blubber before spreading the mixture flat into a tin and freezing. Once set, I tap the tray and the treats fall out like peanut brittle, much to the delight of my dogs. Spitz especially loves these frozen biscuits.

Where I live the temperature is below freezing for 280 days of the year, splendid tent ice cream and frozen dog biscuit making conditions.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

From Pen To Chain

2011-03-18T15:34:00.005-01:00

The traditional way of rearing puppies in Greenland is to have them out all the time, running loose in public with the dam, dodging snowmobiles and getting up to goodness-knows-what until they reach six months old. I worry too much so choose to rear my puppies in a pen, that way they remain safe close to home. Later on a pen creates a secure environment where I oversee the weaning process and early stages of puppy training development the way I want it. With plenty of attention my puppies are happy, confident and healthy before venturing out of the pen after their first vaccine injections. After walks and runs the pen becomes a haven they know as home.

Utilising pens in the Arctic is not an easy option. Our winters are nine months long and it takes a lot of graft to keep a puppy pen relatively empty of snow. When the pen behind my house is empty of puppies it still has to be cleared because Girly will be in heat soon and Stunner will have her first, probably before she’s nine months old. The pen enables me to isolate and protect bitches in heat from un-chaperoned suitors.

So, what happens when puppies reach six months of age? At six months old all puppies into adulthood must be chained when not working. That is Greenlandic law.

My puppies are now six months old. Blimey weighed in at 33.3 kg, Max 31.3 kg, Proper 28.8 kg and Stunner 24.3 kg. It is now time for change in their lives. Blimey and Max were the first to experience the stakeout chain on the riverbank. I gave the puppies seal bones to occupy and distract before clipping on Stunner and Proper.

This first stakeout experience lasted half-an-hour before I put the puppies back into the pen. The following day I repeated the process but lengthened the time. Tails were down for a while but they soon flipped back up to their scythe-like curl that I love so much. With each litter I take about 10 days build-up before making the transition from pen to chain final. This method of tethering dogs safely is also the one used to secure them overnight during journeys or hunting forays.

In the film you can see my adult dogs below on the frozen river. Before going out on conditioning runs with my adult dogs I let all the puppies loose. At that they rush down, weave, nuzzle and play with the adults. All family. Only next winter will these puppies be put in harness for the first time. For now they run loose ahead, behind and in between my adults out on runs.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Polar Bear Invasion

2011-03-13T08:17:00.114-01:00

Practically every day of the year in Ittoqqortoormiit someone has a bear sighting to talk about. Today my puppies Blimey, Proper, Stunner and Max have asked me to let you know that they came across their first ever polar bear tracks. And there's more.

Last Saturday 12 polar bears were seen locally, four were seen the following Friday. Two were shot for fresh meat, which was good. Three more bears were seen today. They presented themselves as decent rifle shots 150 metres from Ittoqqortoormiit houses. Barking dog teams kept the bears at bay and no bears were shot because this was a sow with cubs. Big cubs. Polar bear cubs stay with their mother for between two and three years to learn the art of killing.

We get lots of polar bears here. Sometimes it gets to the point where it's like looking at cows in a field. A friend commented it would be nice to see something different for a change. Maybe a unicorn. I suggested a dragon. Or a pretty mermaid would be nice.

Next time you read polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct, I have some advice: guffaw, ignore and turn the page.

My blog videos are shot using a Panasonic NV-GS500 and edited on my Panasonic Toughbook, the ultimate rugged laptop. Stills are taken using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Rab Q&A

2011-03-10T08:50:00.001-01:00

Rab make the best clothing for extreme conditions worldwide, that is why I choose to wear it. You might like to read my recent interview posted on Rab's new website.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Pulling Dog Teeth Long Since Outlawed

2011-03-05T08:47:00.001-01:00

It used to be Greenlandic law that dog drivers had to remove molars and dull the points of, or extract, canine teeth of their dogs. But the law has long been abolished so I was surprised when a poster was displayed hitting the forbidden practice home. I don't know anyone who does this and couldn't understand why anyone would still need to be told.

Greenlandic subsistence hunters depend on dog teams in order to hunt fresh meat for their families. The dogs here are not pets but they are well socialised. It has not always been that way. Dog attacks on people, especially children, resulting in deformity and occasional deaths were not uncommon in days long gone.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Puppies' First Training Run

2011-03-04T09:36:00.005-01:00

Until they are at least one year old, running loose with my harnessed dogs is the first stage puppies Blimey, Max, Stunner and Proper make before they are put in harness for the first time. They loved it.

Six months ago the puppies were not so active.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Mettle's Resting Place

2011-03-01T14:56:00.048-01:00

Yesterday I went up high to find a nice place for Mettle. I found it and worked hard for the rest of the day to build a pile of rocks.

Today was cold, bright and the sky was blue. It was the sort of day that used to make Mettle’s deep coat look as glorious as a king’s magnificent ermine robe.

On to a little sled I draped a clean tarp and carefully rested Mettle on to it. I covered him over and lashed him down before pulling him to the chosen place. My dogs looked different, they knew what was happening and began a slow, mournful howl.

Puppies Blimey, Stunner, Max and Proper came with me to help bury Mettle. When I carefully placed him on his final resting place I put foam under his body and head to keep him comfortable. It was at that point I thought of all the ways man has tried to bring back the dead. I desperately wanted Mettle back. I stroked him and said goodbye before carefully building a rock cairn over him.

I was glad for the puppies to be with me. Life goes on.

I composed myself in the afternoon well enough to go for a little run with my dogs. This was our salute to Mettle.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to http://www.garyrolfe.com/

Mettle Has Died

2011-02-25T23:57:00.017-01:00

Mettle was big, strong and my hardest pulling dog. My team looks empty. They know something is very wrong.

Mikkey was Mettle’s friend. Alongside Mikkey they were an incredible partnership. I loved to watch them run because it was so obvious they were enjoying each other’s company.

Mikkey misses Mettle. He looks lost. I feel a mess.

February - Preparing Journey Tent - Part 1

2011-02-24T12:42:00.001-01:00

I favour bright, light-coloured tents because the ambience they create inside is cheerful. Being pinned down in a dark tent during a storm is really depressing. Free-standing rather than tunnel tents are my preference too. They stand up to the wind better.

I have never come across a four-season tent that doesn't require alterations or improvements. Tents tend to come embossed with marketing hype exclaiming they'll withstand nature's fury and you'll sleep as if at home. Not so. Tents required for Arctic winters require modifications.

With old tents I get busy with repairs and with new ones I look over what has to be done. Invariably I start to sew loops around the tent inner floor, following the tent pole framework and thread 3 mm Beal cord through the loops for tensioning. This stabilizes tent poles from the inside. It also creates a neat lattice high up above where the warmth of my stove dries gear.

My guy ropes are always fitted with Clamcleat guy rope adjusters. They enable me to quickly secure my tent to anchor points such as Petzl ice screws. Next I sew rip-stop material all around the tent flysheet. This flap looks like a hovercraft skirt. I pile ice or snow on to this every single time I make camp.

Most of the time I travel alone. Getting a tent up or down quickly can be a matter of life or death. Over the years I have thought long and hard about how tent design can achieve this. To my advantage my sled packing area is three metres long by 90 cm wide so I have worked on how I can travel with my tent partially assembled.

I glue in tent pole ends and tape all the pole sections together bar the middle one. With the inner tent attached to the flysheet I thread through the assembled poles. Where each grommet catches the pole end I drill a tiny hole in the pole tip. This hole I make big enough to take a split ring and secure. When breaking camp on a journey all I have to do is withdraw pole grommet ends from one side of the tent, pull apart the un-taped pole sections, fold those poles and pack into a Rab bivi.

I’ve only been out of Greenland once in four years. It took a lot of work for those concerned to pull me away. I'm not very good at relaxing so I carried a list of things I wanted to get and achieve. Pulpit netting I purchased from a chandler was one item struck off the list. Pinned down in a tent during a massive storm is always worrying. When I have to leave the tent to feed my dogs it is a dreadful feeling wondering if it will be there when I return. Everest mountaineer Paul Deegan gave me the idea of using a rubble net to throw over my tent and secure. I’ve refined the idea by using pulpit netting used by boat crews below decks.

