Out My Backdoor

During the years I lived in the Arctic many people questioned the wisdom of staying in a god forsaken place that was eternally cold and forbidden. I shrugged off these comments as I had a different take on that land. At my little cabin beside Grenier Lake, I had the wonderful views on all sides. The one in the picture was looking east by north east. In the background was this esker named Pelly Mountain.

Pelly Mountain was not a mountain by any stretch of the imagination as it was less than 300 meters in height, but was the highest point of land in the whole area. It was surrounded by numerous lakes and rivers and lush tundra where muskoxen and caribou lived during the summer. Outside my cabin door there was a catalogue of Arctic animals and birds. Plants and flowers that attracted photographers from Europe and around the world made this place home to me.

My best friends in the animal kingdom besides my dog Buck were the muskoxen. This esker had a more sinister role in world politics as well. During the cold war the USA installed a listening post here to monitor the number and intensity of the Russian Nuclear Program detonations.

Cables were spread on the tundra for nearly thirty miles in every direction ,spreading out from Mount Pelly. These cables and the electronic listening devices could detect and record every movement in the earth's crust in the northern hemisphere. Atomic explosions were of vital interest to the USA military and were monitored here on Victoria Island and in the little Hamlet of Ikaluktutiak. The local Inuit had no knowledge of the use of the system but left them alone and not one incident of vandalism was recorded.

So when people speak of places like the Arctic without knowledge, let them come to have a look out my back door and I am sure they will leave with a different view.