With such an amazing time the night before I took to the road smiling as I began the return south. I found the perfect spot about 180 km outside of Tuktoyuktuk where I decided I’d fly my drone up and take a pic. I pulled over to the side of the road and went to grab it from the back seat where I normally kept it. That was strange I thought, it wasn’t there. I figured I must’ve buried it under something and kept searching. I began to panic as the search became frantic, where was my drone?! It was missing! Did I place it down somewhere and forget I’d done so? How could this happen?!
I rushed back to Tuktoyuktuk fighting back tears. This couldn’t happen, how on earth could I lose something like that?! The adventure couldn’t end like this! I found myself distraught, praying to God that it would show up.
I made it into Tuktoyuktuk and went to the bench I might’ve left it on, it wasn’t there. Crushing sadness began to overwhelm me. I couldn’t give up though, I had to try and find it despite a diminishing hope . I asked all the locals I could find, offering a generous reward for its return. I got recommended to go to the town office and made my way there.
An administrative lady greeted me and heard my story. It turns out her husband had come across a drone in the past day and made a facebook post about it. My eyes widened as she spoke, my once dim hope growing to a prodigious optimism. She called him and he showed up carrying a black box. I lifted the cover and peered inside, there it was, God had heard my prayers and answered them! The overwhelming relief! The boundless happiness that filled me! I offered the kind man a reward but he refused, saying one of his workers had found it and freely brought it to him, that he simply couldn’t take anything in return. I will never forget the kindness that was shown to me in that moment, there truly are beautiful souls out there.
So how exactly did I lose the drone to begin with? After I’d taken some pictures of the pingos the previous day and packed my drone up, I’d left the box on the back of my car instead of immediately putting it back inside like I normally would. I had walked over to read one of the signs explaining the natural wonders in depth and somehow I’d forgotten the box was still sitting on my vehicle out of sight. As I drove into town it had fallen off and onto the road where it was found a few hours later.
I gave the drone a thorough inspection once it was returned to me. Overall it had suffered minimal damage, a few scrapes here and there but the lens and other vulnerable parts were still perfectly fine. One of the detachable wings was broken though and my spare battery was gone. That was fine. The wings are attached every time you fly it so I could easily replace them. I was so happy to have the drone returned to me I didn’t care about the wing and missing battery. I won’t be taking any aerial shots until I can pick up a spare wing but that’s ok, there is some pretty rough weather ahead that would prevent me from flying anyway.
It was a lot later than I wanted it to be as I took to the road again heading south. I was also feeling a growing fatigue as it’d been a pretty emotional day coupled with barely any sleep from the previous night watching the northern lights. I made my way along though, passing through Inuvik and catching the ferry’s in time.
I was originally scheduled to avoid the snowstorm that was coming but with the massive loss in time dealing with the drone situation I was now driving in a blizzard at night. I took my time as I carefully navigated the slippery roads, taking no more then 5 minute breaks when focusing became difficult. I eventually arrived back in the Yukon and made my way to the Eagle Plains, an outpost with a hotel and gas station. I opted to finish driving the Dempster in the morning when I was well rested. What an emotional roller coaster the day had turned out to be.
