Go north, and then keep going, to where wind peels the paint off your cabin walls, and the wolves are on your doorstep

Story & photography by Margo Pfeiff

Winter 2015 cottagelife.com 53 Sarah and Eric McNair-Landry rattle in their dogsled along the lumpy shore ice of frozen Frobisher Bay, past beached boats and houses half-buried in snow- drifts. Sarah rides on the Inuit wooden sled, while Eric, her brother, drives the team of eight dogs. At a sloped embank- The McNair-Landry siblings, Eric, 31, ment, Sarah jumps off, with the sled and Sarah, 29, grew up in (pop. still in full flight, runs up the rise, and 6,700), with the Ocean in their stands with arms outstretched, halting backyard. As youngsters, they shuffled the traffic of cars and snowmobiles. The on skis behind polar explorers training vehicles do stop, remarkably, their driv- on Frobisher Bay. They raised and ran ers clearly accustomed to ’s dog teams, pulled gear-loaded “pulks” offbeat traffic conventions. Eric shouts on skis, and backpacked and camped “Hike! Hike!,” the dogs surge, and the year-round with their world-renowned sled crosses the frozen road. Sarah expedition-leader parents, Philadelphia- waves thanks to the drivers, sprints to born Matty McNair and Ontarian Paul Out here, snow is catch up, and leaps back on as the sled Landry. At least they did when their friend, not foe. glides down the opposite slope, then The lumpy Arctic parents weren’t taking turns guiding alongside Iqaluit Airport’s main runway, tundra is easier to adventurers to far-flung destinations to the roar of a landing First Air 737. travel through in like the North and South Poles. The low winter sun is the colour of winter than in the Passionate about adventure them- warmer seasons. butter, and an icy wind has whipped up selves, the siblings joined their mother Siblings Eric and over the tundra by the time they turn into Sarah McNair- in 2004 on a 10-week Antarctic ski and Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park. They ride Landry (opposite) kite-ski expedition, during which Sarah, through swirling ground snow broken by get to their “shack” then 18, became the youngest person ever glimpses of snow-covered picnic tables. by snowmobile, to reach the South Pole. Since then, she ski, or dogsled. An hour later, after the sled negotiates and her brother have guided dozens of When the weather the ridges and the blue ice of the Sylvia is decent, some expeditions on their own to both Poles, Grinnell River itself, a cabin comes into keen swimmers , and Greenland. In view, tucked in front of a rocky outcrop tackle the Sylvia 2007, their exploits earned them a nomi- on high ground. “We’re home!” Eric says. Grinnell River to nation for National Geographic’s presti- get to the cabin, His voice echoes to silence. It’s -32°C gious Adventurers of the Year award. with boats carrying on a clear Saturday morning in January, their gear. That same year, the pair formed as clear a day as most Canadians have Pittarak Expeditions, with the goal of ever seen. Both siblings are obviously embarking on global trips to inspire very happy to be out of town—Sarah to youth to become active outdoors. They give her dogs a run, and Eric to fulfill his spread the word via live web postings recent obsession of building an igloo to and through speaking engagements that sleep in. Like Canadians everywhere, made full use of Sarah’s skills as a pho- they’re looking forward to a much-needed tographer and filmmaker. Among their overnight respite from their busy lives. many escapades were a 2009 kite-buggy And like Canadians everywhere, they’ve crossing of Mongolia’s massive Gobi come for that respite to their cottage. Desert and 3,300 km of kite-skiing,

