February 18th
In the small hunting settlement of Chirpolay
-25 degrees Celsius

Yes, finally a true insight into the meaning of life!

Please hear me out!

I just came in from having been out skiing by myself for a couple of hours, something which in every way gave me new air and strength! I have quite a few curious Eveny around me now when I am writing, as is the case every evening whilst transferring from the camera to harddisk. It is kind of the evening entertainment and Slava wouldn´t have a problem doing any of it. He is using my camera every day to take photos he likes, mainly with a reindeer theme.

Whilst out skiing, surrounded by these pristine mountains and feeling rejuvenited by this extremely fresh and clean air, I let go of all my thoughts and suddenly realized what a privileged human being I am to get this great opportunity to travel the world and experience all these different cultures and peoples in such a short lifetime. At times I wonder why I, of all people, have been given this opportunity and not one of the Eveny team members who for example, have such a much more narrow and demanding existence, but, please note, possibly as happy and content a life as I do.

Anyways, as it should be whilst being on a journey, one contemplates one´s own life at those rare moments, when not observing and not taking notes on what one is experiencing, I philosophized around the aspect of what is the acceptable limit for saying that you have had a good life on one´s death bed?

I am sure that opinions are many and varied, but at the end of the day it is pretty basic; being able to say I am or have been blessed with a great partner life. In my case this is my wife Pam and wonderful children which we have. I think if you can honestly count that you have ten extremely good friends all together, then one should be satisfied. I think this is probably the basic idea of personal inner success for most cultures and human beings. So today, I realized for once, since I am generally dissatisfied with everything I do, that in fact, I am actually very satisfied and content with my life, though I have made all errors in the book and paid a high price for it.

So, on a personal note, yes, I love life!

Back to what I am here to do, observe…yesterday this happened!

“Careful!” Slava shouted, but it was too late, I put my foot down in the water.

I was fortunately quick enough to pull it out before the icy water made it into my reindeer boot. Vika however, went down into the water with the sledge and almost overturned. She would have if my photographer, Yura, wouldn´t have stopped his filming and used his camera free hand to stop her overturning. So typical Yura. He is one of these guys who is there for everybody, but still gets his act together. The camera is his baby and during the day, when we spent hours crossing the extremely slippery stretches of ice, he slipped badly twice (so did I…), but held up the camera in the air, even if it meant he took a good beating, landing on the ice with his head first. He is one of those human beings who is perfect for Expeditions. Always helpful, no personality conflicts, good humor & temper and works all day and night. We have a good team, no doubt.

Yesterday I was very worried about the reindeer. These ice crossings are brutal on them. Since they´re not shod, they slip badly. Unfortunately the speed has to be as fast as possible, so we don´t go through the ice and drown.  For this reason, Slava must try to find a route which avoids the worst stretch of slippery ice. Due to this, we ended up in the dense taiga, going up and down river banks like a roller coaster, following small streams, where the ice was only a few inches thick and we went through several times, but always managed to avoid going under. We had to run as fast as we could all the time and us sitting on the sleds just made it worse for the reindeer.

Yesterday was our second day of long hours and a big distance of traveling. Two days doing 50 kms, arriving at the beginning of darkness, but I am assured by the Eveny and Egor that these are normal distances and that we will cut the weight by a third from now on so that every reindeer pulls no more than 30 kgs each. I am told the reason for the struggling reindeer is that they are still tired after the extreme cold they faced in Yakutia and a long winter of traveling. These guys have been traveling since the beginning of the winter. Everyone, the Evenys and the reindeer, are really worn out. We are taking a couple of days break in this small hunting village, which once during the Soviet era was a kolchoz offering a shop, a diesel plant and a hospital for the reindeer herders. Nowadays they are worse off in this part of Russia. In Yakutia for example, herders are employed by the government, like during the Soviet times, so they have a decent wage, a paid holiday every two years, get snowmobiles & even food for free and get paid sick leave. However, our Eveny friends and team members, who live in the Krasnoyarks region, have nothing. Absolutely nothing. One reason they took this job, an offer all reindeer herders in Yakutia said no to, was due to the money of course. I am very happy they took it because they´re a great group of people. Some of the best I have met. But there is no doubt that their life is very, very hard. During the last few days of warmer weather, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future of this 2500 year old way to travel and make a living.

Let me first say, the weather has changed dramatically and we have lost a lot of altitude height. We are presently at about 600 meters above sea level, half of our altitude level from traveling in Yakutia. The great winter landscape of the frozen frontier is gone, sure. The mountains are still impressive, but there´s no heavy thick, spellbinding and alluring snow resting high in the trees and we seldom have night temperatures below -40. Day temperatures are now like today, around -20 degrees below zero Celsius. But, the traveling is still quite demanding, due to fast melting ice and snow.

