Blachford Lake, is a remote lake in Northern Canada, near Yellowknife. The lake is 17 km and sits on precambrian rock. The lake is located at 62 09.97’N, 112 40.96′ W and is to the north of the start eastern arm of the Great Slave Lake. It is the welcome mat for the deep Arctic. 

I overheard Mark at breakfast talking to a couple in a quiet voice about taking a group of young Finnish explorers up to the North Pole in the 80’s.  His tone was soft and modest. Their gear was nowhere near as good as what you get now. While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. They hopped on a chunk of ice that they had projected would cross the North Pole but the trajectory was a few degrees off and they missed it. Mark had been back with a few companies since and had completed the journey.  For him though, it seemed he didn’t care for actually being able to claim he had been to the North Pole.  He just liked being outside.

The Hockey rink claimed its first broken arm early into the trip.

Igloo building is extremely time consuming.  This small 4×4 foot Igloo took about 10 hours to build but really worked.  With a single candle inside and a bearskin on the ice we comfortably had three people enjoy the evening inside.

The plane with Skis would land on the frozen lake to bring supplies like these barrels of gasoline.

Waiting game

The traditional ice fishing pole would often freeze on the line if you didn’t keep the line moving enough.

The modern day pole was much easier to fish with.  We didn’t catch anything traditionally.

There is nothing for miles and miles. Someone broke their arm on the first day and they had to wait till the next day when the ski plane could take them to the hospital.

The air instantly freezes the fish. After you catch it you can wait for it to freeze to death or politely smash its head to put it out of its misery.

* Joey Trisolini

www.joeytrisolini.com