For more information about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - Tested for TB

2011-02-21T19:11:00.000-01:00

Last year there was a high incidence of tuberculosis here. Nothing extraordinary about that since even Denmark has regular cases of the condition. But now the whole of Ittoqqortoormiit is to be tested. And that means a blood test. I have had a life-long fear of being stabbed or bayoneted and hypodermic needles amount to the same thing in my book, the type that - and I am wincing having to write this - go into the arm to withdraw blood. There was no getting away with it. I had to go.

We have to wait six weeks for the results.

Yogi was the first to greet me when I got home.

For more about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - The Sunday Times

2011-02-20T08:12:00.004-01:00

Matthew Campbell writes in The Sunday Times about Gary, the dramatic dog rescue and hurricane-force winds hitting Ittoqqortoormiit.

For about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - Snow Buried Sled

2011-02-08T23:09:00.037-01:00

In this video clip I have just finished digging out my sled in good weather. It was buried by snow during the hurricane. My dogs were level with my sled so you can see why I was so very anxious to bring them higher and up around my house. At the end of this sequence I’m preparing another stakeout area for my dogs. My old stakeout posts are approximately three metres below my feet. The buried posts can stay there until summer.

The forecast says the good weather is to continue well into next week. Thank goodness for that.

I have been watching my puppies through the kitchen window. To them everything is new and they look on in wonder. They always seem to be smiling too. When ravens flit overhead, people pass my house or when the wind picks something up and sends it over the puppies’ their ears are pricked and their eyes are alert with a wow-what-is-that expression.

The world seems fresh and very much alive.

For about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - Sleds To Boats

2011-02-08T21:04:00.052-01:00

Pack ice is making its way into the fjord but there are still vast areas of open water. Until the sea freezes again, hunters have put their dog sleds to one side and now work from their boats.

After the hurricane, hunting was prolific which I was really pleased about for my friends. It meant plenty of fresh meat for human consumption and dog food. This in itself was cause for celebration.

In the 50s and 60s the worm trichinosis in bear and walrus meat was more prevalent than it is now. The warning sign is the smell of the meat. Bad, and no human will eat it. It’s a known killer. But it can be fed to dogs without harming them at all.

I had a look into a walrus stomach this week. It was full of shellfish, cockles and other molluscs. Like narwhale and bearded seal blubber, walrus blubber is very good to travel with because it will not render - go into slimy a mess - so I have been preparing bags of it to take on journeys with my dogs.

Dogs do not chew walrus blubber, thawed or frozen it’s swallowed whole so we cut portions into big ice-cube size. I cut up and freeze the cubes loose on the floor before bagging so they don't all stick together. Walrus skin is incredibly tough to cut. We always carry excellent knife sharpeners. It’s okay if you want to cut the hide away from the blubber but we don’t because if the skin is attached to the blubber and fed to dogs, it remains longer in the stomach to digest. Cubing is very time consuming so sometimes I travel with blubber in strips.

At the end of the video you’ll see how Greenlandic hunters get their boats out of the water. Clever.

For about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - Why Did The Ice Break Up?

2011-02-05T22:13:00.148-01:00

When the northerly hurricane winds fizzled out in Ittoqqortoormiit, winds elsewhere in the fjord system continued to rage from different directions. Winds hitting here from the south tend to spoil your day if you happen to be out on the ice because gusts create onshore wave action capable of breaking it all up. Depending on strength these southerly winds can generate immense power hard to imagine. Initially, a southerly wind was considered the reason for the sea ice breaking up here even though it was well over a metre thick. But onshore wind creates perpetual wave action against the shore. There was none of that on the night the ice broke away.

So what else could have caused it?

Before the hurricane we had an enormous iceberg that was set fast in the ice off Ittoqqortoormiit. It was so big it had run aground on the ocean floor several kilometres out at sea before freeze-up last year. There it remained frozen-in for months and became a raven perch and climbing frame for polar bears.

Now that iceberg has gone.

I’ve not heard it said but I think the iceberg toppled our way and caused the ice to break up. A huge upended iceberg like that, weighing thousands and thousands of tons, would have generated approximately ten massive waves certainly capable of obliterating anything close by before a settled sea with no wave action would have returned. The night that the ice split up, the open water was calm indicating whatever broke the ice came from the south,did its stuff and settled.

There’s no way of knowing for sure what caused the ice to break up that horrible night but if the iceberg upended and created huge waves to head to the shore, the thick ice in its path certainly prevented the waves from sweeping houses away and disaster for Ittoqqortoormiit.

Now dog teams are safe on shore.

For about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - 100 m.p.h. Winds

2011-02-03T17:38:00.002-01:00

Earlier in the week we had two days of heavy snowfall. A storm usually follows. And it has. Today is day two of 100 miles per hour winds.

Ittoqqortoormiit’s winter storms of 2007/2008 were something else. We had over four metres of snow that winter, the worst in living memory. Some families were evacuated from their houses to live with friends and relatives, not able to return to their dwellings until the following spring. That winter felt like war. It was the only time I have been physically lifted off the ground by the wind.

I have kept an around-the-clock vigil on my dogs by going out and checking them all every few hours. They are safe and sound.

I didn’t go running today.

For about Gary and his dogs go to www.garyrolfe.com

February - Breaking Trail

2011-02-01T22:16:00.110-01:00

We have had a lot of snow lately. When snow is this deep it’s time for me to don snowshoes and break trail to help my dogs. This was the exact method I used last year during a 33-day journey when snow was, for several days in a row, human chest deep.

Lead dogs set the tone for an entire team. It takes a very special lead dog to break trail in a straight line through fresh, deep snow. Loads is one such dog. As I strap on my snowshoes, Loads continues to power onward. A dog that drives this hard, motivates.

Paired beside Loads is Yogi.

I don’t believe in delivering idle chatter to my leaders. This way lead dogs learn to listen hard. See Yogi’s ears pricked right back intent not to miss a word. Yogi really is a dog very eager to please, ripe for learning. Sometimes I have to restrain his enthusiasm. But I have caught him at the right stage in his development and he is learning lessons that will stay deeply engrained within him. Last season I noticed he would make the correct moves when he was not in lead position. Now this season he has the chance to do it from the front.

Loads and I are both training Yogi. For Yogi in lead, to follow me is a new training experience. As I break trail in front of my dogs I am walking on a bearing but occasionally talk to Yogi and praise Loads. Again, see how pricked and alert Yogi’s ears are.

I am wearing my Rab Windsuit, I love it. The yellow sash-like object I have slung over my shoulder is a home-made rope brake. In deep snow, when looped like a giant quoit over a sled runner, a rope brake can help bring a team to a standstill.

See those tails wag? They're saying: we’re working, we love it so please don't apply the brake.

January - Fun On The Sea Ice

2011-01-26T21:27:00.029-01:00

In between stormy days the sun climbs higher up into the sky daily and my puppies love to play. Winter is far from over but there is something primeval inside us all that almost brings tears to your eyes on seeing the sun again. In about three months we will have 24-hour daylight and Ittoqqortoormiit will become the land of the midnight sun. That means 24-hours of puppy playtime.

In this video a dog team easily pulls two hunters and their ice edge boat on their way to hunting grounds. You might notice I have coupled my puppies with a similar arrangement used for terriers: two collars are joined in the middle with a short chain. I was walking this route because I expected new experiences for the puppies such as passing snowmobiles and unfamiliar dogs. I wanted to have greater control over them at the start without having to use leads.

As the puppies dash away from me, you might be able to see a yellow building, well, behind that is the weather station. If you live in Europe consider this station very important because the data collected from here is a prime forecaster to bad European weather.

During World War Two the Nazis realised predicting weather was crucial to planning military campaigns. The Allies knew this too and along Greenland’s east coast vantage points were staked out and manned by Greenlandic hunters and European trappers on the lookout for a Nazi landing. And it did happen.

The long brown warehouse-looking building is just that. Here our goods are stored from the two re-supply ships we have each year. Stacked within is everything from canned goods to coffins.

