Kayaking Alone on the Arctic Ocean - And Trapped in a Hut by a Storm

rock hopper here and I'm about to head out on what will literally be the wildest kayak journey of my life on the Arctic Ocean up here in the Northwest Territories of Canada I'm out here alone on the Arctic Ocean am I a little concerned well yeah this is the wildest most remote place I've ever kayaked this is not a river this is not a lake this is the ocean and it can change its moods very quickly if it wants to also there is a little bit of concern that a stray Grizzly might be roaming about and I need to be always aware of that kind of thing there are polar bears but this time of year not so much so I'm not really worried about them I have to keep in mind the changing tides and the Ean flow something you got to constantly keep an eye on this this is truly the Wild and the only Footprints out here aside from my own are from birds I left tuck and headed along the shore in a northeasterly direction hoping to paddle for a few days if the weather held but that might have been a little too much to ask for there's a large Estuary right out here just in from the ocean I'm probably about a couple miles out now away from the last vestiges of civilization out there that's tuck back there sadly my waterproof camera died at Lake Chalan digital disease I called it for no apparent reason it just died so I don't have that anymore so I'm going to have to use this one which is not waterproof so I'm going to have to make a lot of land stops and just show you different places around the area here at the Arctic Ocean as we go along let's see what these structures are on Shore but first let's have a few cranberries wild cranberries it looks like somebody started a fish camp here or maybe they had one and they just let it fall apart inside what's left of this one just a couple shovels some shotgun shells and a fishing lure an old wooden chair and a couple old cloth chairs in the corner there I can't believe how smooth and glassy the Arctic Ocean is today of course that could change tomorrow I spotted something from out in the water and I thought I should go have a look at it let me show you what I found I think I may have found whalebones right here you can see one of the discs to the vertebrae it is getting very difficult to find the delineation between where the sky ends and the Sea [Music] begins this looks like another Fish Shack seems like it's still maybe being used so let's have a look at it a lot of flies at the entrance wonder what's in this thing probably a bunch of rotten meat judging by the Flies rotten fish probably you got a little wood stove there something making a noise like a ground squirrel a bit of food left over kind of has a funky smell and just uh some what's left to be chainsaws what's left of them maybe a who knows what else is in here way too many flies in here to be wanting to stay here yeah at the end looks like that must be a fish smoker so let's have a look in there yeah I would say this is a fish smoker you can see evidence of there's some Fishbones down there and U that's a tail tail sign yes the tail of the fish so it must be a fish smoker subsistence hunting and fishing is an important life for the people of the north such as the gchen and the inui Alo people it was how their ancestors survived by fish eating seal polar bear Caribou tuck actually means place of caribou it's so calm the water is so glassy it just seems surreal out here and in a sense it is that I'm even here at all I hadn't seen a caribou the entire trip through Canada this might be my last chance I would be in the wildest of the wild now now I was hoping would I find my [Music] [Music] Caribou I just pulled a sh here I'm going to have a look at some of these little Huts here um Robert said I could use his I'm not sure which one it is or where it is but it didn't seem too worried about you know using the Huts you might recall that Robert is the guy I met in Tuck who's in my video life in the most remote settlement in North America accessible by road yeah it'll lessen the chances of any grizzly bear encounters I'll feel safe in there and hopefully get a good sleep this must be one of the most remote and farthest Northerly swing sets in Canada if not the entire world look at that ocean it's as calm as a pond sure it was calm at the moment but like I said conditions can change quickly there was a surprising shift that was to happen soon alone in a small kayak out in the tremendous vastness of the sea beside a seemingly endless Tundra I felt minuscule I was reminded how in significant I was a tiny Speck in a gigantic Wilderness of land and water and how easily I could vanish Without a Trace out in Wild nature there is no place for ego I'll grab the food and stuff and bring him to that little Hut which will be my home for the night the door is open so let's have a look inside this Hut yeah it's a little rough a little rustic maybe but uh it does have a roof over your head it does have a wood stove and it's a bit sparsely furnished that's for sure not much back here well that's interesting somebody hauled an electric range all the way out here wonder if they had a generator and it ran that thing and you got an electrical box