If you look out from Pond Inlet across Lancaster Sound early in July, as I just did, the first thing you might notice is that the ice is all broken up into long strips, with channels of clear water running between them. The second thing you might notice is that there are still people out there in snowmobiles.
I had to do a double and then a triple take. Yes, that's right, the ice is melting, there is about fifty feet of open water between the nearest floe and the shore, and people are driving snowmobiles around on whatever is left. Snowmobiles pulling sleds, with a bunch of kids running after them jumping on and off.
I learned that a lot of the strips of water are actually pools of meltwater collecting on the surface of what is still a solid chunk of sea ice, so that's a relief. If you were to drive into one, you wouldn't fall in and drown, you'd merely drive a skidoo through a two-foot deep puddle of cold water, perhaps a couple of degrees below freezing because salt water can get extra cold. Oh, well. That's all right then.
But there is still that little problem of the fifty feet of water between you and dry land. I then learned that it is actually possible to drive a skidoo from ice floe to ice floe across water. You build up enough speed, and it will skim across the water like a jet ski. People who are good at it can cross a hundred feet. It's called skipping.
Think about it. They drive across a hundred feet of water so cold that if you fall in you will be dead in minutes, riding something with all the natural buoyancy of an anchor, in fact they do it for fun.
I would love to film that, it is the most awesome sport I have ever heard of. But I would be too afraid even to stand out there filming it.
I'm trying to think of a word other than "awesome" to use to describe the people who use this death-defying stunt as a normal part of everyday transportation, I already used it once and it is a word that has lost its value in recent years, but I can't come up with one. That's all I've got.
I would be dead so fast here.
I had to do a double and then a triple take. Yes, that's right, the ice is melting, there is about fifty feet of open water between the nearest floe and the shore, and people are driving snowmobiles around on whatever is left. Snowmobiles pulling sleds, with a bunch of kids running after them jumping on and off.
I learned that a lot of the strips of water are actually pools of meltwater collecting on the surface of what is still a solid chunk of sea ice, so that's a relief. If you were to drive into one, you wouldn't fall in and drown, you'd merely drive a skidoo through a two-foot deep puddle of cold water, perhaps a couple of degrees below freezing because salt water can get extra cold. Oh, well. That's all right then.
But there is still that little problem of the fifty feet of water between you and dry land. I then learned that it is actually possible to drive a skidoo from ice floe to ice floe across water. You build up enough speed, and it will skim across the water like a jet ski. People who are good at it can cross a hundred feet. It's called skipping.
Think about it. They drive across a hundred feet of water so cold that if you fall in you will be dead in minutes, riding something with all the natural buoyancy of an anchor, in fact they do it for fun.
I would love to film that, it is the most awesome sport I have ever heard of. But I would be too afraid even to stand out there filming it.
I'm trying to think of a word other than "awesome" to use to describe the people who use this death-defying stunt as a normal part of everyday transportation, I already used it once and it is a word that has lost its value in recent years, but I can't come up with one. That's all I've got.
I would be dead so fast here.
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