To the Top of the Earth
Jing Pang & Ping Chen
20190825
We four, Ping, Zhuolin, Lucy, and I, made an arctic trip together in July this year. We are now trying to collect our countless impressions here. The pingos, permafrost hills, are a geological phenomenon unique to the arctic. The cheerful belugas were enjoyed boat propeller wave massages around our boat. Their happy sounds mixed with our cameras’ shuttering, harmonically drifting over the sea waves. The roads always coated a thin layer of dust on our vehicle, our bags, and all our other belongings. The polar bear hid behind the big rock. Whenever we approached, it raised its head to gaze at us. The log huts and the peaceful emerald lakes emerge in our minds whenever we see this title.
We started from each of our home locations - East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and North-west of the US. We met in Winnipeg, and flew to Churchill Island, our first stop for six days. It is the west side of Hudson Bay, famous for the concentration of polar bears and belugas. The population of this island is under 1000. This number here is only to explain the more than $20 price on a small watermelon in the island supermarket. 40 years ago, we went to the same college, shared the same lesson rooms, same dormitory, same dining hall. Time surely put marks on our bodies, but little consequences to our soul. One windy evening on the island, while the growling waves are punching the shore, instead of staying warm inside, we stood on the rocks to
watch the excitement of the nature. No matter how we trust our equipment, some of the best moments were never captured by cameras. The travel plan was daytime touring around the island, evening chatting over old stories. Unfortunately, the day light held us extremely long. Because of the amazing power of our old stories, our six-day-sleeping time was less than our normal two day sleeping.
We flew from Churchill to Whitehorse, then got a SUV from the airport to drive to Dawson, our second stop for two days. The place is like the west in old Hollywood movies. The hotel was built of logs, painted with different childlike bright colors. We drove on the Dempster HWY to Tombstone, which is a beautiful scenic National Park filled with blue skies, white clouds, blue lakes, dark green mountains, pink and purple fire weeds, alert road side deer, moose, rabbits, squirrels, and foxes. When I posted pictures on my social moments, one friend commented “only mountains and rocks”. She is right. The place can be anywhere on the earth, but it is the moment - we cherished being together in this middle of nowhere.
Then we flew to Inuvik, above the arctic circle, as our third stop. The Igloo church is its landmark. The name Inuvik in the native language means “The Place of Man”. Jimmy was a man, a native of Inuvik, who took us to raft on Mackenzie River Delta, to see abnormal trees, huge beavers, layer-wised permafrost river bank, and the midnight-sun. Seeing the mid-night sun is actually seeing an orange-rich-touching-colorful day ending as sunset, meanwhile, the north side sky is full of deep and shallow new-hope-pink colors with sunrise. When we arrived at Jimmy’s hunting cottage, his assistant hacked the logs and make bonfire. He put a iron-grey tea kettle on it, the boiling water is right from the Mackenzie River, the tea leaves were Inuvik herbs.
From Inuvik we drive the last 150 kilometers of Dempster HWY to Tuktoyaktuk. Here is the shore of Arctic Ocean, and also the end of the human-artifact road. To entertain us, a local native girl played staying-igloo-games. She tells that they have fun in the long dark winter.
This trip memory will be with us like school times of 40 years ago. The live photos are always playing - To tell us their eggs are next to our feet, a couple of great northern divers are dancing in front of us, their delicate feather cloaks are reflecting splashing waters. Those muskoxen are attractive because we try to see how their generations can survive through ice-age. The US military left overs of Cold War are interesting to most tourists, everyone is hoping the real peace on the earth. But we know the reality, like the encountering the arctic hasty cursed mosquitos, the only thing we could do was protect ourselves. The colors of arctic terns are white and black, too simple to forget.
All these are still like ice-piercing ocean water around our bodies whenever this title touches us.