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“With wilderness within 30 minutes’ walking distance of town,” says Joshua Armstrong, an intern architect living in Iqaluit who wrote his master’s archi- tectural thesis in part on Iqaluit cabin country, “cabins are burgeoning.” A few, says Armstrong, are deluxe outposts, but most are basic. He calls the cottage coun- try around Arctic communities “shack- land.” In these areas it’s not uncommon for friends or families to build multi- cabin compounds. The cottages closer to town are largely for recreational purposes, while Inuit—with a long tradi- tion of spending summers on the land— tend to build farther afield to fish and hunt. Some cottages are even dragged on skids to different locations. In Iqaluit, so strong is the impulse to get out on the land that some Inuit have been complete with polar bear encounters, known to pitch tents just beyond the through the Northwest Passage in 2011. town dump, on a peninsula that juts out The year before they formed Pittarak, into Frobisher Bay. Sarah and Eric met Will Hyndman, The three young would-be cottagers, a young Edmonton-born policy analyst mind you, were thinking of something now working out of Iqaluit. The three more permanent. of them skied, backpacked, dogsledded, and kite-skied together, spending much While Eric unhitches the dogs, Sarah of their free time on forays into the local carries supplies into what appears at wild. One summer afternoon, at a “veggie first glance to be a small, no-frills, two- burger barbecue” they’d convened when level plywood cottage—the trio’s dream their outdoor plans had been rained out getaway. She feeds the stove with chopped yet again, they realized there was some- In the Arctic, you shipping pallet wood—an essential com- thing missing from their recreational life need to fuel up. With modity above the treeline—then fills a in the Arctic—a getaway destination of the cabin as home big kettle with snow to melt for water and base, Sarah (oppo- their own: a cabin, a shack, in the famil- starts laying out lunch. site) and Eric often iar parlance, a cottage. head out on one- or The cottage warms quickly. Its main To a lot of “southerners” (bear in two-day adventures. floor is a single 8- by 16-foot room. The mind that residents of the Northwest They fortify them- “kitchen” is a propane-fuelled camp stove Territories consider Edmonton “the selves with steel-cut atop a cupboard that Eric—a skilled oats for breakfast South”), the idea of people already living handyman with an engineer’s mind— and pack bags of in the wilderness needing a more remote snacks: nuts, cheese, crafted from hardwood scraps. Twin getaway, especially from such a small sausage, crackers, benches containing storage space face town, can seem counterintuitive. But, in and every traveller’s four picture windows with spectacular fact, community life for northerners on go-to, gorp. Little views across Frobisher Bay’s jumble goes to waste here; the tundra can actually be as stifling as of ice slabs, each heaved by the rise and Eric and Will score urban life is in the South. It’s not that sweet finds from the fall of the world’s second-biggest tides. the communities are so unpalatable as Iqaluit dump, the A ladder leads to a four-person, that they are unnatural, especially with source for many proj- sloped-roof sleeping loft. There is no the wilderness so nearby. Inuit histori- ect building materials electricity or plumbing. “Our goal was (previous pages). cally never lived in communities, and the to keep it rustic and uncluttered,” says non-native people who have moved to Sarah. “We just wanted a simple, well- the North and love it are often keen to insulated shelter, out of the weather, get “out on the land.” It is as much a where we could come to do lots of outdoor great relief for northern dwellers to get activity.” Eric hastens to show off his to the cottage as it is for someone in latest project, a mere 30 metres from the Quebec, Ontario, or B.C. cottage: a compact, partially completed

