Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 14/99) - A word of advice to the people paddling from Lutsel'ke to Baker Lake -- don't mess with Noel Drybones.

If all goes according to plan, the trip begins later this week. Joining forces will be three Germans, three residents of Baker Lake and three people from Lutsel'ke.

"It's the first large trip that will be done by Inuit and Indian people together (since division)," said trip organizer Stephan Busch.

This will be the fourth summer Busch has been in the North preparing and organizing the trip, which will combine high tech and traditional skills.

Updates and photos will be beamed weekly from the barrens to the group's Web site (www.nordkurier.de/canada) via satellite and solar-powered computer. The solar panels will also be used to charge a couple of video cameras wielded by Jurgen Friess. The third German on the trip is Heiko Petermann, owner of the company producing the documentary.

The video documentary of the trip has already been sold to a German television station, said Busch.

Drybones, who has called the barrens home for most of his life, is by far the most experienced participant. Drybones said he's making it to Baker Lake, with or without others.

"I know the barrenlands and if I decide to go to Baker Lake, I'm going to get there," said Drybones, who is in his 70s.

Speaking through his niece, Terri Enzoe, Drybones said he has little doubt the Baker Lake Inuit on the trip will make it. He's not so sure about the Germans, who have less experience in the North.

"The mosquitoes are only below the tree line and the sand flies will attack you and get into your hair and your clothes. It's going to be pretty cold out there, too."

Drybones said he expects to encounter freezing rain during the trip, but said he's used to the cold and looks forward to it.

The most experienced of the Baker Lake trio is Ruby Autaritnaaq, 44. She was born and raised at Beverley Lake, which is on the route they will be taking. She left there for Baker Lake in 1959, but spends each summer at an outpost camp.

Though she admitted she was a little nervous about the canoes tipping, Autaritnaaq said she has a special reason for making it through the Thelon Game Sanctuary.

"I want to see my father's grave," she said.

Autaritnaaq's father is buried between Aberdeen Lake and Shultz Lake, which will be the start of the home stretch for the group.

Joining Drybones and Autaritnaaq will be Marlene Drybones and Joseph Catholique of Lutsel'ke and Roy Avaala and Jason Putumiraqtuq of Baker Lake. The Inuit and Dene groups are each splitting $12,000 being paid by Screen TV, the company producing the documentary.

Avaala and Putumiraqtuq said they know the area from Beverly lake to Baker Lake "like our backyards," and will have no trouble getting home from there. But for all three Inuit, canoeing will be a new experience.

"The only thing I'm nervous about is having sore muscles from paddling," said Putumiraqtuq.

A site the two young Inuit will be pointing out along the way will be the bones of a whale tail on the ground at Schultz Lake.

It was a killer whale, said Avaala, one of only two seen by people of Baker lake in the last 40 years.

"I'm looking at it as an educational trip," said Putumiraqtuq.

"We'll learn from the Dene and teach them, too," said Avaala.