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Cold to be cool

Do you really need to know how to ski to finish a winter adventure race in the Arctic? Not if you're from South Africa.

Daniel Poirier had a dream. It had grown out of a unique program run by his Orford, Quebec-based event organization, Endurance Adventure.

In 2009, the EA team and a platoon of talented volunteers began leading adventure-sport clinics for youth in the rough-and-tumble towns of Nunavik, the region ringing Ungava Bay in Quebec's far north. It hadn't been an easy sell, the indigenous Inuit being rightly suspicious of ideas parachuted in by southerners. In addition, northern peoples' timetables follow rhythms of the land, so participation was halting if, for instance, a caribou herd was sighted on the edge of town. But Daniel believed strongly in connecting kids to the land through outdoor activity, a path to improved community health that could help break the cycle of dependence and despondence that plagued northern outposts. To cap each week-long clinic, EA staged a short adventure race for the kids (passing caribou notwithstanding). Why not, Daniel thought, stage a real multi-day race somewhere in Nunavik and invite top pros from the international adventure-racing ranks? A rugged and unforgiving land was just what racers sought. Its wild beauty and outdoor possibility were something to give nascent tourism in the region a boost, and any media coverage would serve to deliver welcome good news from a place where most bulletins concerned unemployment, substance abuse or suicide. Holding the race at the end of March when the sun was high but the Arctic winter still in full swing would be catnip for the hardest of the hardcore.

As dreams went this one was considerable. But somehow, the kinetic 40-year-old and his equally energetic crew had made the Nunavik Adventure Challenge International a reality. Now all they needed were racers.

They came to Kangiqsualujjuaq (you can call it George River) from Canada, the U.S., France, Italy, and, oddly, South Africa. An elite corps of adventure-racing rock stars willing to test their eclectic titles on snowshoeing, running and skiing in the Arctic. Then again, for a group whose collective résumé included hammerhead exotica like the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, Transmarocaine, Campeonato Mexicano Deporte Extremo, Alaska Iditabike, Raid Manicouagan, Huairasinchi Ecuador and Trofeo Schiaffino Italy, maybe not so crazy after all.

Though no one was truly sure what they were getting into, they all knew this much: each two-person team was required to carry a SPOT locator-beacon, satellite phone, GPS, emergency tent and sleeping bag at all times; this being the Arctic, things wouldn't go exactly as planned; and in any event they should expect to be c-o-l-d. During a long day hopscotching north from Montreal to Baie Comeau to Schefferville and on to Nunavik (a word they were repeatedly urged not to conflate with the nearby Territory of Nunavat), most stared out the windows of the chartered turboprop, tracing meteorite craters, frozen lakes and the substantial clawmarks left by Pleistocene glaciers — which perhaps spoke most eloquently to the coming days.

Even for those used to winter elsewhere, the almost featureless land they debarked in was foreign. Hugo Du Plessis and Juan Botes, especially, had come an awfully long way. "We flew forever," said Hugo of their journey from South Africa. Coming from a land of shorts and t-shirts, they'd then spent two days in Montreal gearing up. What did they buy? "Everything... well, almost. Hopefully we can borrow some skis." But had they ever skied? No.

On that account they weren't the only ones arriving empty-handed: Air Canada had ensured that heavily favoured team Out There USA — four-time World Adventure Racing, three-time Eco Challenge, five-time Primal Quest, World Mountain Bike, World Long-distance Orienteering (etc., etc.) champion Mike Kloser and his two-time National Winter Triathlon, two-time Colorado Mountain Bike (etc., etc.) champion son Christian Kloser — was devoid of its award-winning baggage. This would make things interesting.

Nevertheless, all had agreed that Kangiqsualujjuaq (meaning "large bay") was beautiful, straddling the treeline as it did (meaning you'd see a few arbours in microclimatic clumps, and then none — mostly none) at the mouth of the George River (meaning it's a maritime community, incidentally famous for dangerous mussel-harvesting under the ice at low tide). It was stark and white and swimming in the kind of light peculiar to polar regions (meaning you were never far from a photo). On the cold snowmobile ride in from the airport, well-bundled kids were seen sliding down everything (meaning the sensation never gets old) including snowpiles buttressing the ultramodern co-op hotel where racers lodged (meaning a Scando-style, multistory cube).

