Gary Rolfe


March - April 2005 400-mile, twenty-two day round trip from Inuvik to Liverpool Bay (Amundsen Gulf) in Canada’s western Arctic.



We’d covered 3,000 training miles as spring followed a hectic, difficult winter. I’d been every step of the way with my dogs. To rub it in I’d slugged out a twice-daily personal training routine accumulating 2,000 running miles alone in four winter months mostly over the frozen Mackenzie River in the polar dark, often at forty below zero. I’d given it my all to get my dogs to this point. We were in very good shape and I was determined our training year would finish with a journey. What follows is an account of that 400-mile 22-day journey. The destination wasn’t important but distance travelled over a specific time with an 800 lb payload was. I wanted to evaluate and determine dogs I take forward for 2006. I decided to start out from the Inuit community of Tuktoyaktuk, a hundred miles from our winter training ground. Tuk’ looks out to the Beaufort Sea. By November 1st this stretch of the Arctic Ocean freezes. I’ve made several journeys on the Beaufort Sea. This time I chose to cross a little tundra and head into Liverpool Bay. Amundsen sailed past here after discovering the Northwest Passage. Polar bears tend to kill what they please in this region, always dodgy, since to them I’m nothing but a vertical seal.

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