Out of the Northwest Passage

Fort Ross – 15 September 2016

Weather: Cloudy, spots of blue sky, -4. Wind declining.

Fort Ross was built in 1937 when the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) decided to set up a trading post near the entrance to Bellot Strait. Given that it had just been successfully transited by the Aklavik, it was thought to be an ideal spot bridging the eastern and western fur trade. It would be the last outpost ever built by the HBC. The Nascopie brought wood to build four buildings and also left three Inuit families there.

In 1942, the Nascopie was unable to resupply the fort and left the supplies at Arctic Bay. The residents retrieved the supplies by sled but the same problem happened in 1943. With food dwindling, the US dropped a parachutist into the community and directed the residents to built a 1500 yard long runway so that a C-467 Skytrain aircraft could land.

The aircraft landed but didn’t stop moving for fear it would freeze up, so Barbara and Bill Heslop, the HBC manager and his wife, had to scramble aboard with just the shirts on their backs. The Inuit remained with one HBC employee who had married into the family. They survived, eventually moving on to other communities.

The HBC returned for a short period but finally closed the post in 1948.

Two of the buildings still exist and one is maintained as a shelter that is used by the Inuit, researchers and others in case of emergency. Passing ships, including the Ocean Endeavour, contribute to the maintenance of this shelter by leaving food and other supplies in the building. There are also five Inuit graves near the site.

Another notable feature at Fort Ross is McClintock’s Cairn. In 1857, Francis Leopold McClintock was in the north verifying information they had been discovered about Franklin when they anchored off what would become Fort Ross. He left stores on the shore and built a cairn of rock which still stands there today (having been rebuilt by the passengers of the Nascopie after it was knocked over by bears). In 1859, he discovered the note on King William Island that was left by the Franklin expedition.

In 1979, McClintock’s descendants went to Fort Ross to construct a monument.

We woke on the morning of September 15th to news that it was still too blustery to land but the ship had time to remain here for the day if necessary. That morning, Robert Comeau and Edna Elias held a fascinating presentation on the Arctic Games.

They showed us several games, many of which are representative of their environment and wildlife. One demonstration blew our minds. So much so, I asked Robert to repeat it so that I could get video. The game demonstrates an activity that was done to kill the nerves in their hands so that they didn’t feel the cold.

Did your jaw drop? Ours certainly did. Robert said the record is like three times around a gymnasium!

Three times! Think about that.

His knuckles were a bit torn after this, and I tried to offer him a beer for his sacrifice, but he declined and said he was happy to repeat the demonstration for us. It was appreciated by everyone there.

By lunchtime, I overheard one of the staff say that he was eating a big lunch cause he was one of the zodiac drivers.

That’s exactly what we wanted to hear.

We got the word as lunch ended and we were ashore not long after two.

We had until four-thirty to visit the two buildings, McClintock’s cairn, the graves and monument. The walk was about 1.7 km in total.

I started with the graves which was a good half kilometer walk over rocky ground partially covered with snow. The graves were known to be Inuit because they were above ground. Europeans chipped into the permafrost to bury their dead.

From here, I found a route up to the cairn.

The view was pretty good.

In both directions.

The bear monitors were a fair distance out and some people wandered a little farther inland.

I headed back to McClintock’s monument.

Then I checked out the buildings.

The first appeared to have been left just as it was when they abandoned the post.

Someone suspected the chairs ended up like this because someone lost the remote.

They even left the kettle on for us.

The second, the shelter, was in better condition.

There was a wide variety of food stored there as well as a source of heat.

There was graffiti all over the bunks signed by those who had passed through.

Some drew pics of their ships and yachts.

Others left t-shirts and flags.

And I bet there’s a story behind this.

I mean, who would you call at 2 a.m. in the middle of a storm?

After a few more pictures, I headed down to the beach and took the zodiac back to the ship.

At the recap, we got an update on another problem that the high wind had created. It was moving ice into Lancaster Sound. We would have to cross the Sound in order to reach Beechey Island. Jason went a step beyond just telling us that there was ice in the way. He showed us the ice maps and educated everyone on what the colours and numbers represented and what they meant to the ship.

While the Ocean Endeavour was built to withstand the ice of the Baltic Sea, the captain preferred not to test it against the harder Arctic ice and wouldn’t risk sailing through the ice in the dark. For this reason, the ship would wait until dawn if ice was encountered as we entered Lancaster Sound.