January - Training Blimey

2011-01-25T21:34:00.011-01:00

Nobody has seen shadows here for over 60 days.

Today the sun returned. It was also the first time I fitted a collar on to Blimey. To begin with it was like holding a monkey on a stick. He’s now getting the hang of what it is I expect of him.

Yes, that is a boat on the ice. When the ice edge is good between Kap Tobin and Kap Brewster the boat will be pulled out there across the ice by dogs for seal, walrus and narwhale hunting. The lines of specks on the ice are dog teams.

Towards the end of the video, in the background, there is a huge shiny silver round tower with a ladder going up the side. This thing holds two million litres of water piped from the lake at the head of the river. I have seen kids climb this structure and hurl themselves off the very top and into the snow. I only saw the stunt once.

Please don’t tell me my house looks like it’s gasping to be painted. I know. It’ll have to wait until summer. Years ago house colour identified the occupant’s trade but the custom no longer exists. Too many houses here are empty. Outside of Greenland the modern world and its governments have all but destroyed the way a Greenlandic hunter earns a living.

In the few remaining video scenes, you’ll notice between the two left-hand blue buildings are horizontal emergency fuel vats for Ittoqqortoormiit’s electricity generator. They are always full with two weeks worth of generator fuel. The fuel storage dump is on the other side of Ittoqqortoormiit. It is not unknown for a storm to rage for so long and hard that the fuel vehicle cannot deliver that short distance until storms thrash themselves out.

The two adult dogs near my house are Knuckle (lemon) and Bigness (black and white). Both are recovering from minor injuries.

January - Packing Up After A Run

2011-01-24T21:51:00.041-01:00

This video is all so different from the regular frantic hooking-up start. This is the quiet moment I spend with my dogs enjoying each other’s company after a run, reflecting on what went well, content with the feeling we have all worked hard. Treasure. I have praised my dogs and they are organising themselves, grooming and clearing a place to rest before feeding time.

The video was taken looking south on the river below my house. Scoresby Sund, the world’s biggest fjord system, is in the background. In October it is not unusual to see a sow polar bear walking up river. These pregnant sows head inland to hibernate, give birth and surface around March. Males do not hibernate. The river ice usually breaks up mid-July.

A raven flies overhead. I do not like ravens. They peck out dog eyes. And when they’re not trying to do that they’re eating dog turd. You can hear other dog teams in the background about to be fed.

On this run I had a sled bag with extra clothing, emergency kit such as flares, medic pack, firearm, food and water. The Beal rope I am winding back on to my sled is what I use to tie off to a snow anchor called a dead-man. In this case the dead-man is a great big lump of timber the size of a railway sleeper buried four metres deep with snow packed down on top of it. From the timber a chain is secured by a Petzl karabiner. The Beal rope from my sled is passed through the Petzl karabiner and is secured with a quick release knot to my sled before I head out. It takes this much to hold back my dogs.

It takes a lot of work to build a sled and the materials are very expensive here. I look after my equipment because I want it to last and not let me down. In this video not only am I preparing to leave my sled ready for the next run but I am also very thoughtful of what I will go home and write. I keep a logbook of all my dog runs. I note the running time, team formation, weather, detail good dog performances and what I plan to do to correct poor performance.

The wooden uprights to the left of my dogs wait there ready to be brought in when I am away for weeks at a time with my dogs. The uprights' tops have a V slot and this is to lift up the dogs’ stakeout chain. If the chain is not lifted it would be buried in concrete-like snow while we were away. On my return the chain is dropped and my dogs secured to rest and feed.

January - A Warm Welcome Home

2011-01-23T21:48:00.014-01:00

As part of Girly’s puppies’ education they are confidently mixing with my adults and know their place. Here in twilight Blimey, Stunner, Max and Proper hurry down from my house to meet us after another run. Their mother Girly and her brother Loads are in lead.

I always unhook my team starting from those nearest to my sled and work my way to the front. This way my leaders keep the team straight and organised without mischief while I work.

Soon I will run the puppies loose and they will scamper alongside and behind the adults pulling my sled.

January - Heading Home

2011-01-22T20:21:00.037-01:00

In early October winter storms broke up land-locked sea ice and left behind ice rubble to bump over once the sea finally froze for us to safely run our dogs. The iceberg you can see in the video has been grounded on the ocean floor since late summer. It has been a bit of a plaything for polar bears ever since. In the video the dog team on our right is being moved by sled and snowmobile. Nearer to home we pass between lively and fit hunters’ dog teams.

It is always good to return home safely and in one piece. I never take it for granted.

January - Training And Conditioning Run

2011-01-21T21:29:00.040-01:00

Bigness is lame - fighting, silly boy - and is left at home to mend. So Yogi fills his running position for the time being. Yogi is thrilled.

Training runs like this one are for the likes of Yogi who is learning to take commands from me. They are commands and not requests. What the others get out of the run is conditioning for longer journeys ahead. When I stop my team, it might be to untangle dogs or in this instance to praise dogs on good progress, it builds their confidence. It also teaches new dogs to stop and to take the opportunity to have a breather without fooling around.

The Greenlandic word for commanding lead dogs to turn left is “iu, iu”, and a right-hand move is “ili, ili”. Greenlandic sledding commands sound nothing like those I once used in the Canada Arctic and they certainly do not sound like the Alaskan versions either.

January - Hooking-Up And Heading Out

2011-01-20T22:33:00.005-01:00

The footage was shot around noon. The sun is yet to return.

So, from the front, the 10-dog sequence went like this: Girly, Loads, Vital, Yogi, Cracker, Spitz, Mettle, Mikkey, King and Gibson.

My Mum says, “Patience is a virtue but impossible in a man.” I think she means impossible in Mikkey. You might notice that Mikkey is the last to be hooked-up. This is because Mikkey is a male with an abnormal intolerance to waiting. I hook him up last because, without fail, left waiting he will chew anything in front of him including other dogs’ legs, faces, harnesses and traces. I still love him. He is a great sled dog.

For those who want to know more, click on how I harness up my dogs.

January - Just Ask Yogi

2011-01-05T22:15:00.177-01:00

I am utterly focused on conditioning and training my dogs right now and they have responded with the same unnatural driven iron will. Seeing this in their eyes is thrilling and intoxicating. I have split my 15 adults into two teams and have been in the thick of endurance runs with them. I head out with one team and return to immediately take out the second. Once I have been out with my dogs nothing changes my determination to keep myself hellish fit. The biggest days are two hours of running snowy trails followed by a horrible hefty weight training session. It is hell but my dogs know why I do it. We all eat, sleep, focus and run. Eat, sleep, focus and run.

Yogi has shone and proved a new asset leading alongside Vital. At the head of the other team Loads alternates up front with either Girly, Bigness or Plet. Today spindrift hurtled over the sea ice as we curved a course through ice rubble. As usual winter has been darker than being nailed inside a coffin. We still have no sun here. It returns January 20^th. We have a couple of twilight hours now but that is all. I must be sure of my footing when I am out with my dogs or training alone. Every pace I take I have to be careful not to trip. Petzl headlamps are most excellent for making sure I don't stumble. I continue to love the Myo 3.

I love the cold but hate being cold. Via emails I am often asked about how to stay warm. My nutshell reply (without the detail) is this:

Put on more clothes.
Eat food.
Exercise.
Do not hold on to your toilet.

There is nothing else to know, except having gear that raises the bar through design development such as Rab’s Infinity Down Jacket. Rab is about gear for extreme conditions. I choose to wear it because it keeps me alive. I’ve read a few of the very good recent Infinity reviews from southern latitudes. So here is an Infinity review from me in the Arctic.

If a jacket hood will not stay up in the wind you can always wear your goggles over the top to keep it in place. But do that and it of course means the hood is a hopeless fit. I want my goggles around my hat not my hood. If you want to down your hood and have to take off goggles to do it, the wind will be howling. And surprise, surprise the goggles fill with snow and vision is rendered useless. Dangerous.