That evening, all 800ish Kangiqsualujjuaqans descended on the community centre's gym to officially welcome racers. Loosed in a big warm space, children ran wild during speeches from politicians, Inuit elders and Daniel's indefatigable man-on-the-ground, Tommy George, who'd marshalled a league of volunteers to organize logistics. Daniel was enthusiastic about the international race, but equally enthusiastic about the Inuit youth who might ("Maybe they'll come, maybe not") participate in a short-course shakedown the Quebeckers had loftily entitled "Prologue."

Despite Daniel's equivocation, 60 kids had crowded a registration desk at the local school next day, shoving, laughing, ready for fun. With both kids and pros assembled at the gun, miraculously few crashes occurred in a chaotic start observed by community members who sat stoically on snowmobiles and qamutiq — the ubiquitous wooden freight sled pulled by snowmobiles everywhere in the Arctic — including women with babies stuffed contentedly into the voluminous hoods of traditional anorak. As the pack scrambled away, stiff winds cancelled any warmth offered by a March sun, and the pros bobbing above a sea of children like periscopes quickly filtered to the front. Except the South Africans; despite a quick lesson from EA staff on sliding over a substance they'd never even seen before, their ignominious debut saw them tottering like baby giraffes.

Although the Klosers had been generously supplied with skis and other missing essentials, the donor, team Spin Sports et Plein Air, led from the start. Ian Beaulieu owns an eponymous sporting goods store in Baie Comeau and Simon Côté is an ecotourism instructor from Gaspé renowned for solo kayak circumnavigations of islands like Anticosti and Cape Breton. Spin Sports opened a five-minute lead on the Americans, insurmountable in a sub-two-hour race. In hot pursuit was Endurance-Mag, the French team of Guillaume Sarti and Sylvain Boisset, making up time at the first checkpoint (CP) by running up a hill most chose to snowshoe, then sliding down on their butts. Italy's team Pacalula — Gianluca Lamperti and Paolo Cattaneo — gambled by leaving climbing skins on their skis throughout; they lost the bet when the land proved more convoluted than it appeared from the air. Another Italian crew, Roberto Mattioli and Michele Sartori of the Pedini-Iret collective, had quietly skied past the French into third. Ontario's Salomon Bobkittens, Leanne Mueller and Nicky Cameron, posted up behind the French. Monts-Torngats, the local team of Jobie and David Unatweenuk, finished in an Italian sandwich between Pacalula and Pedini-Iret's solo female, Stefania Zarroti.

Athletes hadn't been the only ones getting a shakedown. The surfeit of youth racers came back to haunt organizers at the short zip-line, where each competitor had to be harnessed and clipped in by volunteers. Flummoxed over the bottleneck, a meeting that night in "the white shack," a tumbledown waterside bunkhouse where EA slept and ate, concerned the big rappel on the main course, logistics that involved harnesses, helmets, hardware and rope.

Back at the hotel, wide-eyed racers milled in the kitchen/dining area. Leary of spending two days and a night on a land that had consumed its fair share of adventurers without their carefully parsed gear, the Klosers pretended to study maps while praying for luggage that would never come. For the Bobkittens, the day had been "Everything we'd hoped for," and a chance to work out some gear issues: the girls hadn't enjoyed skittering on abundant marbleized sastrugi (who does?) and decided to switch to beefier skis. The South Africans, who'd handled an alien enterprise without complaint, admitted to being nervous on ice — a decidedly untrustworthy substance. It mattered neither that snowmobiles flew over it nor that it was metres thick; the tiniest change in texture was a gut-clenching harbinger of doom. They'd also been freaked by the crunching echoes of their own boots and the claw-like ticks of ski poles, suspicious of a creeping polar bear. As they'd raced, Hugo formulated an escape plan.

"I figured I'd get on top of a big rock and swat the bear with my ski pole," he'd related through an enormous, frost-bit grin.

As the group doubled over, imagining the gory outcome, Hugo mentioned he'd also purchased bear-bells, which, as someone barely explained through choking laughter, meant Hot adventurer pie! Gore Tex crust, chewy centre! to a bear. Teary-eyed jokes ensued about pimped-out bruins wearing bear-bell necklaces.

With the ice broken so to speak, Hugo passed out samples of dried African meat. "What is it?" Christian asked, suspicious.