However, I have to say, now when the extreme cold is gone I realize how much more time I have to think and philosophize during the long hours at the back of the sled. During the extreme cold, most of my effort went to keeping the cold at bay. My weak cheeks are still itching from frost nips, but that is due to that I haven´t been in arctic areas for 6 years and have spent most of that time in the deserts of Arabia. One needs a lot of time to acclimatize properly to the Arctic. The rest of the team have, of course, no problems at all, being used to and brought up in this frozen environment. A changing one for the Eveny reindeer herders in the Krasnoyarsk region I believe.

“Do you like being here in the taiga with your grandparents?” Bolot asked Andre the other day. (Andre is the 5 year old boy we met a few days ago)

He answered, “I hate it, it is so boring, there´s nothing to do out here. In Arkan I have so many friends and we play a lot of games together. I can´t stand this life here.”

Bolot told me this story when we had a break in the traveling a couple of days ago and it made me start to think hard about the future of this kind of thousand year long existence. I have a profound feeling that we are experiencing the last remains of it.

First of all, let us take a look at the Evenys, which are such an integral part of this Expeditions well being and success. Slava, who’s dream was to continue his studies and become a doctor, but as the rest of the team, was asked by his parents to help them out and survive. When he and Vika have children, he understands clearly and wants a future of studying for them. If this will happen or if he will have the same demands as his parents had on him, I don´t know. But he fully understands that the only way to a decent living is for them to continue their studies. Slava is a really bright lad.

Vika has a sister who is still studying and she once told us, that she wished she could have continued her studies, but her parents wished otherwise.

Tolya has a daughter who has asthma and she will therefore never live in the taiga. I don´t understand why, but they think settled life is safer, though I have noticed as quick as the group has slept one night inside together, like we are now 8 people in a small log cabin, we are sneezing, coughing and sniveling in a way we never have done so far out there in the cold. Anyways, that means that Toly´s life will take a dramatic change soon. By the way, Tolya seldom travels like this, he has just teamed up with Slava, who is his best friend, to do this trip and earn some money. Otherwise, he makes a living hunting sobel and moose and selling the meat and fur. A job from which he makes much more money than herding reindeer.

Yura, who´s wife is in the hospital in Okhotsk right now and is Vikas sister, is possibly the only one who I see that might continue this life for his children. But I could be wrong. Yura doesn´t say a whole lot…;-) He is silent, but the best of the four on camera. He always has something wise to say, whilst the others, who chat like mad off camera, turn silent when on.

And of course, as a traveller, even if I have been to over 125 countries as a professional for the last 27 years, and try to see everything from all perspectives, not only my own comfortable Scandinavian life eyes, I, of course, wish they had an easier life, because it is a very, very hard and demanding life they have with continual worries on how to survive. A better infrastructure, for example, would solve a lot. Things would improve with creation of more jobs, which shouldn´t be a problem for a country like Russia with its enormous resources.

Being an explorer who often travels together with animals, lately with Kensington The Camel in Yemen, I think traveling with reindeer this way is out of date. It is too hard on them. But this is just my opinion. I have never really opinions about other cultures and their ways to survive. I can´t claim to know better. And the Eveny really love their reindeer. At this moment in history, they have no other way to survive. They put every effort into the well being of their beloved reindeer, but this is the first time I have ever done an Expedition, where I don´t do the work myself. I have always walked with the animal members, to share the same burden and joys, but here I am being hauled around and just sit through most of the day and I am out of control of pretty much everything. Yegor does the organizing, which he is doing extremely well. I don´t understand 99% of what is said, Bolot translates the essentials and does that very well. The reindeer belongs to the Eveny. I should really have no opinion on that. It is out of my hands. For now and this time only, it is ok! This is because I have this feeling that something unique is under way and the privilege of experiencing this has a price of course. Having said that, I really, really enjoy this trip!

But, yes, it is still an extraordinary feeling being part of a way of life which is more than 2500 years old and possibly this being the last remains of it. I hope I can give a reasonably just account of it. This is the reason I am doing this. To make a film and write about this unique way of traveling to give an insight to future generations. That is the feeling I have. The film will be great, even though some pieces are missing for the full picture. We are getting there!

Finally, it seems like the Expedition with reindeer could well end in Arkan, 7 days of travel from here. Rumor says there is little snow after Arkan, very little food for the reindeer and the Eveny´s worry about the Russians in Okhotsk who always have treated them and their reindeer badly.

But I fear the ice crossings.