In my opinion hood design singles out what is great about a garment because it is consistently the one design feature critical in keeping you warm. We all know how much warmth can be lost through our head. The Infinity hood design is classic Inuit style. It stays up in belting wind and fits so well it has no need for adjusters. Even with goggles on and the hood up, the Infinity gives a clear view as I sweep 360° looking for polar bears and bad ice. Wonderful. Bears skulk upwind and stalk downwind to kill. Not so wonderful. And bad ice tends to spoil my day too.

With balaclavas and a neck gaiter on, some jackets are not designed to zip right up which I find really annoying. But the Infinity does. I love to be snug and want to know that if I want to do a zip up all the way up, it will. The only modification I have done to the Infinity (and you cannot expect the jacket to be like this as standard because it’s unlikely to suit most peoples’ needs) is the one I do for every coat I own: I sew the zip together at the base because I can always do without bringing zips together in the wind with mittens on. Also, for me a jacket is easier to pull over my noggin rather than through arms first, especially in winds going helter-skelter off the Greenland Ice Cap. It has been windy here. For a few nights I have not been to bed before 3 am, after a final check outside on my dogs. If anything came my way in the air it would have taken my hooded head off.

In the minus 20s one system that works well for me is wearing an over sized Vapour-rise over the top of the Infinity Jacket. In the depths of my winter, the Infinity has been a wonderful, warm layering jacket. Although this winter hasn't been cold (by cold I mean minus 40 and falling) the Infinity Jacket over a long sleeved Aeon, two sets of Vapour-rise and sometimes layered under another jacket, Rab’s Neutrino Plus, is a safe and very comfortable combination for me. Working my dogs brings intense activity followed by lulls and more hectic exercise. Harnessing my dogs is hard work and I do not want to sweat at all because I head straight out from my house on to sea ice. The winter temperature change from shore to frozen Arctic sea is marked. I mean really marked. Add only a little wind and this marked change becomes extreme. I work my clothing zips without taking layers off.

Today was windy and cold. My Infinity Jacket is a glossy colour that reminds me of Yogi’s russet gold fur. He’s also fun, super friendly, always smiling and wants to get going. Him leading now makes a third of my adults capable of leading from the front. So I have nicknamed my Infinity, my Yogi Jacket. Winner. If it keeps me warm here in Greenland throughout January consider Rab’s Infinity Jacket a great choice. The clever part about enjoying bad weather is clothing selection.

It is amazing how light the Infinity Jacket is for the warmth it generates. I’m no scientist so I cannot divulge component secrets. All I can say is, I live in the Arctic full-time and this jacket rocks. You might not intend using an Infinity Jacket to keep you warm in the Arctic but what you will have is one that is capable of doing so. Just ask Yogi.

New Year’s Eve - Firework Fools

2010-12-31T16:19:00.025-01:00

The Boxing Day storm died away and left behind lots of lovely snow, and that makes my dogs and me very happy. So now, alongside the rest of the planet, Greenland is waiting to bring in the New Year with more festivities and a bang. I was all for having a great time too except something has happened that soured my spirit. I can’t stop thinking about it.

I was merrily feeding, watering and talking silly to my own dogs and puppies when something caught my eye. I couldn’t make it out at first but when I did I didn’t want to believe it. I saw two men throwing fireworks at the chained dogs of a friend of mine. Here all dogs are chained so they can normally be assured peace to rest in a safe place where they are fed when they are not working. Usually this makes for happy dogs.

The thugs threw more fireworks and continued to bully the frightened dogs. The dogs backed away pulling their chains rigid in desperation to avoid harm. It made me feel terrible. The thugs smiled. Not satisfied with this they doubled their efforts to torment. They ever so carefully placed more fireworks to explode off the backs of the dogs. As the bangers fizzed they must have burnt the dogs because they reacted with frantic jerking fits to get rid of the heat. Fizzing bangers rolled off and flashed into the dogs’ faces and exploded at their feet. Horrible frightened dog yelps did it for me. Although I knew the owner was on his way I couldn't wait any longer. I intervened.

I love where I live. It's my chosen home and I do not wish to live anywhere else. But sadly every society has its despicable element such as scum who throw fireworks at dogs.

It would never do to lose faith in human kindness but as a whole the human race is very difficult to love. Dogs are different.

I wish you a happy and peaceful New Year. If you have a dog please give them a big hug from me.

December - Boxing Day

2010-12-26T10:19:00.024-01:00

A few days before Christmas a storm was forecast, which is always worrying. All dog teams were moved off the sea ice before a vast chunk broke away and disappeared during the night. I was thinking Father Christmas was going to be in for a rough ride.

Christmas Day was calm again, apart from me listening to The Ramones at full-tilt. Later in the day I walked puppies Proper, Stunner, Blimey and Max out on to the remaining sea ice, a new experience for them. Back home and excited, they confidently interacted with my adult dogs. The puppies were submissive but very playful running between the legs of the big ‘uns. It was very sweet seeing a 42 kg dog like King nuzzling little Stunner. Back in their pen the puppies began singing on their own.

But today (Boxing Day) Ittoqqortoormiit is being pummelled by another storm. I managed to shoot a short video clip before the wind intensified and visibility deteriorated to virtually nil.

The wind is wild tonight. When feeding my dogs the visibility was so bad I walked into the side of my house. Inside my living room the Christmas decorations are shaking. Ferocious winds are gusting directly off the Ice Cap. Window shutters are clasped shut. A broken window is more than an inconvenience. A room would fill with snow in minutes. If that’s not bad enough, houses with broken windows have been known to explode here. All houses are wooden. Last year an airborne sheet of wood ply sliced into a house.

A day like today brings to mind the story of winter 1932 when Ittoqqortoormiit hunter Josva Barselajsen was out on the ice and strong winds broke it up. He drifted for five days on an ice floe before he was safely rescued.

I have minke whale chunks thawing out on the kitchen counter. The puppies are snug and safe in their kennel box. My adult dogs are fed and curled up tight inside their boxes.

The storm continues.

December - Giving

2010-12-08T13:26:00.092-01:00

For everything sled dog The Snowpaw Store has some great gift ideas including mouse mats, fridge magnets and original signed note cards featuring my dogs.

For those of you whose gifts to family and friends include charitable donations in their name, I ask you to take a moment to consider The Chelsea and Westminster Health Charity Burns Appeal.

In many ways frostbite recovery treatment is similar to severe burns. Frostbite recovery for me in 2006 meant months of treatment at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, England. Their burns unit is one of the best in the world. I will never forget the skilled and caring staff.

When I was hospitalised I met someone else I will never forget. There was a little boy who had his own room with colourful pictures, shiny toys and a little table and chair. He would stand in the doorway waiting for his Mum to visit. His head, arms and legs were heavily bandaged and it was plainly obvious he was going through a terrible time. It wasn't the toys he wanted.

Physical recovery from severe burns is long and painful. For patients the memory of traumatic accidents can be compounded by disfigurement meaning mental pain is very slow to fade. The Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is raising funds to provide psychological and social needs for children and adults. The Appeal has an online fundraising page.

November - Thank You Girly

2010-11-30T14:45:00.395-01:00

The sea has frozen and there set in the ice remains a huge iceberg the size of St. Paul's Cathedral about 4 km offshore from my house. A polar bear has already been investigating and climbing all over the iceberg.

I know this because I have a new Zeiss Field Spotter. It's an amazing piece of kit and as I have said before Zeiss optics are sheer quality and bliss to handle. Learn more.

Later three more bears were seen striding towards Ittoqqortoormiit but were smartly about turned by hunters on quad motorbikes. The bears were not shot since the annual quota of 30 was quickly reached between January and May. Also, the bears' bacon was saved because they were behaving themselves and not deemed as a threat to the community. I didn't see these polar bears. I was on a training run at the time, out of view.

I don't have a quad motorbike since having one has never been necessary. Law does not allow hunting with the aid of a quad motorbike; locally they are the equivalent of a family car. Also, they come by ship and are a major investment as far as I'm concerned. The only reason I would consider buying one would be to get an early start to the dog sledding season when it's cold enough to run dogs but when there's no snow to cover over sled damaging rocks. Ordinarily lack of snow is never a problem here but right now we've hardly had any snow on a frozen sea which is pushing back our sledding season.