back there it's not the Ritz Carlton but it'll probably do so I hope whoever owns this thing doesn't mind me staying here a night I can probably just flip that pad over and put my bag on top and that'll be all I really need got a little couch there love see and a view I seriously doubt there are any bears nearby but you know just about as soon as you think ah there's no bears around here that's when one pops out of nowhere come lumbering down here so some advantages you know I don't have to worry about bears or mosquitoes getting to me and if the rain kicks in as it's supposed to tonight hopefully it'll be pretty dry in here although judging by those moldy seat ceilings I would say this place is full of Leakes this will be home on the tundra beside the sea for tonight I did bring my tent and I was fully prepared to Camp I have everything for it but since this place presented itself what the heck right Grizzly free zone guess what it just started drizzling out here so maybe this place wasn't such a bad idea after all before I took off on the kayak trip Robert gave me a couple of buns and some smoked fish to take along with me so that's going to be dinner tonight and that sounds pretty good actually thanks Robert M yeah it tastes pretty good I just looked out the window and I thought what am I seeing things correctly is that a bald eagle sitting right outside the window yes it is and there he goes that'll be my bed for the evening so it should be fairly comfortable hopefully I put that curtain down to make it a little darker in here cuz it's light all the time and found out there's just a whole lot of flies most of them dead and some of them still alive on the back of that thing Little House on the tundra the next day I felt that staying in the Hut was good not only for protection from a potential storm but it also could serve as a wildlife blind the rain started to kick in and up here at the beginning of fall there was no telling how long it might last unlike being in a tent at least I could stand up and walk around good morning had a nice comfortable sleep right on here although I usually don't get to sleep until after midnight because it's so light so long here and I wake up pretty late probably well I wake up about 700 but I probably end up sleeping until about 88 or 9 that's just the way the daylight messes with your brain here whether or not One Believes In a higher power being alone in a vast ocean bordered by an equally vast Tundra can have a humbling effect on a person after Robert said a prayer for me in Tuck I told him out there it's just me and God and the sea I just had a closer look at that Barrel stove and beneath it it's being held up by a plastic colem and ice chest finding fresh drinking water out here is a bit of a problem as I've learned so I'm trying to collect a little in my pot here while it's raining it seems like the tundra just soaks up all the rain like a sponge and I haven't seen any streams or anything just salt water all around here there's something out there a large mammal could that be Caribou what is that that it's getting closer I think that might be our Caribou all right finally finally have seen a caribou look at it go [Music] it was as if he could sense me smell me as if he wanted to make my acquaintance I hadn't found my Caribou it had found [Music] me [Music] today's the opposite of yesterday it's just all rain and wind and the Ocean looks a little bit rough a lot rougher than it was yesterday yesterday was Unreal how nice it was at least I'm in this place it may not be warm but it's shelter and because it's not warm I decided to take my chances on firing up this old Barrel stove here here but I think I've gotten it going I had to dry out a little bit of the wood slowly when you pull up the wood there's some dry underneath still cuz it hasn't been raining so hard that everything is completely soaked just yet this place is starting to leak that might be the oddest spout I've ever seen for a tea kettle that look like anything to you let's go have a look at the ocean and see what it's doing today the sea was getting choppier by the hour and would soon be whipped in into a furious melee by the storm the land was being inundated by water as the wind and incoming tide pushed the sea higher I decided to go for a walk and assess the [Applause] situation the ocean was getting rougher by the hour the storm was coming in I knew it was best to hunker down for the day in the Hut got some Driftwood off the beach for the barrel stove fires so I think this is where I'll be hunkering down today the rain's really coming down now which means this place is really starting to leak now I better go check out the kayak it looks like the tide and Rain combined are getting really close to the edge of my kayak I'm probably going to have to move it the kayak was on that little sand spit there and I moved it on over this way right there so hopefully it'll be safe from the water but I got wet socks in the process so ring these out and maybe dry them by the fire they're wool so they'll keep me warm even when they're wet wet and that's what I use in the wilderness in serious Wilderness is wool fleece is okay but don't believe all that stuff they say about it