Glowacz's close-up

Expedition Baffin Island, April 25: Stefan Glowacz’s blog on his adventurous journey to a wall to which nobody has ever been.

Sunday, April 20

Lucky stars were shining down on us at our departure – or we could also call it Mrs. Fichtlscherer from the German airline Lufthansa. Looking at our 35 haul bags, ski sacks, sleds and rucksacks she didn’t have a nervous breakdown, as we had feared. In fact, she tried to make our lives as comfortable as possible in the light of a horrendous bill for extra-baggage. This good mood stayed with us until we reached Ottawa and even also throughout our first warm evening at plus 23 degrees Celsius.

Monday, April 21

Following our arrival in Pond Inlet our good mood abruptly changed, because as the door of the turboprop machine opened, the cold hit us with full vehemence. At minus 20 degrees the Inuits were celebrating the first warm days of Spring. Kids were playing on the streets and the Inuit grandmother was taking her grandson, without a hat, for a ride on her Skidoo, while we crawled into our down jackets up to our noses. Welcome to the end of the world. Welcome to reality.

It takes some time to get used to this exposure and above all to the extreme cold, which feels very different to when we were planning the trip in our living rooms. Two hunters have just returned from a hunt at Querbitter Fjord and told us with good cheer about the many polar bears that they met – at least eleven. Two of them they were able to shoot. So that left only nine polar bears to harass us in our nightmares last night.

Tuesday, April 22

Dazzling sunshine at minus 20 degrees. We pack our gear, get ourselves rifles and build warning fences for the polar bears. In two days we’ll be leaving Pond Inlet. Each of us has a queasy feeling. What’s really awaiting us in this gaudy, iridescent, white desert? For a whole year we’ve tried to prepare ourselves mentally for this moment. But right now we’re extremely impressed and humble. The cold is not an antagonist; we won’t be able to fight it.

We can only plan our further steps with utmost care and with the experience of the valuable advice from the natives. Because we’ll only be able to live in harmony with this grandiose nature in the next six weeks. The only visible adversaries are the polar bears, and we also don’t think we have much chance of winning against them. We’re going to try to organize dog sleds to transport the equipment as far as the wall, for dogs are the best protection against a polar bear attack.