Sled dogs do not like struggling to run on slick glare ice (ice without snow), least of all at the very start of the season when runs should be slow and easy. As conditions are right now running dogs on ice while slipping and sliding is only going to cause shoulder and ligament injuries. Not to worry the snow will soon come and anyway the bare ice means ice-skating is now the hot activity of the moment for kids. For others, they have taken to long bicycle expeditions way out on the sea ice.

The newest Ittoqqortoormiit quad bike is the fire department's vehicle. For us all the threat of fire is a terrible worry because all houses are wooden. Daily, throughout winter, the fire department is out on the sea ice and at strategic places they chip holes open in order to access water. In an emergency hoses would be lowered into this water source and run the entire length until they reach the fire. The department practises to remain sharp but we all pray that their skill will not need to be called into action.

At seven weeks old I gave the puppies their first vaccine injection. There was no fuss. Next to rabies, parvovirus and distemper are the two biggest Greenland Dog killers. Greenland's past has seen these devastating viruses hit epidemic proportions but thankfully now an easy and cheap vaccination programme is the preventative.

I worm my puppies every fortnight and will continue doing so until they are 12 weeks old. Predominantly two kinds of parasitic worm appear here. Ascaris are 10 cm long worms that look like pasta. These nasties are passed on through dog crap and that's why I keep a very clean kennel and pick up what I call dog bombs twice daily. Puppies could also get ascaris worms via Girly's milk even though I did worm her before she was too long into her gestation period. Marine mammals carry tapeworms so feed that and it is likely worms will appear at some stage. These worms appear dotted on dog bums looking like rice around the anus or in their turd. See it and you can expect to about retch. Worming my puppies progressed from the pink-stain-everything-it-comes-into-contact-with liquid to tablet form. Again, there was no fuss.

After administering puppy injections or worming treatment I make this another time to play with puppy feet, ears and have my fingers in mouths. Reason being that once Proper, Blimey, Max and Stunner reach adult life they will be so used to having these areas handled that if injuries in these places have to be examined or medications applied to them there will continue to be no fuss.

Last month I introduced Stunner. Now Max would like to say hello to you.

And so does Proper.

And of course Blimey.

How do I come up with dog names? Monosyllable or double syllable names are best in my opinion as long as they don't sound similar to existing dog names. An example of name similarity came before naming Stunner. I was thinking of called her Kim but it sounds too much like King. In a year's time out on the ice I might have been giving a command to King only to succeed in getting Kim's attention and reaction instead of King's. And with the early training development of a young dog's career the last thing I want is confusion in their mind.

My dogs' names are sharp, abrupt and carry well when all hell is breaking loose in a bad storm. Somebody else naming the same dogs might think of calling them after a flower like Daisy. Or Pansy. The thing is I don't see my dogs that way because they do not exude the qualities of a delicate flower. They are about power, strength of mind, resilient beauty and courage because when we work together that it what I see radiate from them. That's where the names come from. Sometimes, even as a puppy, a dog's physical make up means a name becomes obvious. Other people choose themes such as trees or cars for naming litters. Some people don't find naming puppies easy at all. There are other ways.

When I was a professional foxhound hunt kennel man in the mid-90s I would rear sometimes eleven or twelve litters of puppies every year. Litter names were chosen from what and I suppose is still called the Beaufort List. We used to have 160 adult hounds and I knew everyone by name. I had reared most of them from puppyhood. At night I could single out whose bark was whose. This barking was referred to as swearing because it invariably ended with a fight. Now is simple. I never have trouble identifying which of my dogs might be barking at night. And I have never stumbled coming up with my own names.

Here is Proper and evidence of how well he looks fed on Nutrience Junior. At two months old Stunner weighed in at 8 kg. Max, Proper and Blimey each topped 10 kg.

I had been looking forward to trying out two new down jackets from Rab. The first was Rab's Neutrino Plus Jacket. I could instantly tell this is a jacket I will get on well with.

And so too with Rab's Infinity Jacket. In the cold I layer all my clothing. Like Russian dolls, larger sizes fit over smaller ones. I do it with Vapour-rise and I do it with down jackets as well.

Girly is a wonderful brood bitch. She now oversees short periods of puppy play and never seems bothered about acting as a mobile climbing frame. She encourages her puppies to play and breaks up fights when it all gets a little too serious. In the puppy pen they have lots of playthings. I have made frames for them to climb and slid down, hide in and chase around. They have an area to run where strong little feet go nineteen to the dozen.

The puppy pen is very den-like and as we all know no den is complete without a keep out sign. I've nicknamed the puppy pen The Den of Destruction. Very reminiscent of my bedroom as a kid.

Proper was the first of the litter I saw singing alongside his mother while my entire kennel of dogs erupted with an almost deafening chorus. At that moment I felt really sad because I knew that at nine weeks old Girly's puppies were now fully weaned. It was a small litter and she had coped easily, as I knew she would. She had been a faultless, attentive and a loving mother to her puppies and here I was taking her away from them. I felt really rotten as I walked her away. I snapped her back on to her chain position in-between Spud and Feller. Now it was time for Girly to have a break. I kissed her and made sure she really did know what a wonderful mother she has been. At that she began to paw, nuzzle and play with Spud and Feller. Because the weaning process is so slow the puppies never even noticed Girly was gone.

Welpi from Petlife has done its work now. Proper and his siblings have made the transition from milk to water with their food fed three times daily.

Here is King compared to Max. I weighed all my adult dogs before worming them. The procedure went without any big fuss but my goodness King was 42 kg. He's not my biggest. That accolade goes to Feller. 46 kg. At the end of the month I weighed the puppies so I could work out their wormer tablet dose. Stunner weighed in at 11.6 kg, Blimey 13.2 kg, Proper 14.6 kg and Max 14.6 kg. The Awesome Foursome indeed.

By the end of November and at ten weeks old the puppies began their first training, learning their own name and coming to hand with a reward of dry kibble.

As sunsets go this one was special. The sun set for the last time this year and we will not see it again until 2011.

October – Girly’s Awesome Foursome

2010-10-30T19:55:00.406Z

Puppies and Girly are all looking wonderful. By the first week in October the puppies had all had their third claw trim and later in the day a polar bear was shot on the bridge less than 100 metres from my house. Less than a week later I saw another bear. I was on a training run under some cliffs and there it was doing the usual. My dogs were indicating that one was about the night before. I mentioned this to a hunter friend and he said his dogs were doing the same. I think one must have been swimming past our houses. Two days later we had another polar bear wandering about Ittoqqortoormiit. Nobody thought it was a big deal.

All puppy eyes opened when they were 13 days old. At 17 days their primary teeth came through and the following day the puppies stood up on all fours. At three weeks old all puppies were lapping Welpi from Petlife three times daily. Just a few days later all puppies were walking. Girly continued to clean up behind the puppies but I changed my Vetbed Gold on a daily basis and washed the whelping box with Conficlean 2, a high level disinfectant also from Petlife.

At one month old Girly’s puppies drank their first entire bowl of Petlife Welpi milk. I go to extraordinary lengths to keep and eat healthily myself. I have the same dedicated attitude for my dogs’ diet too. I always want to watch my puppies grow from a healthy start. Quality supplement nourishment I leave to Welpi before feeding puppies solid food. This soon followed in the form of mashed Nutrience Junior kibble from Hagen.

Look into the world of Girly's month-old puppies as they play, feed and sleep.

It was a busy week what with a gradual food change and a second worming. The puppies hated the worming and so did I. By the looks on their faces it must taste disgusting. Not only that but the ghastly stuff stains everything pink.

Other fourth week milestones included their tails curling like those of piglets and their ears went erect like horns of the devil.

With all that was going on there was lots of sleeping in-between.

In their fifth week and after their fifth claw trim the puppies went out to run and play in a dusting of snow for the first time. Now you could notice a definite size difference between the bitch and her male siblings.

This clip features puppy antics before claw trimming.

The puppies devoured their mashed Nutrience Junior kibble.