being as good as wool it's it's not wool is good and warm but it's been said that alpaca is even better so I'll be trying out these alpaca wool socks made by Hollow socks they aren't just for the cold they come in different thicknesses so they can be worn at any time of year and they're said to keep feet odor-free try and dry those wet boots out a little and I got the socks hanging up right there to dry and I got a good fire going now and this thermometer in here actually works it was at about 15 this morning and now as you can see it's around 25 so that fire has kicked in some heat the only downside to the heat is now it's got these flies all Lively that were once just sitting there all dormant and they're just bu buzzing around all over the place now looks like that was a good move on my part moving that kayak cuz that sand spit is nearly inundated with water the wind and the rain and the incoming tide have conspired to conceal the place where the kayak once was I have to go back out and check the kayak again the storm was pushing the tide ever higher I had to move the kayak again to keep it from being swept away I dragged the kayak to the highest ground around I have to be very aware of what's going on around me change in the weather the elements like I say this is no Lake no River this is the ocean and the Arctic Ocean at that and things can change fast and that kayak is my ticket out of here that's my life where my kayak was is completely under under water now look what I just found in this place pair of flipflops so that'll work I got my socks on I spare pair of socks to keep my feet warm and I can use these flipflops so I don't have to walk over this dirty wet nasty floor that's falling apart not exactly the fashion statement but then again neither are frozen feet always good to bring a spare pair of socks with you on all Wilderness Adventures the wind's blowing about 30 m an hour today with gusts of probably about 40 and the ocean has gotten really choppy out there I've had the pot out there to collect rainwater and also I was sipping rain water off the plywood as you saw and also I just found something else because there isn't any water here I've been doing those things and I just found this which has some water in it I would presume that's got to be water I poured it into that little coffee pot I found and I'm heating it up on the stove here put a little cup on there to keep help get it boiling faster the water inside this jug is old and nasty and I think it's got a couple dead flies in there so I figured well I could pour it into a pot and purify it or I could just boil it which is basically the same thing and there are no flies in what I'm boiling just a tidbit of information you can eat maggots as a survival tactic you can also probably eat flies too although it is admittedly kind of gross since I have no real water around other than Salt Water it is kind of a survival situation so I've been forced to drink off plywood and collect rain water in a pot and get the stuff out of that bottle and tonight's dinner is going to be uh freeze dried stuff here nothing too exciting but um that water that I'm boiling on the stove there I think it's reached to boil so I'll mix it in with this stuff and and that'll be dinner for this evening I boiled up the water poured it in the pouch let it sit for 10 minutes like I said to do and uh well time to eat so bone Appetit chicken teriyaki apparently it's not bad what's bad is paying as much for this thing as I would in a Chinese restaurant for real chicken teriyaki that's fresh the rain's kicked in again out there and the seas are pretty choppy and a little bit rough looking I'm going to have to make a decision tomorrow it's going to be bedtime so have to think about what to do it's going to be dependent a lot on the weather as to whether I go a little bit farther down the coast or just decide to head back to tuck Yu tuck so we'll see what tomorrow brings keep in mind that my kayak is not a sea kayak it's really mostly for lakes and such I have pushed it and gone down Class 2 Rapids in it and it's not I don't think it's really designed for that um I know it's not really designed for an angry ocean that's for sure I am greeted by a tundra Swan this [Music] morning about 10° colder than it was yesterday morning if this place wasn't here I would have just pitched the tent on the beach probably would have been cramped and pretty boring sitting in there all day long while I was weathering the storm but I've done that kind of thing before out in really bad weather in some very remote places in the world so I could do it it just wouldn't have been much fun that's all out here there is a concern about the grizzly bears because they are baren ground grizzly bears of course there's no trees on the tundra and so their reaction if you happen to startle them is to possibly uh rear up and get aggressive there's no place obviously for somebody to run up a tree or Escape so you just have to stand your ground as hard as that may seem you don't really have much choice just stand your ground here when a grizzly bear approaches because most of the time if they charge you it's a bluff charge the worst thing you can do is start running away from [Music] them while the tundra does seem to soak up rainwater like a sponge they are little tiny pools where water would be available looks like offshore winds today and now the ocean's calm again it's a very moody ocean it can just change in a matter of a few hours from calm to stormy then overnight back to calm again I think today I'll just take a walk along the beach for maybe a mile or two and then head back down and then get in the kayak and paddle back to T I don't want the weather to get bad again and be stranded here for another day or two or three or however long it's getting a little bit late in the season to be kayaking heading in the fall now up here anyway when people arrive at the Arctic Ocean they often dip a toe in or jump in and go for a swim I'm going to take it a little bit further I've already had my toes in the water but uh I'm going to actually take a little bit of the Artic o with me inside me I'm going to have a I'm actually going to drink it one more [Applause] sip the Arctic Ocean is now a part of me there are very few shorelines that I've seen in the world that have absolutely no human footprints on them and this is one of [Applause] them something in the distance just came into view and I'm wondering what it [Applause] is looks like I found the remains of a beluga whale if you look in there you can see his teeth and there's the rest of him there now look closely there's the teeth something was built into the side of this hill I'm not sure if it was a living quarters or a fish smoker it looks like I've come into another place with those little huts and fish smokers maybe quick peek inside the first one bedroom little table by the window Star Magazine don't touch me says Brad or Angie or somebody there and they're pretty basic little living quarters Fish Camps and that's what you've got in these real simple just a place to stay for a little while and get some game that's it that stove hasn't been used for a while I'd say not even a stove pipe there and here's your bathroom that's what I saw from a distance and couldn't quite make out what it is just plywood it looks like someone's in the process of building a sod house here from a distance I could see that this keeps on going way out a really really long point it could walk for miles and miles or paddle for miles out there but I think right now the weather is changing again and I think it's best to head back to the kayak and start paddling back to [Music] tuck that cone looks like another Bingo off in the distance there could these tracks in the mud be Caribou I wonder falls coming the colors are kicking in and look it's a berry of some sort we'll try it not bad out of curiosity I had to have a look at the other side and this is the view looking down that way to the East and maybe the Northeast and you could just keep walking and walking as I was saying and the point that I thought went for Miles well that's that's out there and I could see it from way back there so yes you could just keep going walking paddling probably all the way to Labrador if you wanted to they look like dog Prints but up here it's likely they're wolf prints they look pretty fresh as if it just came through not long ago okay I'm serious this time I'm actually heading back toward the kayak there are eyes out here watching you but you may not be able to see them this is where the tundra meets the see back at the hut so hopefully the rain will hold off and uh have some lunch and get paddling darn the rain's kicking in well we'll make it go anyway all right let's get all this stuff out to the kayak and go [Music] I'm down to a liter of water plus this thing that I found outside of one of the huts and it's probably been sitting out in the sun for who knows how long and probably tastes like plastic and it's probably not good for me but it will help me survive if I need it [Music] I've been paddling against about a 20 mph headwind and created a little bit of a chop so the spray and the splash comes up over the B and splashes on to me and my pant legs this pant leg is all wet my my boots are wet and um got the rain jacket on that's keeping the water off of my torso anyway just taking a break along the shore I'm not far from Tuck now it's just right on over there uh you can see it's out there and uh so I just got across this channel and get back to the car there's a beluga whale out there I just saw it several times I'm hoping it'll surface so I can get you guys a shot but I don't know where it's going to come up I have no idea but it was just right out there and just literally just like right out there not far from my kayak as I was going across what a great way to end the trip wow I just saw it I don't know if I caught it on camera though but look to the left of that little white Hut again there it is there it is there it is there it was again there was some periods of drizzle and of course the wind was kind of a pain and it was a little bit choppy but made it back back to the car so that completes the trip I hope you enjoyed kaying and Hiking with me along the Arctic ocean in the Northwest Territories of Canada don't forget to give me a like on the video share and subscribe till next time this is a rock oper I'll see [Music] you