Co-captain in 2015 Franklin search injured in forbidden ATV outing

At a Sept. 21 community event in Cambridge Bay on the 2015 Franklin Expedition trip on the Martin Bergmann, Filippo Ronca, a dive officer and senior underwater archaeologist with Parks Canada, shows off a plate — one of five — located this past summer in the hulk of the sunken Franklin ship, the Erebus. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Crew at the Martin Bergmann research vessel offload equipment shortly after their arrival to Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

At 200 metres, Mt. Ovayok, seen Sept. 18, is the centrepiece of a territorial park, which lies 20 kilometres away from the western Nunavut community of Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Here’s something to avoid: hopping on an all-terrain vehicle that you’ve never driven before, driving up the side of a steep mountain which lies in a territorial park where ATVs are not permitted, and then flipping the vehicle, seriously injuring yourself.

That’s what David McIsaac, 48, the co-captain of the Martin Bergmann research vessel used in the federal government’s 2015 Franklin Expedition, did Sept. 20.

On that bright, sunny day and, for the season, a warm day at about 7 C, McIsaac, with others from the ship, headed out to Ovayok Territorial Park.

The park is located 20 kilometres from Cambridge Bay, at the end of a narrow dirt road pockmarked by potholes.

Ovayok, also known as Mt. Pelly, is an attractive destination for visitors to the western Nunavut town of Cambridge Bay: the flat 200-metre-high esker’s gentle lines dominate the scenery around Cambridge Bay.

And it’s a place with a backstory of its own — Inuit lore says Ovayok (or Ovayuk) and two smaller hills are a family of starving giants who were crossing Victoria Island looking for food. The father, Ovayok, died first. His bladder burst, creating the lakes left below.

But you’re not supposed to take an ATV up the side of Ovayok when you’re in the park.

According to section 5.7.18 (c) of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and the Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement for territorial parks, among other legal documents, only Inuit are allowed to travel through territorial parks on such vehicles.

McIsaac, who had never driven an ATV before, headed up the front of the mountain to see what his friends, who had walked up, were doing, his co-captain Gerry Childey told Nunatsiaq News.

Mt. Pelly turns very steep there, Cambridge Bay’s fire chief, Keith Morrison, said Sept. 21.

After McIsaac was injured, fellow crew members scrambled down to administer emergency medical care while they waited for an emergency services truck to arrive from Cambridge Bay.

Two hours later, after being carried down the slope in a stretcher and driven back to the Cambridge Bay health centre, McIsaac was ready to be medevaced out, fortunately with non-life threatening injuries, according to his co-captain.

Morrison said people in Cambridge Bay — Inuit or not — know not to drive up and over Ovayok, although there’s no sign at the park telling people not to do that.

Morrison said he plans to ask the Government of Nunavut to put up signs to that effect.

Driving an ATV is dangerous at the best of times, “if you don’t know what you’re doing,” the fire chief added. And, if the weather had been poor, it’s also likely the emergency service vehicle would have had problems reaching McIsaac.

Childey, who co-captains the 62-foot former fishing trawler Martin Bergmann, said he and the others didn’t know they are not allowed to use ATVs there.

The Martin Bergmann arrived in Cambridge Bay this past weekend to offload artifacts and diving equipment used this past summer in the federal government’s push to find artifacts at the site of the HMS Erebus, which went down during the 1845 failed polar expedition of Sir John Franklin.

The Martin Bergmann, named after the Polar Continental Shelf Project’s late director Martin Bergmann, who died in the August 2011 crash of First Air Flight 6560 in Resolute Bay.

Now, the Martin Bergmann, visited by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2012, is owned by the Arctic Research Foundation, founded and underwritten by Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry smartphone.

Childey and others of the dozen crew on board the Martin Bergmann were in Cambridge Bay Sept. 21 to show people in the community new artifacts found by Parks Canada divers at the Erebus wreck.

Those at the evening event in Luke Novoligak community hall were keen to get a sneak peek at the artifacts — which even the PM hasn’t seen, according to one Parks Canada diver.

But, despite the interest in the artifacts, some in Cambridge Bay say they worry about this past weekend’s ATV incident.

That’s because they want visitors to know and abide by park rules, especially after the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, which also plans to partner with the Arctic Research Foundation, opens in 2017.

Already, more than 100 workers are at the under-construction CHARS site.

It’s not the first time visitors from a boat have flouted rules or the first time Cambridge Bay has received visitors off ships who have behaved badly.

The Berserk II, decorated with painted shark’s teeth and real caribou antlers, whose “Wild Vikings” carried on in Gjoa Haven in August 2007, then tried to hide two illegal crew members before arriving in Cambridge Bay.

Then, in September 2012, police in Cambridge Bay seized 200 bottles of liquor and $15,000 worth of illegal fireworks from the Fortrus, a luxury yacht from Australia anchored just off Cambridge Bay.