Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 17/99) - Roger Siglin's eyes shine brightly from deep within the wind-cracked sockets they're set in.

He signals the pub waitress to bring him another shot of Wild Turkey -- she does and his leathery face breaks into a grin, as wide as his fever-blistered lips will allow.

After travelling 5,400 km across the Canadian Arctic by Ski-Doo, the 63-year-old is content to savour the civilized pleasures offered at a Yellowknife watering hole.

"The first thing people ask me is why, and I decided the best answer is I don't know why except it feels good physically and mentally to do things like this," Siglin says.

Siglin was joined on the snowmobiling adventure by friends Richard Hattan, David Andersen, William Briggs and John Spika.

They came from as far away as New Mexico and Ottawa to partake in the excursion. Siglin, now at the end of his six-week journey, is the last one from the group to go home. He had one more night in Yellowknife before flying home to his wife in Fairbanks, Alaska.

"She hates my trips so, for the rest of the year, I try and make it up to her," Siglin says, cracking another smile that comes off more as a grimace.

"That gets back to the question about why we do it. I think you're either born with the desire to do things like this or you're not."

The men converged on Yellowknife six weeks ago. They prepared their food at home and froze it -- bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, cold cut sandwiches for lunch and casserole dinners. Once in Yellowknife, they bought their Tundra Ski-Doos and set out across the ice.

"We left Yellowknife with a good set of tools, a hack saw, a portable drill and a month's supply of food," Siglin says.

They headed across the Great Slave Lake, through the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary and Baker Lake.

From there it was on to Repulse Bay, across the Melville Peninsula and up to Pond Inlet. They eventually made their way to Iqaluit and flew from there back to Yellowknife.

"We might be the first snowmobilers to cross the barrens since 1967. A group of 10 did it back then, but they had air support for food and supplies," Siglin says.

"From Baker Lake to Wager Bay, I think we were in country that not even the Inuit had travelled. The east coast of Baffin Island was phenomenal -- sheer cliffs 600 metres rising straight out of the ocean."

Through it all, beyond a few shock absorber problems, the snowmobiles ran fine. Each machine towed a sled, designed by Siglin in Fairbanks. They fuelled up their storage cans in each small community with enough gas to travel 1,100 km.

Before setting out each morning, they would put a breakfast sandwich in a modified cooker that was attached to the muffler system of the Ski-Doos.

"We put the frozen sandwiches in our cookers and drove until we could smell the melting cheese and bacon grease," Siglin says.

The men had two tents with wood stoves and, to stay warm at night, they burned wood palettes and scraps obtained in the villages they visited.

Siglin, who worked as a park ranger in the United States for 27 years, was obviously tired, but seems to gain energy from describing the wilderness he travelled through.

He watched wolves play a few metres from his tent, camped with the Arctic Bay sled dog racers, and laughs when he tells of his conversations with Fort Reliance trapper Roger Caitlin.

He doesn't even bat an eyelash when he mentions this wasn't the first time he ventured across the barrens on snowmobile.

Two years ago, he snowmobiled to Bathurst Inlet from Yellowknife. He didn't get as far as he would have liked to on that trip because he drove off an eight-metre cliff.

Siglin managed to free the machine, with the help of his travel companions, and continue for 64 km to Umingmaktok -- where he was airlifted out with four broken ribs.

When Siglin was 58, he went to Tibet to climb an 8,000-metre-high mountain. He made it 7,000 metres, but turned around.

"I decided I was too old to make the peak," he says.

Siglin reclines back when asked about his desire to challenge himself with extreme trips and ponders the question.

"I guess it's just that I've always had a lifelong fascination with wild places," he says.

After a few minutes of silence he leans forward, signals the waitress to bring him his bill, and continues.

"Actually, it's not my fascination with wild places so much as the fact that those places are disappearing in so many ways," Siglin says.

"Our's is the last generation that will be able to go 8,000 km in Arctic Canada and not cross a road. To me, it's a tragedy that the last really big chunks of wild country are going to disappear in the next few decades. While I'm here, I plan to see as much of it as I can."