My 3 years’ experiences working in the Arctic

Working for Northern Transportation Company Limited and Operation  Sealift to DEW Line radar sites out of Tuktoyaktuk. 1961, 1962 and 1963, by Jean-Louis Ares.    

The first thing to talk about is how did I ever  manage to get a job working up North in Canada’s Arctic  with NTCL, a then crown- owned company. In the late spring of 1961,  I was in first year General  Science (Pre-Dentistry)  at the University  of Alberta and looking for a summer job. The University year ended in late  April  and  my uncle, Andre Courteau, also at the University of Alberta enrolled in Year 1 of Pharmacy , and I drove to Saskatchewan and tried  to get a job working on the new Squaw Rapids dam being built near Nipawin and Carrot River in north-east Saskatchewan.

Squaw Rapids are located after the North and South Saskatchewan rivers meet.  Because of this dam,  a huge Tobin Lake was created  by the damming of the rivers. It is now a very famous trophy lake for fishing. I was not hired for any work there and returned to Edmonton.

My father knew Marcel Lambert , a prominent  Conservative MP from Edmonton West at the time under the Right Honorable John Diefenbaker, the prime minister of our country.  Mr . Lambert put in a good reference for me and subsequently I was interviewed at the NTCL office (a crown owned company) in downtown Edmonton.   Soon after the interview  I was hired by NTCL, at their Edmonton address ( 1209-10104-103 Avenue) and told to report at the Northwest Industries hangar at the municipal airport  in Edmonton in May 1961.  There  we would board an Eldorado DC- 4 airplane flying to Inuvik. Eldorado Resources was established as a gold mining enterprise in 1926, focused on radium and uranium in the 1940’s then nationalized into a Crown corporation in 1943. Eventually Eldorado was merged with the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation in 1988 and became CAMECO.

Founded in 1931 the NTCL Crown -owned Company operates in the Mackenzie River watershed of the North West Territories, Northern Alberta and the Arctic Ocean. NTCL uses a fleet of diesel tug boats and shallow barges out of Hay River. In 1948, funded federally and by Alberta, an all weather highway was completed from Grimshaw, Alberta to Hay River on the southwest shore of Great Slave Lake. Known as the Mackenzie Highway this made Hay River the Hub of the North.

It is a long way  between Edmonton and Tuktoyaktuk, a distance of 3323 Km. This is when you drive on the Alaska Highway to Dawson City, Yukon, the Dempster Highway to Inuvik and then the new 2017 Highway to Tuktoyaktuk. The Dempster Highway which connects Dawson City in the Yukon with Inuvik, NWT. will take you 12 to 16 hours , one way, to drive that distance. Edmonton to Dawson City is 2484 KM.  The distance flying between Edmonton and Tuktoyaktuk is approx. 2200 Km. and a much faster and shorter way.

Here  enclosed are the 2 logos of the 2 important entities we worked for  and serviced every summer while  I worked up North on  the Arctic Ocean. The most important one is the Northern Transportation Company Limited.( NTCL) which hired me and provided me with the experience of a lifetime.  

This is the logo for the DEW Line and all the radar sites across the northern Arctic. Approximately 63 DEW sites in all and about every 50 miles from Alaska to Greenland. Estimated 3200 miles (5300 Km) along the northern shores. Servicing these sites was a joint financial  venture by both Canada and the USA.  

I was thankful for my 3 years of summer experience in the Western Arctic. It was a wonderful experience for a young University of Alberta student for some of the following reasons:

1. Travelling the Arctic waters west and east of Tuktoyaktuk made me appreciate and love a part of Canada that most Canadians will never see.
2. Meeting and interacting with the Inuit people( in those days we called them Eskimos) was unique and enlightening, especially the inquisitive , friendly and fun-loving children. I was really impressed by the Inuit’s adaptability, resiliency and resourcefulness to survive the harsh Arctic winters.
3. The work experience on the ARD 31 Auxiliary floating drydock, the LST 1072 and the AOG -59 Wacissa tanker was varied, educational , challenging yet fulfilling in my young life at that time. I look back in time and really appreciated my work during those short 4 summer months. Being at sea was quite an experience for a young land-locked Prairie boy.
4. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and working with the seamen from the Placentia Bay area in Newfoundland. They were down to earth, hard working and fun to listen to, especially their Newfie accents. The many officers, cooks, bakers, stewards, engineers, stevedores, longshoremen, etc. were very capable men and I enjoyed working with and for them.
5. Our parent company, Northern Transportation Company Limited, treated all of us very well. The cooks and bakers were excellent and we were well taken care of.
6. My uncle, the reverend Uncle Armand Ares, was a parish priest in Zenon Park, Saskatchewan and was a photography enthusiast.He provided me with a great 35 mm camera, a Kodak Retina 3 C. I am happy I was able to take 3 years worth of photographs to document and remember with fondness my time in the Arctic.
7. One of the most memorable and strikingly different experience was the total silence felt at times in the Arctic. Walking on the ice to Tuktoyaktuk from the ships in the spring , walking on the various beaches at different DEW line sites, there was often total silence. No noise pollution from every day “hustle and bustle” life, no leaves to rustle , no waves lapping on the shore when there was no wind. We are so accustomed to everyday noisy background and when it’s not there, it feels strange in an eerie way but becomes very profoundly relaxing. I began to appreciate the physiological benefits of self refection in solitude and silence. To quote K.L. Toth: “Sometimes the sound of silence is the most deafening sound of all”.
8. ” Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. Being away from my sweetheart and girlfriend, Mena, I became a literary romantic. I spent hours, over a few summers, writing to her and reading her letters. It was another great way to pass some idle time and reminisce about our fond experiences and memories together.

1. I learned a lot of history about the north and I have always loved history. The history of the fur trade in Canada and the rivalry between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company went on for many years. The North West company had been founded in Montreal in 1668. It was in competition to resist the inland advances of the Hudson Bay Company(created by the British) from Hudson Bay. The voyageurs and coureurs de bois were responsible for travelling the inland rivers, trading with the indigenous people, opening up trading posts, and thus discovering a lot of our North and West of Canada. In 1821, the North West Company with its 97 trading posts and the Hudson’s Bay Company with its 76 trading posts merged together. Working up north along the Arctic, I read and learned a lot about famous Arctic explorers. Alexander MacKenzie, Roald Amundsen, Martin Frobisher, John Franklin, John Ross, Robert Peary, Samuel Hearne.
2. What to me that was also very interesting is the history pertaining to Aklavik and Inuvik. At one time the town of Aklavik, on the west side of the Mackenzie River delta was the main town and hub in this north western part of the North West Territories. Aklavik has a compelling history in Canada’s north. When the decision was made, in the 1950’s, to close down Aklavik because of repeated flooding, the birth of a new town to the east , Inuvik, was created. The following is an important part of Western Arctic history. Aklavik became known as the town that refused to die!

In the summer of 2017, there was a Works Festival held in Churchill Square next to city hall in downtown Edmonton. I was asked by my niece Sophie Ares-Pilon and nephew Patrick Ares-Pilon if I would let them show 35 mm slides I had taken when I worked in the summers in 1961,1962 and 1963 in Tuktoyaktuk for Northern Transportation Company Limited. They had a small tent set up and named Le Salon Slideshow, Sevihcra where they mainly showed slides from the archives of the Ares / Courteau family. This was June 24, 30 and July 1, 2017. After that my niece Sophie told me that it would be more meaningful from a historical perspective if I would somehow come up with a narrative to explain and document my photographs. She did convince me and I will now write , document and illustrate with photographs, as best as I can remember, my 3 years of experiences in the Western Arctic, under the specific years 1961, 1962 and 1963. I owe a huge debt of gratitude and sincere thank you to my niece Sophie and her common-law spouse Eddie Carle for their assistance in working with WordPress to put all this information and photos on the website. Merci, Sophie, for the many hours you so graciously provided me. You are a real sweetheart and I loved working with you.

I did not start this project until late 2017 so please forgive me if my memory failed me and I forgot/omitted some details, times, dates, names, places etc. After all, this travel/work story is close to 60 years in the making. I figured it was time to do this before my memories became “Alzheimer’d”, and then it would be too late. For me , it was a labor of love as I tried to remember everything that happened during those 3 summers . I also enjoy re-reading, re-living and seeing again in my mind, and in photographs, those summers. They were an important and exciting part of my young life and one always likes to reminisce and remember one’s youth.

Respectfully submitted,

Jean-Louis (John ) Ares

Finalized in the Covid-19 year of 2021.