58 cottagelife.com Winter 2015 60 cottagelife.com Winter 2015 Winter 2015 cottagelife.com 61 “Habitat for Hyndman.” The journey from concept to Habitat, as Will recounts it, sounds both weird and haz- ardous—i.e., normal, in Northern terms. Their first attempt involved Eric’s old 6- by 10-foot uninsulated plywood greenhouse with two windows. They took it apart, lashed the panels on top of a raft, and paddled it across the Sylvia Grinnell River—the last part of the trip in the darkness of a September night. Since no one had remembered a head- lamp, naturally, they had to assemble it with one person holding a candle while the others hammered. Defying the odds, the reconstituted greenhouse was so well used throughout the following winter eight-sided sauna. “It’s loosely based and summer that they decided to enlarge, on a yurt’s shape,” he says, sounding winterize, and relocate it. “Taking it momentarily like a 15-year-old working back across the river on a raft we briefly on a treehouse. He designed the sauna lost control,” recalls Eric matter-of- on his computer and then brought it factly. “The cabin nearly ran the rapids.” to life in miniature with his new 3-D For months the trio scrounged for printer, the result a bright orange model materials. They frequented building sites, complete with a removable roof and little collecting contractors’ toss-offs, gather- benches inside. “The outward-sloping ing insulation panels that blow around walls,” he points out, “are perfect to town during windstorms, combing yard lean back against.” Sarah, who arrives sales, and picking up discarded shipping at this point with sheets of Styrofoam pallets (many made of Brazilian hard- insulation brought from town, rolls her wood) from the airlines’ cargo hangars. What’s cooler than eyes. “He just likes to make things com- But mostly they prowled Iqaluit’s dump. sleeping in an Arctic plicated,” she says. Three heavy-duty cabin? Sleeping in In Nunavut, everything arrives by almost-triangular windows, scavenged an Arctic igloo. Eric plane or on the annual Sealift supply from the supermarket’s old walk-in (opposite) builds ship. Since hauling trash out is so costly, freezer displays, will become skylights, one not far from his it piles up at the dump, which is affec- newest project, a so that sauna users can watch the tionately referred to as the Canadian nearly complete Northern Lights while they steam. sauna (above, with Tire by locals, who migrate there for The sauna project was launched in friend Aidan Stan- supplies and parts that can take weeks late 2013, just in time for an epic win- ley). Previous pages: to import from the South and can be ter storm. “We worried when winds The McNair-Landrys prohibitively expensive as well. “In a regularly take a team reached 140 kilometres per hour,” says place where a 2'x4' costs over $10 and of eight dogs with Eric. “It peeled paint off the cottage, but them to the cabin, a sheet of plywood $60,” says Eric, the sauna didn’t budge.” Though he but the four-legged “dump runs are part of everyday life.” recently moved to Yellowknife, Eric tin- friends stay out- They built the new cabin alongside kers with the sauna when he returns doors. “They’re out- Eric and Sarah’s mother’s house and side dogs,” says home. Still quasi-operational, it was then broke it down into 13 panels. A Sarah. “They like to functional enough to be fired up during pee on everything.” barn-raising group of friends helped a 2014 New Year’s Eve party. move it in February of 2008. The month Just then, the third member of the was intentional. Transportation of any triumvirate appears, trekking from his sort in the North is easier in winter parked snowmobile up the rise to the than in summer, because the soft tundra cottage: Will Hyndman himself. It was can be impassable. But the Arctic is the Will who had become bored enough Arctic, and first they had to chop a route with town life that he announced he was through Frobisher Bay’s gnarly ice, going to live in the cottage when it was a massive job. Two or three panels at a Blipp Eric to watch a short film starring finished, and commute to his govern- time were strapped onto a pair of side- the cabin ment job. Thus, the project was dubbed by-side sleds { Continued on page 102 }