The weaning process is gradual and I still had the puppies milking off Girly.

Enjoy watching the first adventure outside for Girly's puppies.

At six weeks old I decided on names: Stunner, Proper, Blimey and Max.

Introducing Stunner.

By law dams can run loose until her puppies are six months old as long as she is tagged. I attached Girly’s tag to a new collar. I had Girly away from her puppies for several hours at a time, leading to half days away. The puppies’ fur now had a definite double pelage. There was no mashed food by this time, only dry Nutrience kibble and Welpi with an increased water ratio.

As October drew to an end temperatures were minus 15ºC and falling. I’m never without gloves and mittens from Outdoor Designs. In the Arctic, no gloves equals no hands.

While the puppy action was going on a hamster landed in Ittoqqortoormiit. The mother of the little boy who owns it swears that they will stay here until the creature dies. She said the reams of red tape involved in getting it here included her being escorted through Icelandic customs by armed officials.

Ittoqqortoormiit hunters Jørgen Arque and brothers Hjalmer and Scoresby Hammeken were officially recognised and awarded for their bravery. In August they risked their own lives and headed out into Scoresby Sund battling strong winds and rough seas to rescue a group of capsized German kayakers. All lives were saved. I have travelled with Jørgen, Hjalmer and Scoresby. They are modest men with immense skill and knowledge.

There were science types studying and tagging narwhales in Scoresby Sund this past summer. They have offered a bounty for the return of these tags. A lot of money I was told. Those animals tagged showed up on the Internet as being close to Ittoqqortoormiit in October. On the day hunters were out at 8 am on a Sunday morning. I heard shots.

Before the end of October grease ice formed on the sea before pancake ice finally sealed it over. With no storms it should thicken without being ripped from the shoreline. If it does I hope nobody is out there.

It looks to be a fun winter with The Awesome Foursome.

September - Polar Bear Monitor

2010-09-30T14:11:00.344Z

Before the polar bear monitor work was under way Mikkey flew home in a helicopter. He looked a bit cheesed off that I wasn’t going with him. On the first evening I sat down with the geologists and went through the dangers of polar bears, warning signs and what to do if caught alone with one. After that I reassured the group that I’d be watching over them and all around the area they were working in, like a hawk. The geologists were a happy group and a pleasure to work with. It was later as we got to know each other better that they said to me how much they appreciated that little introduction.

If you want to know more about how to avoid polar bear confrontation click on Bear Essentials for a published article of mine from Summit magazine.

For the next three weeks of bear monitor work there was a lot of helicopter flying to a wide range of locations. I’m normally an awful flyer in planes. Helicopters I like though. It was great skimming low over old sledding routes and from above I planned new ones. On our approach landing I always spied for bears.

Jan was the pilot and a top one at that. His skill was obvious and always made time to share his knowledge. I learnt a lot from our teamwork together.

Every single time you board a helicopter with firearms expect the pilot to ask you to prove they are unloaded. For this particular bear monitoring job I mounted my rifle with a Zeiss Victory 3 -12x56 riflescope and used Zeiss 8x32 binoculars. Zeiss optics are sheer quality and bliss to handle.

If tragedy hits and your pilot is struck incapacitated it’s good to know beforehand how to use the four transceiver lines of communication within a helicopter. Greenland helicopter control panels are always in English. For communications power you don’t have to fire-up the helicopter motor, press Batt EPU for battery power. Last resort is an emergency location transmitter (ELT), this activates by g-force. If your emergency landing is soft, a helicopter ELT has to be activated manually. At a later date and thanks to Jan, I have every intention of writing up more about helicopter routine, logistics and emergency procedures.

Close to one of our landing spots pilot Jan found some old mining artefacts probably from the Dr Lauge Koch 1930s era. Koch was a Danish geologist who explored and made many discoveries in east Greenland.

So after five weeks of wearing Hanwag boots I made the short trip home to hear news that hunters had taken two minke whales while I was away. If you want to know more about why I wear Hanwag boots take a look here.

King was pleased to see me. King is a big fella (I’m six foot). For dirty summer kennel work I wear Arktis Combat Trousers because they are extremely hardwearing and comfortable. The morning after my return home I was back into my twice-daily training routine and ran past where the whales were bought ashore. A Greenland shark had honed in on all the blood and guts on the shoreline. The beast dragged itself on land to eat the remains but got stranded. Every time I run past that spot it still gives me the creeps.

I now have 20 mouths to feed. Within four days of my return Girly whelped four puppies: 3 dogs and 1 bitch. Perfect.

Vetbed with its thick pile provides crucial insulating properties for Girly nursing her puppies.

Here is a chance to see Girly's puppies in their first week of life.

Petlife's Vetbed Gold veterinary bedding is unique and I swear by it. Greenland’s high Arctic is a world without trees or fields. It’s a logistical and financial nightmare getting bedding straw here and you can never guarantee the quality of it. Petlife's Vetbed Gold bedding is guaranteed quality.

Some synthetic furs tend to ice up offering no insulation in extreme cold, but not Vetbed. Wet combined with cold is a killer combination for puppy litters. I cut to whelping box size and rotate my Vetbeds. They’re easily washed and dry fast.

Girly has been fed throughout her life on Nutrience and thrives on it. With her whelps less than a week old I fed her Nutrience soaked in water.

Within a week I gave the puppies their first claw trim so as to protect Girly’s undercarriage.

Girly is a wonderful mother. After seven days all four whelps had nearly trebled in weight.

These summer treasure findings from around my dog yard included: bullet casings, live shells, brass belt buckles, a rifle bolt, pipes, bone and woodcarvings and a hair roller.

This old choke chain and rabies disk was found beside my house this summer. Rabies Greenland 1998 is engraved on the disk. We continue to inoculate dogs against rabies and the same disks are issued.

Another minke whale was taken and I watched it being broken up and distributed by hunters. Kids clattered down over the stony track on their bicycles. It felt like all of Ittoqqortoormiit had turned out. I felt honoured and privileged to watch it all. It was 30 men and three hours of teamwork. There was no waste. Even the eyes were taken to eat. It was totally stripped of anything edible. It was incredible to witness and the atmosphere so happy even though it looked hard, messy and smelly work. It was a careful and respectful event. The motivation was a winter of full bellies. I was given some of the minke whale and cut it up into blubber cubes. No white man can see any part of a whale hunt or the flensing by law in Arctic Canada, well at least that’s the way it was when I lived there. I tried and about had my head kicked in.

August - Finding Fossilised Trees With Mikkey

2010-08-30T11:30:00.194Z

The summer plan was a five-week journey on foot alone with Mikkey, one of my dogs. But it didn't quite work out like that.

What with getting Mikkey into shape before heading out, the last bit of kennel maintenance and painting felt like it was never going to end.

This was the last picture of Spank before a fight injury left him with a bent ear. The fallout was between him and Mikkey. Thankfully Mikkey didn’t go down lame.

Over the years I have become very confident cutting my own hair. Before the journey departure date I caught myself cutting my hair off in lumps using my shadow. No mirror. Not recommended. And talking of hair, I spent a lot of time grooming Spud’s coat this summer and he was beginning to look rather handsome.

For the first two weeks I was on foot alone with Mikkey on Jameson Land. Before heading out I prepared my food by using an Excalibur dehydrator from UK Juicers because, in my opinion, it is healthier and certainly cheaper than commercially made dry food touted as “expedition food”.

In Outdoor Designs dry bags I packed gear that included Rab’s Vapour-rise, a Neutrino down jacket, a silk sleeping bag liner and a Rab Ultra Bivi. And what did I pack for my hands? Outdoor Designs mckinley mountain gauntlets and a pair of mckinley mitts. As usual my last line of defence was an ACR personal location beacon.

For those two weeks Mikkey ran ahead, to the side but never behind. He always seemed to be intent on some mysterious business of his own. His ears were always alert. So was his nose ready for any disturbance that I might want warning about.

By day Mikkey wore his Ruff Wear backpack loaded with his own feed, Nutrience.

We crossed tundra.

We followed valleys.

We followed coastline.

We found strange sandstone shapes in the rock.