"Beas we call it," said Hugo, his Afrikaans accent deepening noticeably. "Cow or someding like dat. They chewed it while racing. It had energy and salt to prevent cramping, and was "a little spicy to keep your mouth warm."

Things only got serious when talk turned to navigation. Everyone had seen how the constantly sifting wind meant you couldn't count on following your own tracks should you veer off course. You might turn to find them gone, or your tracks might be erased and others uncovered, a trail that could lead anywhere — even oblivion.

At the 8 a.m. racer's meeting in the hotel kitchen, the only face that didn't look nervous belonged to the massive caribou head mounted on the wall. The picture windows framed an almost inviting scene of stark, frigid beauty while racers listened attentively to English and French explanations of a route that would cover 44 kilometres the first day, include an overnight camp, then loop back 33 kilometres. The Italians used clues from both languages to plumb essential facts: with volunteers strung along the course it would be difficult to get lost, even in the notorious whiteout area between CPs eight to 10; it would also be cold, but how and when the wind would blow was anyone's guess. "If the weather is good it will be the experience of a lifetime," advised Daniel, "but if it's bad it will be a hell in which you won't even see your partner." For safety, most of the course was flagged and paralleled by a snowmobile track (but then, there were snowmobile tracks everywhere).

Other safety issues included ice conditions and, of course, polar bears. "Don't worry — course personnel are armed," Daniel advised. Though common on Ungava's ice, bears were rarely seen near town. "And when they are, they don't live more than an hour. The fur is prized and meat given to elders."

The Americans could have used a little polar bear meat. Still short of everything, they'd been reduced to beggars. When Daniel asked "Any questions?" A hungry Mike Kloser raised his hand. "Yeah. Does anyone have any granola or toast to spare?"

At a cold start line, Tommy George introduced the race mercifully quickly. An elder recited a prayer in Inuktitut over a bullhorn and the teams were off. The course wrapped along the bay, tracking a thin line of trees before lifting racers onto open plateau. That it was hell in a whiteout was confirmed by the many inukshuk crowning larger rocks beside the trail.

Though they'd switched to heavier skis, Spin Sports was again out front, trailed by a large, white husky. The dog followed up the long ridge to CP one before it was distracted by other traffic: racers, marshals with bear rifles, qamutiq full of cheering spectators, and stumbling media. Out There was racing on the carbon-fibre skis that Spin Sports had used in the Prologue — a calculated loan ("They were fast but unstable, so we figured the trade-off was worth it to use heavier skis that were better for downhilling.") — and were breathing down the Quebeckers' frosted necks, both teams dashing from CP one only 100-metres apart. Aware of the Americans' potential, Spin Sports skated powerfully to open a gap that would only widen over the day. Next came Endurance-Mag, which had proven itself up for any winter task. Then Pedini, Pacalula, Bobkittens, Stefania, Monts-Torngats, and finally, South Africa — now tramping spryly on snowshoes. Without skiing skills, they'd decided to simply soak up the experience, a relaxed camaraderie that sets adventure racing apart from Ironmans or ultramarathons.

Mostly alone now, teams experienced the silence and grandeur of the land: wide vistas, sharp hillocks, titanic boulders; occasional eruptions of bonsai trees wrapped in sculpted snow like some tundra Zen garden; squadrons of snowbirds, peeling away low to the ground, indistinguishable from the plates of hardened snow that flew from their boots.

The lakeside CP 10 featured a tiny hunter's hut in which racers could avail themselves of a moment's respite before hitting a mettle-testing "extreme loop" of almost 20 kilometres that carried over several mountains to the frozen Korok River (a migration route for polar bears), before looping back to the big rappel at CP 16, atop one of the whaleback ridges where Nunavik laps against the Torngat Mountains. The well-frosted lead teams had passed quickly, barely speaking to the TV crew helicoptered in for interviews. Pedini-Iret, Sartori's beard caked in frozen tea, had cruised in with plenty of time before the 1 p.m. cut-off that would force teams to skip the extreme loop, but once out on the lake appeared disoriented, beelining toward camp and missing the rappel. Was something lost in translation? Did they follow an errant snowmobile? Too cold to continue? No one would ever know.

