Floating the Dead River

July 4, 2009

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Afloat on the Dead River in northern Minnesota just a few miles south of the Canadian border on a – finally – beautiful early summer day with my friend Will Steger we are on the lookout for the critters that habituate this part of the world – beavers, moose, painted turtles, loons, otters, minks, black bears and many more. The sky is indigo, studded with big white cumulus clouds, and the river’s banks lined with just-blooming lily pads backed by tall reeds. The river got its name not because it’s a dumping ground for bodies or badly polluted but because it is so still. Which is perfect for us, as we float its length after exiting Burnside Lake.

While much of the afternoon is spent in silence, listening to the wind, feeling the sun burn on pale skin, we talk about the state of, well, everything … from politics to small town gossip, climate change to the best way to plant rhubarb. I ask Will, whose dog sledded, skied, canoed and swum around the Arctic as much as anyone alive, what he’d heard about recent North Pole and Arctic adventures. (He’s casually starting to talk about an ambitious dogsled expedition tracing the Northwest Passage in a couple years time.) He mentions John Huston, a mutual friend, who managed Will’s 2007 expedition across Ellesmere Island. “What John did was really incredible, quite different from when we went to the North Pole in 1986 with dogs.”

Just a few days before I’d had an email from John, with some insight into his recently completed North Pole expedition:

On April 25, 2009 we Tyler Fish – and -myself became the first Americans to reach the North Pole unsupported and unassisted. Our 55-day journey, which began at the northernmost point in North America, Ward Hunt Island, Canada, has been called ‘the hardest trek on the planet.’ We skied and snow shoed over 480 miles on the frozen dynamic surface of the Arctic Ocean.

The Arctic Ocean is perhaps the place on earth most affected by climate change. So having just spent almost two months living there, people always ask us “Did you see the effects of climate change?” or “Did you see the ice melting?” The answer is never simple, but surely the ice we traveled over is quite different from the ice 25 years ago.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, over the past 30 years the ice on the Arctic Ocean has decreased drastically in area and in thickness. Thinner ice is weaker, more susceptible to melting and cracking than older sea ice.

During the last month of the expedition we donned dry suits and swam across 10 or 12 open leads (cracks of water between ice flows). Swimming is not that cold of an experience since the water temperature can be up to 60°F warmer than the air temperature. In recent years most expeditions to the North Pole from Canada have not had to swim more than just a few times.

Over the last two weeks of the expedition we were battered by winds out of the northwest. These winds pushed the pack ice to the southeast 6 to 8 miles every 24 hours, in a direction away from the North Pole. In order to reach the pole in time for our scheduled pick up by a Russian helicopter we slept only 3 of the 66 hours before setting foot on the North Pole. Most of that time we were skiing on the extremely slippery snow/ice crust that has not been visible this early in the season until the past few years.

Some scientists say that the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free during the summer within 30 years. In as few as 10 years it may not be possible to ski to the North Pole.

Especially around his native Minnesota these past four years, Will’s been leading the charge in regard to trying to get local governments to start including warming temperatures in any long-range planning. Like John Huston, Will has seen the changes happening across the Arctic up-close, and is both saddened and angered about what’s happening. But on a warm July day on the edge of the Boundary Waters its best to keep those sentiments – sad and angry – at bay and instead keep your eyes peeled for painted turtles slipping off logs into the Dead River.