The Big Empty

Like lunar explorers in a place not at all like home, we slowly forged our way through the mile-wide valley. Even as we pushed, we listened keenly to the sounds of the snow,waiting for just the right squeak and crunch under our feet to indicate that the snow was packed hard enough to ride.

- Alex Frankel

A local utility worker, driving a pickup truck with a snowplow, pulled up to the one-pump station and rolled down his window. He looked at me and took in my boldly uncamouflaged neon orange, blue and purple Gore-Tex snowsuit.

Then he looked over at my fat bike with its voluptuous 5-inch tires and frame loaded with gear, and then back at me. His look said a lot, like: What the fuck are you doing here riding a bicycle? Are you fucking crazy? I agreed with him before he uttered a word.

And then, looking directly at my diminutive bike saddle and speaking in the slow staccato that Inuit locals speak when using their non-native English, he said: “I. Think. You. Are. Going. To. Freeze. Your. Balls. On. That. Seat.” I wholeheartedly agreed. “Might. Want. To. Add. Some. Seal. Fur.” We both laughed.

Maybe I wasn’t so much worried about literally freezing my balls, but freezing my fingers and toes? No doubt. His skepticism and concern for my bodily harm echoed my own. Temperatures would definitely plunge far below the present day’s seemingly comfortable zero. This was a trip where we could be flirting with survival; frostbite was a real possibility.

Our tour would take us through remote Baffin Island, across 100 miles of frozen Arctic ice and snow, where polar bears might be waking from hibernation. We had thrown the trip together in a probably too-hasty manner and had barely slept or eaten in the last few days of frantic shopping, packing and flying. We had been in such a rush to get our gear together that I had not paused to think about why we were going. Just five people had crossed this area by bike in winter. If I was being honest with myself, the pictures I had seen online made their journeys look miserable and not worth repeating.