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Mar. 12, 2007
Uncharted Territory
Midnight's pitch black envelops you. The snowmobile crashes to a halt, one
ski bent 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Biting cold grips any and all
exposed skin as you try and diagnose a cure by weak flashlight. Nearly out
of gas a hundred miles or more from the checkpoint, you battle darkness,
frostbite, fatigue and a rudimentary knowledge of a snowmobile's inner
workings.
Welcome to Cain's Quest -- Labrador City, Newfoundland's inhumane landmark
event. It's a 1,200-mile snowmobile endurance race across some of the most
rugged landscape North America has to offer. Teams of two riders compete for
a $40,000 purse using only GPS systems and satellite telephones to navigate
their way across unmarked terrain for nearly a week, beginning this morning
at 11 a.m. local time.
"It's sort of like the Iditarod sled dog race, only with high-tech (tracking
devices)," said Mike Hoyt of Monmouth, one of four members of Team Maine in
Labrador for Cain's Quest. "The endurance, the stamina factor is going to be
not much different. You'll have to endure the (cold) along with riding your
snowmobile day and night non-stop. It's definitely endurance."
For Team Maine, Monmouth's Rich Knipping and Mercer's Rob Gardner are the
riders, with Hoyt joining team manager Dana Blackstone of Winthrop as
support members. Joining 17 other teams, all but one of which are from
Canada, Team Maine's goal is to tackle the challenge and raise money for
Pine Tree Camp in Rome.
GOD'S GIFT
The name "Cain's Quest" comes from Canadian history, or at least a good
legend. It was said that when 16th century explorer Jacques Cartier traveled
from St. Malo, France to the eastern Canadian coast, he said Labrador was so
rugged, so devoid of soil and dominated by rocks and ice that it must have
been the place that "God gave to Cain."
When organizers first ran the race last winter, they thought it was
appropriate to give the event the name "Cain's Quest."
The race expanded from 700 miles to 1,200 this year, and there are a few
crucial components to its running. Teams are not allowed to travel across
groomed trails, or along paved roads or train tracks as they chart their
course via GPS. The riders must carry any and all gear they need with them
-- fuel, food, dry clothes, spare parts for repairs, tools, camp stoves,
saws, etc. Because the teams are tracked by satellite, any infractions can
be spotted and disqualifications handed out.
Riders have three mandatory layovers between segments, including six-hour
stops after 300 and 600 miles. At 900 miles, there is an 18-hour break --
reduced from 24 hours to alleviate fears that teams may, in fact, not finish
the race before the scheduled closing ceremonies a week from today.
FEAR FACTOR
The truck ride into Labrador was intimidating enough for Team Maine, a
20-hour trek from central Maine made overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday.
The last half of the trip painted an ominous picture. Four hundred miles on
a narrow dirt road between Quebec City and Labrador, connecting the province
of Quebec with western Newfoundland.
"It was a dirt road with a lot of rolling hills," said Rich Knipping, 30, a
chiropractor at Hoyt Chiropractic in Winthrop. "Even the woods are pretty
thin. Is it barren? I don't know if that's the right word. It's just
desolate. There's nothing up here, literally. Nothing.
"It was an adventure just getting up here. I've been 125 miles up this dirt
road a couple of summers ago, and I've been to northern Quebec fishing for a
week at a time. Still, it's unbelievable how remote it really is."
"I tried to prepare Rich for it," said Rob Gardner, his riding partner. "But
you just don't grasp how far in the middle of nowhere you are until you
drive 400 miles on a dirt road into a town the size of Fairfield."
The desolation inspires fear. One section of the course has never been
touched by motorized vehicles of any sort, mapped out via helicopter,
according to Knipping.
And the fear is two-fold. First, of course, are the conditions. Temperatures
dipping into the minus-40s at night and unknown terrain in a foreign country
gives most people pause as they ponder physical conditioning and unseemly
accidents. Then, there are the machines themselves. Motor failures will end
a team's race almost immediately.
Amanda Jones is Knipping's wife, and she'll be in Monmouth waiting for
updates on the race throughout the week.
"When he first approached me about it, I really didn't think anything about
it," Jones said. "But it must be about a month or six weeks ago, they had a
meeting here and just to hear them talking, it was like, 'Oh, no, what did I
agree to let you do?' "
BRIGHT IDEA
Rob Gardner estimated he logged some 14,000 miles on his sled last year, up
almost 3,000 miles from his yearly average riding across the New England
states and the provinces of Quebec, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and
Ontario.
Two weeks of last year's total came from a foray into Labrador, where he
went on a riding trip across groomed trails there. He had heard of Cain's
Quest, but by his own admission he'd not paid a lick of attention to it.
And then one of the race organizers called him to ask about some of the GPS
coordinates he'd used as they were planning this year's event. Naturally,
they invited Gardner to give it a whirl.
"All of a sudden what started out as a joke, it was tough to find someone
with real interest in this," said Gardner, 34, who owns Creative Paint
Concepts in Hope. "I asked and asked and asked, and Rich was crazy enough to
jump on board. Once he threw his hat in the ring, we just didn't look back
from there."
Dana Blackstone, who introduced the pair, took on the role of team manager.
They set a budget of roughly $8,000 -- outside of the purchase of two new
Ski-Doo Summit sleds -- and found sponsors, set up a Web site, began
planning for everything from food to fuel to lodging and agreed to raise
money for Pine Tree Camp.
"It's been pretty much all that's been on the table for the last solid six
weeks," Jones said, "and even before that it dominated the last three months
or so."
WHY THE QUEST?
"It's a test of your abilities outdoors on a snowmobile. It's survival
skill, which is one of the reasons I chose to do this," Knipping said. "It's
against other people and Mother Nature, and I get to see how I stand up.
Once you get out of high school sports, there's not a whole lot of arenas
for adults to be able to compete. It's something I jumped at."
Blackstone knows both men well and believes their complementary
personalities will suit them well.
"Rich was really naive about what he was getting into," Blackstone said.
"He's always optimistic, 'We can do it, we can do it.' I've seen his
thoughts change over last couple of weeks as reality set in.
"With Rob, he's been here; he's been through the reality. Things totally
change for somebody when you're out in the middle of the woods, it's dark,
you're running out of gas and you have no idea how far away you are. I've
seen Rob in those situations. He keeps his head."
The fitness level of the two men, particularly Knipping, will also aid them,
said Blackstone.
"Rich is going to help them unbury each other (if the sleds bog down), and
his strength and endurance is going to play a big role in this."
Even the Team's own members, including Mike Hoyt, are amazed at what they're
undertaking.
"A couple of weeks ago, I was riding in Quebec with my wife," Hoyt said. "In
the midst of bitter cold, my shield's fogging up with 75 miles to go and I'm
thinking I'm finding the nearest motel. As challenging as that was, this is
even more."
In Gardner's perfect world, he and Knipping won't be debilitated by the
conditions locals are accustomed to and their sleds will hold up for the
duration.
"You have to stay mentally (sharp), at minus whatever temperature it is at
night, especially after being on sleds for up to 36 hours at a stretch,"
Gardner said. "Mechanical failures are part of this race, but a motor
failure would be very hard for us to overcome. With gas and packing 110-130
pounds of extra gear on your sled, you just don't know how it's all going to
hold up."
Travis Barrett -- 621-5648
tbarrett@centralmaine.com
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