The Dianense adventurer, Pepe Ivars, has just finished his last adventure, the "Crossing the Great Lake of the Great Slave". This was the first of the Arctic expeditions planned in the Project "The Last Ice" They are carrying out, together with the Dianense, Albert Bosch and Pako Crestas, and that will take them to cross several lakes and icy oceanic areas of the different continents that border the Arctic, among which Lake Onega is foreseen (European Arctic zone of Russia ), Lake Baikal (Asian Arctic area of Russia) and the North Pole.
The expeditionaries completed 170 Km, in 7 stages, in total self-sufficiency and with temperatures between -10 and -35ºC, going all the way east of the Lake of the Great Slave, from the south of Yellowknife (Gross Cap) to Lutsle K'e, starting on Sunday 11 day of March and ending on Saturday day 17. Lutsle K'e is an enclave located in the reserve of the indigenous village Dene, located at 240 Km of the first road or connected city, and is only accessible by plane, by snowmobile in winter or by boat in summer.
Visiting the indigenous reserves of the Dene people
The whole journey was made within the indigenous reserves of the Dene people, in the territories of northwestern Canada, leaving its Yellowknife capital to go all the east arm of the lake and reach Lutsle K'e, one of the most symbolic points for this tribe, which is completely isolated by ground transportation from the rest of civilization. Yellowknife is one of the coldest inhabited regions of the planet, along with some regions of Siberia.
Apart from the more sporting aspect of this expedition, there has been a very special opportunity to live with one of the most ancestral and remote peoples of all North America: the Dene. The expedition members shared different visions of the world and their own habitat and system of life within this same community: on the one hand, the inhabitants of Dene in Yellowknife, totally connected with civilization; and on the other that of those who lived in the remote enclave of Lutsle K'e, 240 Km, northwest of the capital and any point connected by land transport.
With them they could discuss how they are affected by Climate Change, the developmentalism and the accelerated changes of Western society, in relation to a very traditional type of life rooted in a very virgin territory but also very vulnerable.
Clearly the Climate Change they have directly observable effects on their day to day. For them it is not a theoretical discussion, because they see, for example, how it affects their way of transporting themselves through the lake to move around.
Optimal ice conditions and climatology
The expedition was developed in optimal conditions of ice and weather, getting the project completed in the minimum number of days, which had been estimated between 7 and 10 days. In fact, the time they had was much better than it would be usual in this latitude for this time of year, and only one of the days presented extreme conditions of cold and wind that endangered the normal march and have to take refuge in the store; but in the end it was possible to carry out in its entirety, without delaying at all the average of daily kilometers, which was located between 20 and 30 per day.
The state of the ice in the lake was very good, without too much snow that would have made walking much more difficult. In the 7 days only five delicate points were found in the formation of the ice, with important pressure lines that had to be overcome by making small detours and choosing the right step so as not to take risks in the breakage of the ice and in the passage of the blocks accumulated in the pressure line.
The individual trajectory of each one of the expedition members, together with their own experience as a team accumulated during the crossing of the Baltic Sea carried out in 2017, made the common work very efficient both in the personal understanding, in the physical preparation and in the necessary technical material used.
Daily walks of 9 hours at extreme temperatures
Each day consisted of some 9 hours of walking with 3 or 4 breaks to rest and replenish energy. The temperatures during the march could oscillate between -30ºC / -35ºC at first or last hours of the day, up to -10ºC during the central hours. The temperature inside the store during the night reached -20ºC, so it is worth noting that one of the toughest parts of this type of journey is to live totally autonomous and in a store, in such extreme conditions, for so many days. In these adventures, the physical / sporting performance is as important as the psychological / mental performance, given the harshness of the conditions and the monotony of the daily march.
These large spaces almost virgin and very remote provide a very special view of the natural environment, because one feels really humble before so much immensity and strength of nature, and has no choice but to adapt and learn to enjoy how much it brings and how special that territory is, to compensate for the physical and mental hardness of the adventure.
Enjoy nights with skies full of stars and northern lights with absence of any kind of light pollution; to be sleeping on the ice in points where one knows that the depth of the lake reaches up to the 600 meters; hear the crunching of the ice under your head when you are sleeping with your ear pressed to the ground; or enjoy immense views in a place without any human in hundreds of kilometers around, are some of the unique sensations that could experience the members of this expedition.
Preparation of the expedition documentary
In the documentary that will be published in the next months of this expedition, the theme of the Climate Change at the time of connecting with other towns or to hunt and fish, since the lake takes longer to freeze and there is a long period between which neither snowmobiles nor boats can use. It also affects them in hunting, since their main hunting and feeding object, the Caribú, has been moving much further north since the 90 years due to the progressive increases in average temperatures, complicating much more a key life habit for its subsistence.
All this leads them to be very vulnerable in terms of their social organization and the management of their territory, because having more difficulties in managing their mobility and ability to obtain food in the form of hunting and fishing, makes them much more dependent of the already developed society; and then developmentalism directly comes into play in the form of mining companies that are expanding throughout the territory to exploit their enormous wealth in different minerals (especially diamonds), which can easily "buy" their support or collaboration for their growth, making small investments in their communities.
In the documentary that apart from being a very special sporting-adventure experience, it is connected with making known the beauty and uniqueness of these places so pure, that at the same time they are tremendously vulnerable to environmental problems and the consequences of the system's own development western.
The purpose of these adventurers is to be able to act as ambassadors of these territories so that these expeditions serve to reflect and spread an awareness of protection against these natural environments that are part of a key balance for biodiversity and environmental and social wellbeing in that particular environment and all over the planet.
In the coming months the documentary of this expedition and the related social and environmental issues will be published, directed and produced by Íñigo Chalezquer with the collaboration in the script and content of Carolina Jara-Huergo.
The next expedition of Project "The Last Ice" It will take place at the end of February of 2019, with the crossing of Lake Onega.
The Dianese Pepe Ivars thanks all those who have followed us and made this adventure possible, and especially its sponsors Ternua, Helvetia Seguros and Vista Óptica.