Endurance racing is a chemical balancing act: carbs, proteins, fats, caffeine, fluids. Stepping inside the hut to sort gear and steel themselves for the remainder, the Bobkittens took a shotgun approach, stuffing their faces with peanut butter cups, pepperoni, cheese strings, trail mix, hot chocolate. Having arrived at the cut-off, they'd headed directly for the rappel.

It was beyond brutal. Where the notorious Arctic wind had stirred a light ground blizzard on the lake, a mere fog of friendly flakes, 300 metres above that same wind howled. It stung the eyes with ice crystals, sucked away the breath, and dropped the already frigid temperature to an effective -40C. In the low light of late afternoon, skis and snowshoes on their backs, teams clipped into harnesses to hurtle together over the edge, the parallel ropes cantilevered away from the sloping face by a nifty tripod of tree trunks. Some flounder in ski boots on the smooth rock face, others bound down in suave, practiced leaps. All hit the bottom to follow the obvious track a kilometre to camp. Or so it seems: when the sun finally lies molten on the horizon, Daniel realizes the local Inuit team is missing.

"Your pulse quickens in any race when it's dark and cold and a team is missing," he notes. "But when it happens in the Arctic, well..."

"... you think worst-case," finishes someone behind him.

Team Monts-Torngats is eventually found by headlamp in a nearby river valley. After the rappel, they'd tried backtracking to a missed checkpoint. But bonking, they'd perpetrated that which precedes many a backcountry disaster: they zigged when they should have zagged. Doing things out of order can spell disaster in any race, but Inuit also have their own mental maps built around landforms, waterways and inukshuk, and when forced to rely on white man's cartography things can go awry.

Camp — a half-dozen canvas tents with floors of evergreen boughs, some featuring woodstoves — is marked by a string of international flags in a stand of trees. The arrangement is a surprise for racers, a gift from Daniel and the community. Besides being universally stoked they don't have to set up tents while frozen and exhausted, racers are impressed with how efficient the Inuit are in throwing together an elaborate camp. Pulling together is a hallmark of any Arctic community, but few more so than this one.

At 1:30 a.m. on New Year's Day, 1999, some 500 Kangiqsualujjuaq residents were celebrating the new annum in a school gym when a massive avalanche swept down an adjacent hillside. Nine died and 25 were injured. The slide, with a crown of three-metres, was triggered by unusually large snowfalls and steady 100km/hr winds. A coroner's inquest concluded no one could have foreseen such a century event. Everyone in town was affected, fraying an already taut social fabric stretched by rabid unemployment, isolation and lack of opportunity. Healing and battling back in part involved embracing more outward-looking elements, and a decade later the community welcomed EA and their youth programs. Its enthusiasm and logistical support were the main reasons Daniel chose Kangiqsualujjuaq for the race. To put it in beer-commercial terms, when it came to adventure racing, the town was "all in."

Next morning, in windless perfect weather, course radios crackle. Teams are already arriving at the zip-line section near CP 20; the race should be over by early afternoon. In fact, last-place Monts-Torngats clears the zip-line by 2 p.m., about the time Spin Sports crosses the finish line out and Out There, 33 minutes behind, clips CP 25, the final checkpoint, with Endurance-Mag 10 minutes back. There's much cheering when l'equipe Quebec crosses the line and with good reason: despite its largesse in obviating Out There's Air Canada handicap, they've beaten the world's acknowledged best — clearly an adventure for both teams.

The community turns out in force that night for a massive potluck dinner followed by a prize ceremony, with mounds of schwag for kids who participated in the Prologue, and Inuit art for the pros. There's throat-singing and traditional dancing and wild fiddling, the locals happy to share with outsiders who appreciate both their culture and efforts. For the racers' part, they're feeling both fulfilled and connected to the harsh but achingly beautiful world of the Inuit. They're also tired, in some cases too worn even to replace lost calories with the mounds of bannock, smoked char, and caribou stew on offer. Mike Kloser falls asleep sitting against a wall. Others converse with babbling children and stoic elders, pumping the hand of Tommy George and photographing a beaming Daniel. A good news story indeed.

And, of course, the ever-smiling South Africans beam the stoke of a lifetime back to all, putting the first Nunavik Adventure Challenge International into a happy context of experience versus competition.

"Moments out there on the tundra were for me quite emotional," says Hugo, his steel blue-eyes misting over even in recollection. "Having done something I've never done in such a place. It was like, well... a dream."

For more information visit

www.enduranceaventure.com



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