And some even stranger before finding what I was looking for.

Which was? Fossilised trees. I found plenty. For years I’ve hated anything that mentions global bloody warming. What’s under Greenland’s Ice Cap? Islands that were once covered in trees. Greenland was once tropical and obviously a whole lot warmer than it is today. It is a rhythm, a phase that the planet passes through. It’s not as though the temperature change was the result of continental drift. Millions and millions of years ago Greenland was in the same place as it is today. It is about the most stable lump of rock in the world. Certainly Greenland is made up of the oldest rocks on earth.

By mid-August I was unexpectedly relayed a message asking me to protect and safeguard six geologists for three weeks from polar bears since earlier in the summer there was a scientist mauled in his tent by a polar bear and all research groups were on red alert. Here’s where my journey plan altered.

Before heading to my rendezvous with the geologists there were a few nights and plenty of driftwood to make a fire. Winter or summer I always carry a Primus lighter.

On our last night out alone I wrote Mikkey a poem:

My name is Mikkey and I have my own backpack,

Full of treats to get there and back.

I love to climb the valleys and splash across the rivers,

And run long and hard to dry and prevent the shivers.

Sometimes it’s just right to stop and stare,

And breathe huge lungs full of splendid Arctic air.

Everything is best about our long summer hikes,

But there’s always one thing above everything I really do like,

And that’s to make camp in the sun with a driftwood fire,

Thinking of these special times when life can’t get much higher.

The sun set around midnight.

July - Planning For Puppies

2010-07-30T10:35:00.222Z

As is usual here in July the sea ice broke up and drifted off into Scoresby Sund, the biggest fjord system in the world.

Hunters squeezed out the very last remaining days of the sledding season before reverting to powerboats. There was a little onshore wildlife activity close to home: a polar bear was wandering outside the hospital and when I was running down to what we call Walrus Bay a polar bear was eating a freshly killed seal. On another day five brave narwhales passed very close to town before blowing and diving a stone’s throw from the shore.

My dog food arrived on the first re-supply ship of the year. I have planned for puppies. Included in the shipment was a pallet of specially formulated first year puppy diet. To pack away the dog food bags is usually four-hours of grunt work. This year friends offered and came over to help.

It was all go in Mikkey’s world. I began to prepare and condition him for some planned hiking in August alone on Jameson Land. I’ve used several generations of Ruff Wear Palisades dog packs and have always rated these as the best of their kind available. The materials are hard wearing. What’s crucial is the harness design and fitting gets better even when I didn’t think it possible. Ultimately if the fit of a dog pack is poor the dog will suffer. This I will not tolerate.

I have a fear of going blind. Even on grey days the Arctic summer sunrays are not the least bit healthy for unprotected eyes so I wear CEBE sunglasses to keep them so. For carting big loads Lowe alpine’s Cerro Tore backpack has always been my choice for the last four years. The latest lightest weight version is now called the Expedition TFX.

In-between all this activity I made more sled furniture that included: a table, stool, chair and writing desk.

On the 9th of July Girly came into heat so I isolated her in a pen where she settled. On the 17th I covered Mikkey with Girly for the first time. If she took with this mating the puppies will be due on the 18th of September.

June - A Dog Named Spud

2010-06-30T16:01:00.045Z

I ended my sledding season in May even though it looked like we were possibly in for another month of ice before break-up. Other dog drivers continued. Some weren't so lucky to be able to make that choice. Sadly I know of at least one west coast hunter who died with all 12 of his dogs this season.

In June dog teams and their drivers don’t run through Ittoqqortoormiit since the winter deep snow on dirt roads around the community melts down to stones and gravel. Not good for sled runners. So hunters leave their dog teams where ice meets the shoreline and walk in to re-supply on vitals such as stove fuel and tobacco before heading back out, usually to the ice edge. From a strategic point, hunters go to the very edge of the sea ice, an area that, no matter how cold, never freezes over. This phenomenon is called a polynia. One such popular location is between Kap Tobin and Kap Brewster. To reach it from Ittoqqortoormiit takes roughly an hour or so by dog team.

A dinky little handmade floe edge boat is secured to the sled and the hunter sits in it as he makes his way to the ice edge. If ice is thin and his dogs go through he has the boat to keep himself dry and the sled afloat, in theory anyway.

From the relative safety of the ice, hunters watch over open water for their preferred quarry: seals, polar bears, walruses and whales. The way of retrieving a successful kill is to row out in a floe boat. I’ve heard all the horror stories of hunters being pulled under or attacked by walrus in these small craft. Loved ones will be pleased to know that I’ve never had a terribly strong urge to try out this floe edge manoeuvre.

Boas Masden died this month. Alongside the people of Ittoqqortoormiit I was stunned with sadness. The church’s Greenland flag flew at half-mast for Boas’ funeral. The sun shone all day and for the first time this year skeins of geese passed over as if saluting one of Ittoqqortoormiit’s greatest dog drivers and hunters.

There are no water mains here. In winter you either pay for water delivery or haul your own from one of three drinking water standpipes. By June we are well into 24-hours of daylight when the sun never sets. There’s little chance of frost, so overground water hoses with taps are set out closer to houses and for poor boys like me hauling water becomes easier.

I bought another dog this month, a two year old from a hunter. The dog came with a name but for the life of me I could not pronounce it. I don’t have a garden but I do set seed potatoes in buckets. As usual time passed for the potato plant to appear. But overnight it mysteriously disappeared. The new dog had eaten it. I called him a few inappropriate names to start with but a day or two later I settled on calling him Spud.

Yogi and Spitz were the first to shed their winter coats and this year’s grooming was under way. But King really is the one who seems to love it best of all.

Over the years I’ve been collecting old dog sleds. To me they are beautiful and evocative of so many great memories. And practical. I’m short of house furniture so I had an idea: to make a sled into a couch.

We have a nice store here plus two handy places for essentials, they’re locally called kiosks. Next to the days of the week the new kiosk summer hours were posted.

The sea ice is always in state of flux and depending on the season there is always the opportunity to catch or hunt your own food on top of the ice. In June cracks appear in the ice. The fishing is not good here but it does provide hours of pleasure for some who like to catch sculpin, a fish that makes tremendous eating. That is until July when Arctic char ascend rivers until late August to spawn and anglers change tackle.

Kids never seem to sleep at this time of year and like the world over they find entertainment somewhere. Here they play football or ride their bikes on the sea ice. Later as the ice breaks up they make rafts from the biggest chunks working hard not to flip them.

Hunters were still at it even when parking spots were becoming a little sodden. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

I finished the couch. There was kennel maintenance to be done but the sled couch looked so good inside that I set about thinking of other furniture projects.

Now my dogs rest. With the 24-hour daylight and increased warmth my dogs love it all and look wonderful.

My dogs and I were featured in the adventure travel series Departures. Greenland - Episode 11 – was first broadcast in Canada on OLN and will soon be aired on National Geographic Channel worldwide.

May - Eating Polar Bears

2010-05-30T10:14:00.017Z

Polar bears are threatened by global warming and are being hunted to the point of extinction?

Really? I live in the Arctic and I don’t see it.

Nor do Ittoqqortoormiit hunters who have been living in the Arctic long before I was born.

Never mind what we see with our own eyes, Dr. Mitchell Taylor is the world’s leading authority on polar bears. He doesn’t believe polar bears are in decline at all and says populations are steady or on the increase. It’s very unlikely you’ll have heard of Dr. Taylor but I will tell you he has dedicated 30 years of his life to studying polar bears. The reason you probably have not heard of Dr. Taylor is, for all his knowledge on the subject of all things polar bear, he has been silenced by governments not to divulge the truth. But given the amount of media attention the Arctic is getting I understand why killing, what essentially the rest of the world considers a zoo animal, evokes powerful opinion. Why the need to kill polar bears at all?

Personally I prefer to see my food come out of a packet but I do understand why hunting is so important here.

