By Jim Baird

I like swimming, but it’s more of a summertime thing. I don’t want to do it when I’m trying to cross a pressure ridge in the Arctic. That’s why I listened closely to tips I heard in the community of Delene before venturing out onto Great Bear Lake. Combining those tips with my own ice safety knowledge got me past many nasty pressure ridges safe and sound.

When you drive up to a pressure ridge, land can be miles away on either side. You first have to decide which way to go. You may have to follow it all the way to shore if you can’t find a place to cross. While following the ridge, you constantly get off your snowmobile to walk up to the ridge and check out promising-looking spots. When that spot is no good (and it usually isn't) it always looks like there is a good spot just at the next bend in the ridge.

Most of the time, when you get there you find a pool of slush or a deep crevasse and not a place to cross, so you keep moving. The search goes on like this for a couple miles or more, unless you’re lucky. Every time you check a possible crossing spot it’s important to be safe and keep these tips in mind.

By Jim Baird

Before we left the tree line, Ted and I experienced very deep-powder snow in the bush around Great Bear Lake. We were not used to riding snowmobiles in that type of powder and got stuck badly a few times—luckily we knew how to get ourselves free.

How It’s Done: Getting stuck in deep snow happens when you cannot keep the machine level while moving. It’s very important to center your weight and turn by shifting your weight from side to side. You also get stuck when you don’t go fast enough through the powder, which causes your skis to sink in deep and the front of the machine to bottom out. After that happens the snow doesn’t provide enough grip for your track to push your front end through the jam. Your track will just kick all the powder out from underneath it, and your machine just sinks deeper. Reversing is futile at this point as well.

There's already been a  boatload of bloviation expressed on the recent reversal of the ban on loaded firearms in our national parks, some of it sensible but most of it (predictably) bordering on  hysterics.

This column from the Huffington Post is a perfect example:
 
"In fact,  the new rule is likely to make national park visitors less safe around  wildlife. Packing heat could give some people a false sense of security and  make them more likely to approach bison, elk, moose, and grizzly bears,  rather than keep a safe distance which is better for both people and  animals."

But the most certain outcome of this congressional action is  that it will promote poaching. The National Park Service warned in its fiscal 2006 budget submission each year for the past several years ... The data  suggests that there is a significant domestic as well as international trade  for illegally taken plant and animal parts." Poaching, the agency said, "is suspected to be a factor in the decline of at least 29 species of wildlife  and could cause the extirpation of 19 species from the parks."