CHURCHILL, MANITOBA (continued)
The tundra buggy was invented back in the 1970s to take bear-watchers safely out on the inhospitable tundra, to areas impassable by even the toughest 4x4. As eco-tourism has taken off, they have evolved into immense doublewide
double-deckers, some capable of carrying 40 people out into the frozen wastes for days on end. These monsters, powered by a 210bhp diesel fire truck motor, are 48ft long, 12 ft wide and 14ft tall, riding on 66in high agricultural tyres.
"Big bugger, eh?" says Merv Gunter, owner of Tundra Buggy Tours, which runs 15 buggies. Merv used to be Churchill's local bank manager before he bought the company. He doesn't talk like any bank manager I've ever met.
"I sometimes look at this fleet of huge 20,000lbs buggies with some trepidation," he admits. "I think 'I don't know shit about how these things work!' But I have never regretted giving up my job at the bank."
In Canada, it's widely believed that the natives get more eccentric the further North you go. And more resourceful with it.
"In the North you make do with what you've got," says Merv, full of genuine admiration for Rob and Jason's inventive engineering. "They're able to fix these things on the fly in terrible conditions. They don't have fancy tools but they get it done anyway. It's called jury-rigging and they can jury-rig almost anything anywhere to get you out of a jam."
As we talk, the mad mechanics are assailing the enormous tyres of buggy number 15 with the mother of all blowtorches, more of a flamethrower really, called a 'tiger torch'. There's a bit of a nip in the air this morning (it's minus 30) and the cold has caused the tyre to shrink off the O-ring securing it to the wheel. The boys lightly flambay the tyre with the tiger torch then set about it with sledgehammers. Sometimes, when this happens out in the wilderness, they'll squirt a little ether inside the tyre, wave the torch near the valve then jump back as the explosion smacks the tyre into the O-ring.
"It's a scary trick," says Merv, "Like a little bomb going off. But it works."
Most breakdowns are caused by flat tyres or frozen diesel (extreme cold turns the fuel into a gloopy gel) but sometimes problems are more serious.
The combination of subzero temperatures and the constant hammering from the hostile terrain can break the buggies' front springs and Rob and Jason once spent four hours out on the tundra replacing a broken axle, in a blizzard. Another buggy crashed through the ice and sank into a creek. It took two days to recover with rescuers using pneumatic drills to chisel it free from the ice's grip. Hard, hard work.
"It's maybe 15 or 20 minutes before our hands freeze," says Jason, "The cold steel just makes it even worse. The metal seems to suck the warmth right out of your hands. Once I had my hand stuck to a wrench. It took a few minutes on the heater to get my hand unstuck."
Each buggy has a propane heater that runs independently of the engine "to make sure you're not stuck out there in minus 40 degrees with 40 people and no heat," explains Merv.
'Out there' is local shorthand for the beautiful but intimidating sub arctic wasteland that surrounds Churchill. The town itself is isolated (there is no road link to the outside world - and no car theft) and even a few miles away from its snow-blanketed streets the eerie, endless white-out feels like the surface of the moon
Merv asks if I'd like to drive one of his buggies 'out there'. The bear season's over now but with daylight fading there's a chance we might see Churchill's other big attraction, the Northern Lights. He doesn't have to ask twice. I've piloted quite a selection of automotive oddballs in my time but this has to be top of the weirdness table. It's a cross between off-roading and driving a double decker bus from the front seat of the top deck.
The buggy's frame is a lengthened five ton truck chassis and, amazingly, the cabin -- basically an aluminium box -- is not bolted down but attached by heavy duty chains. Consequently there's an alarming crash as it slaps down against the frame every time we hit a decent-sized bump.
"We haven't had one fall over yet!" offers Jason cheerfully as he reads the anxious look on my face that says: "Shit! I've broken it, haven't I?"
We leave terra firma and begin crawling cross the frozen Churchill River. I listen carefully to Jason's advice, carefully navigating around giant hummocks of river ice. He estimates the ice to be three feet thick; much thicker than the 8-10 inches minimum required to support the buggy. Maybe it's his choice of the word 'estimate' but I'm still nervous. This thing weighs 20 tons and under the ice is 20 feet of cold, dark water, deep enough to swallow the buggy whole. Merv however assures me that the 12 psi pressure in the oversized tyres creates a footprint wide enough to distribute the weight safely.
Much like a polar bear's paw, in fact.
©Richard Fleury. All Rights Reserved. A version of this story originally appeared in BBC Top Gear Magazine.