Polar bear hunting in Greenland is not done for fun. It is not trophy hunting and, unlike in some other Arctic countries, it is illegal for non-residents to shoot a polar bear in Greenland unless in self-defence. Bear hunting is cold, dangerous and dirty work. Bears are killed for food. The south has fresh meat in the way of cows, sheep, chickens and pigs. We don’t. We don’t have trees let alone fields or supermarkets crammed full of food. This is a remote, brutal and cold world of sea, ice and snow. There are distribution considerations too. Greenland doesn’t have a road or railway network connecting towns to each other or to the rest of the planet. When the world was panicking about the Iceland volcano eruption we had no flights in or out of here for weeks on end, and no fresh food. No one was worried. The sea was full of food: seals, walrus, narwhales, and polar bears.

Because it is so far removed from anything you can imagine, Greenlandic culture is looked upon with a unique fascination by the rest of the world. They are a people who have been pushed throughout their existence to their wits’ end to survive in a punishing hostile land. They are the epitome of what Man has to do and overcome in order to live. It’s not so long ago that when families were starving and the hunting was bad the elderly were set adrift on ice to die. Euthanasia was applied to infants, especially females, during famine.

I agree times are not nearly so desperate now but polar bears have always been and continue to be looked upon as a vital and traditional source of food. For most of the world there is no empathy because they cannot relate to eating polar bears and that’s exactly my point. Non-Greenlanders have little or no desire to eat a polar bear because they don’t have to, their parents didn’t eat polar bears and nor did their grand parents. So that’s the basis of opinion for most people: why do you have to eat polar bears when I don’t? And that takes me full-circle back to the farmyard of cows and pigs (or if you are a vegetarian, fields of crops).

Presently Greenland has over 20,000 working dogs, a breed that has had no contact with the outside world as no other dog breed is permitted above Greenland’s Arctic Circle. To hunt lawfully in Greenland you must have Greenland Dogs. Hunting and working with these dogs is an important part of the culture.

Arctic Canada had as many dogs once. The Canadian police (RCMP) have been accused of slaughtering 21,000 dogs throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s to immobilise the Canadian Inuit. I know this because I lived in Arctic Canada and witnessed the resulting hatred to that loss. I think memories of burning dog piles are something that everybody would find hard to stomach. The bitterness was followed by the inevitable drink, drug, suicide and sickening social problems.

Although Greenland is not without it’s own social problems, from my experience the level is significantly less compared with Arctic Canada. I dread to think Greenland’s cultural future will go the same way as the Canadian north with the same sad results. But, as the ability to make a living by hunting decreases (even though the animal populations have not decreased), so does the number of dogs and the traditional skills so intrinsically linked to Greenlandic cultural identity. Ban seal hunting. Ban polar bear hunting. Ban whale hunting. It has the same effect on Greenlanders as slaughtering dogs did in Arctic Canada.

And what about the way animals are killed? There is no nice way of killing anything. From southern farmyards full of nutrition to slaughterhouses, the rest of the world kills animals as humanely as possible to eat but the floor will always slosh in warm blood. It is the same here in Greenland except the sea is our slaughterhouse and the water turns red. The killing is done humanely because to wound can result in tragedy. Hunters take great pride in their work. They aim for instant kills else potential food can become a waste of the irretrievable. Hunters also know when they're running a terrible risk to themselves or to others by wounding animals. Also here, there are strict seasons when species can and cannot be taken and region numbers are monitored.

Greenlanders have a deep-rooted respect for what they eat and how they hunt for food. Obviously they don’t want to see the animals disappear either. The world has gone utterly mad about the environment and overly protective about wildlife, particularly in other peoples’ backyards. Believe me, future generations are going to shake their heads at the goings-on of today.

I would like to report that the polar bears here on the east coast of Greenland are doing just fine. 24 have been shot already this year. For food.

April - Frank

2010-04-30T13:02:00.010Z

Frank was tragically killed in a sledding accident. He was a wonderful dog. All I could do on the horrible day was to dig a grave in the snow for him. What makes losing him even worse is, I intended retiring Frank and was working hard to relocate him in Great Britain. He was the kindest, most gentle dog you could imagine and I know he would have settled down well. Everybody loved Frank. He was always so happy and pleased to see you.

This summer I will walk back to where he lays and dig a proper grave for him.

March - Journey To The Unknown

2010-03-30T14:04:00.076Z

On 14^th March I returned home safely (Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland) after a 33-day, 400-mile solo journey with 12 of my dogs to an area marked unknown or unexplored on the maps of Greenland. Press Release.

The journey cold was terrifying. Staying alive meant layering Rab's Vapour-rise and their down clothing together with gloves and mittens from Outdoor Designs. A new favourite came in the shape of Rab's lightweight one-piece Expedition Windsuit. Packing my sled always means using Rab Expedition Kitbags, they're all but bombproof.

All food and fuel re-supply depots were deployed last summer and remained intact. My dogs are always fed Nutrience from Hagen. They went out and returned healthy and very fit. My own food was prepared using an Excalibur dehydrator from UK Juicers. I adore this machine. Picture left is Loads one of my four leaders. I ran two lead dogs up front all the time. Loads was the only one who stayed up front for the entire journey. He is the dog god.

I carried an ACR personal location beacon because I never trust satellite phones, reception remains dreadful and worst of all I’ve seen them fail too often. Energizer Ultimate Lithiums powered, without fault, essential devices like my Petzl headtorch. CIBA Vision contact lenses corrected my vision to perfection and kept my peepers healthy. Throughout the journey I used top-notch trace rope from Snowpaw.

My Multimats meant I slept warm and well. Gerber tools meant I always had something sharp when I needed it. Tubbs snowshoes enabled me to break trail in front of my dogs. Without snowshoes I’d have been wading through snow chest deep. Not fun. Previously I'd kept some Clamcleat tent guy adjuster samples outside for an entire Arctic year. Subsequent research tests proved their resilience wasn’t altered. My journey tent adjusters proved to be just as reliable. On journeys I am never without water. Primus1-litre steel flasks filled with boiling water remained hot even throughout brutal cold. My daytime temperatures fell to minus 50ºC and my spit crackled before freezing solid. The flasks never winced. Incredible.

I love Think Tank camera and video cases. Their materials are tough and design makes for fast easy handling in the cold. There's little point me doing what I do unless I can communicate and share. The speed at which this can be done with my Panasonic Toughbook and Lumix camera, I think, is incredible. For cuts and scrapes Bag Balm is a wonderful healer for both my dogs and me.

My dogs know they pulled off a great trip. Most of the 12 were in or approaching their prime during this journey. Skill, expertise, advice, inspiration, effort, wisdom, and attention to detail also came from relationships I never take for granted and include:

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Joe Fragapane, Dave Birkitt, Geoff Somers, Nikki Skinner, Neil McAdie, Helen Robinson and Matt Gowar, Jane Hinton and Tom Gibson, Alison, Pam and Nick Payne, Carl Wolter, Tony and Yvonne Oakley and John Kirbyshire, Jonny Pegg, Debbie Evans, Tim Holden, Ralph White and Andi Hayman, Susan Strible and Greg Freyberg, Sammy Laurence, Andy Hawkyard, Brian Irwin, Paul Hellawell and Nick Ledger, Serge Trembley, Will Steger, Mark Karn and Maddy Edwards, Anne Dewe, Diane and Eric Smith, Adrian Stammers and Kathryn Evans, Isobel Davies, Chris Brannan, Dale Emery, David Grapentin, Ann Rosenthal, Kevin Thompson, Dawne Warren and Anne Jardine, Patricia Jameson, Tom Whitworth and David Hamill, Martyn Hurn and Roger Chaldecott, Ben Lyon, Paul Cornthwaite, Frank Bennett, Michelle Airey and Rinaldo Colombi, Terry Timlin, Tim Daniels, John Hancock, Dennis London, Chris Wahler and Katie Herod and my parents.

At home in Ittoqqortoormiit my thanks goes to many including: Jennifer, Boas, Olle, Jan, Martin, Tore, Lea, Erling and Evald. There are also a few who would not thank me for mentioning their names so I won't.

To each and every one of you, my dogs and I thank you all.

This picture is looking into an area marked on maps as unknown or unexplored. What I saw and felt will never leave me and one day I plan to write and share more about the experience.