Winter 2015 cottagelife.com 63 OUT ON THE LAND saw blocks of snow for the igloo. As they inside for pancake breakfasts,” Sarah a social media action-and-awareness { Continued from page 63 } haul and place chunks in a spiral pat- says. Winter transport includes snow- campaign that quickly went viral. tern, they reminisce about clam digging mobiling, skiing, kite-skiing, dogsled- Midnight comes faster than seems pulled by a duo of snow machines. “Out on the beach in summer. Between the ding, or harnessing themselves to a dog possible. Eric and Sarah slide planks here everything slows us down,” says shoreline of the bay and a small island for a ski-joring journey. “If you get a between the two benches to create sleep- Sarah. “But nothing stops us!” are phenomenal low-tide clam grounds taxi to drop you at the park’s outhouses,” ing space for four. Sandy and Will head Since the panels were double-walled, well known throughout Iqaluit. They can she says, “it cuts travel time in half.” upstairs and Eric unrolls his sleeping complete with insulation and windows, fill a bucket in no time before cooking As if to underline the cabin’s social bag on a sheet of sauna insulation in his it took six people to carry each one 40 them on a hot rock outside. And the magnetism, the door opens suddenly, igloo beneath a sky speckled with stars. metres up the rocky slope to the building nearby mouth of the Sylvia Grinnell is a and a cloud of cold steam ushers in the Dawn arrives to the howling of dogs. site. “It was a gong show,” Will recalls. prime Arctic char fishing spot. siblings’ mother, Matty McNair, and At 8:40 a.m. the first rays of sun hit the “Every now and then someone would The air is pristine and still. Turning Will’s girlfriend, Sandy Finn, who skied cabin, igniting as they do the unreal sight simply disappear into a crack in the 360 degrees, you see only Arctic wilder- with headlamps from town after Sandy of red, billowing fog blanketing Frobisher snow.” The assembly took mere hours, ness, with no sight of another cabin or had finished her shift as a public health Bay: “warm” seawater overflowing ice but working in the cold was brutal— even a hint of Iqaluit (which actually nurse. Over dinner—caribou stew and cracked by a 12-metre-high king tide, and screws snapped, nails broke, hands froze. began life as an American air base in Mad Tom IPA—the conversation ranges steaming into -40°C air. Matty and Sandy That first year a tarp reinforced with 1942). Now it’s the domain of Arctic from Will’s popular “country foods” out- snap into skis and head towards town in umbrellas comprised their roof. A proper foxes, weasels, and the very occasional door market project, which helps Inuit time for Sandy’s next shift. Meanwhile, roof and the loft were added in a single polar bear. Barking dogs once roused hunt-ers and anglers share their bounty before Eric and Sarah reluctantly pack up, day the following year, built entirely Sarah to peek outside and find herself with the community, to concern over Iqa- they linger over a second cup of coffee. with hand tools and held together with face to face with a wolf. luit’s aging power grid, the same one that Their trip back to town will take them reclaimed nails. The mudroom came But they are anything but isolated left the capital in the dark for 19 hours an hour, less than the time it would take last. Will, true to his word, actually did here. The cottage is a year-round recre- in January 2014. As usual, “Dumpcano” a cottager in the Laurentians to get home live in the cabin briefly, until the smell of ational hub. In summer, adventurous comes up. The epic dump fire belched to Montreal. But this is another world. woodsmoke and snowmobile fuel on his friends arrive by kayaking the bay or smoke for four months in 2014, with the Iqaluit is only seven kilometres away.a office clothing started to attract atten- hiking and then rafting the frigid river. local government’s lack of response frus- tion—at which point he became a week- Then they pitch tents under the mid- trating Sarah and other friends and Margo Pfeiff first visited—and became end cottager as well. night sun. “We’ve squeezed 13 people community members enough to launch addicted to—the Canadian Arctic in 1992.

In 2009, Sarah, then 22, won a grant through the National Film Board of to make a documentary titled Never Lose Sight, an exposé of Iqaluit’s Does your pump keep losing its prime? dysfunctional recycling and garbage situ- ation. She used their cabin, constructed almost entirely from waste, as the film’s HAN-STAND focus. Even the cloth for the Roman blinds that she made came from the Foot Valve Stand dump. “I reckon with the wood we had to High Performance buy, the free stove we shipped up from Foot Valve Locate and Identify Quebec, and a can of paint, we built this place for under $1,000,” says Eric. With six inches of insulation in the floor and four in the walls, he figures it rates R15. Stop Zebra The tradition of thrifty construction Mussels isn’t just a moral choice, but a practi- cal one. Like most Arctic cottagers, Eric Quick Disconnect to Winterize and Sarah don’t own their land. And while there is a process to acquire build- Engineering grade plastics Strong Stable & components, ensuring Your ing rights on Crown land, sluggish Base a long lasting solution Complete While bureaucracy draws the procedure out Solution Stocks Last! for years, and few bother to apply. “It’s Also Available... Only Wild West cottaging up here,” Eric says.

“Everyone respects Inuit territory and Quick Disconnect Unions Special Offer Available from... simply builds on Crown land. And it’s $ STOP Rusty Clamps Bypass the middle man, Buy direct from the manufacturer! still too small a community for anyone Comprehensive range of durable to demand you take it down.” A friend, Poly Pipe Fittings Plus tax & shipping & Valves 115 Aidan Stanley, drops by to help Eric Providing water system solutions for over 50 years

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