Driving their modern snowmobiles over endless rolling hills and along the Arctic Ocean's coast last week, six Old Crow men followed in the footsteps and dog sled runners of their predecessors.

Six days after setting out on a memorial patrol, two Old Crow RCMP officers and four Vuntut Gwitchin men arrived home Saturday afternoon to clapping greeters and a community feast.

Putting in hundreds of kilometres on patrol is something Mounties and their aboriginal guides have done for as long as the RCMP have policed the Yukon.

Travelling 600 kilometres from Old Crow to Herschel Island and back last week, the six men followed a trail that hasn't carried Mounties for 35 years. The RCMP conducted its last long-range memorial patrol in 1969 to recognize the end of the sled dog patrol era.

'We were just going to go to the detachment, take a couple of group photos, shake each others' hand and say, See you tomorrow,'' said Cpl. Kim MacKellar about their safe return. 'When we got back we were a little overwhelmed with people thinking it was a big deal.

'It was just a patrol.'

Gwitchin land covers a huge area, and the patrol was a chance to keep track of what's living, growing and travelling on it, said Dennis Frost Sr., who accompanied the RCMP patrol with his 72-year-old father, Stephen Frost Sr.

'It's a land you look after all your life, and your people have been depending on this land,' said Frost. 'My people used to walk that country, walk out to Herschel Island to trade with the whalers and the Inuit. They've done it on foot many times, and also dog team patrols.

'I thought we'd go over this route and kind of go over their trails. It gives you a good feeling of being part of it.'

Const. Bryan Lasson said travelling over barren land for hundreds of kilometres at a time made him think about the Mounties who patrolled the area decades ago, dealing with whatever the land and climate threw at them.

'They were travelling all over the country up here by dogs or by foot,' he said, noting he now has a better appreciation for what they did. 'We thought this was a big trip, but we did it by snowmachine. They were doing it by dog team.'

Their 'quite amazing' welcome home was a surprise, said Lasson.

They'd been told to expect a hot meal of soup and bannock, but they didn't expect the 30 or so people outside clapping them home, or the 40 more people inside the community centre.

Lasson has served in some remote places in northern Manitoba and he's used to snowmobile, boat and airplane patrols, but the treeless terrain and distances covered last week were something new.

'It was my first time out in the open Arctic with no trees. It was nice to come back and see trees,' he chuckled.

Their March 21 departure was a community affair as well, with several people accompanying the group for the first few miles, including 82-year-old Andrew Tizya, sitting in a dog sled driven by David Lord. A half-century ago, Tizya guided RCMP patrols himself.

Auxiliary RCMP constable Danny Kassi and 20-year-old Kibbe Tetlichi rounded out the group.

From Old Crow, the patrollers travelled through several mountains, coming to the top of King Edward Mountain. In front of them they could see the Old Crow Flats, its plain littered with small lakes and bushes. In the flats, they cut wood to burn and for tent poles because they knew it was the last they'd see of trees, said MacKellar.

They spent their first night at Dennis Frost's cabin before heading out to the Timber Creek headwaters, cutting across to the Babbage River. They camped for the second night by the river about six miles north of Trout Lake. High, stormy winds that night kept the group grounded until the gusts subsided and they had better visibility.

Glare ice on the Babbage left their snowmachines and toboggans slipping and spinning on occasion, said Lasson.

They periodically checked the GPS mounted on Lasson's snowmobile to make sure they were still pointed in the right direction as they took detours around rough terrain, small mountains and ice heaves.

There are three things a person needs for a safe trip through such a 'vast, white nothingness,' chuckled MacKellar: 'A (satellite) phone, a GPS and somebody to work the GPS.'

'How they did it long ago, I have no idea. Hill after hill after hill, tussock after tussock .. It's just bump, bump, bump the whole way.

'There's nothing to guide by. The Inuit, how they did it, I don't know.'

From the second camp to Stokes Point on the coast, the group followed the coastline, dodging rough ice and small icebergs to Herschel, arriving at the cabin doorstep at about 6:30 p.m.

The four-room cabin, on loan from the Aklavik hunters and trappers committee, kept the patrollers snug for two nights, giving them bunks instead of cold ground to sleep on.

Driftwood frozen into the ground decorates Herschel, a hilly island devoid of trees or shrubs.

During their day on the island the group visited two NWMP graves.

They also used their satellite phone to call Jim Hickling in Winnipeg and Bill McFarland in Ottawa, two retired RCMP officers who, as young men in their 20s, worked at the Herschel Island detachment in the 1950s.

'Both were very ecstatic, very happy to receive the phone calls just like little kids on the phone,' said MacKellar, noting the retired pair shared some of their stories.

The only other people they saw on the trip was an inspection team flying from Inuvik by helicopter to an oil rig by Herschel Island.

They did see animals though, including about a dozen musk ox just inside the Ivvavik National Park.

Caribou, moose, ptarmigan and a fox with an Arctic hare in its mouth also crossed their path. On the Babbage River, warm springs left a few holes in the ice, letting them see trout beneath the water.

Lots of preparation and good luck with weather led to a relatively comfortable trip. Once they arrived home, blizzards set in, and the only mechanical problems were some blown spark plugs that took Lasson and Kassi an hour to fix.

'If you know where you're going and you know the country, it's no problem,' said Frost, who's been caught out in whiteouts many times over the years. 'I do give the Inuit a lot of credit for their knowledge of this land. It's not an easy terrain to just go and follow in any conditions.'

Frost is no stranger to the remote northern Yukon, as he's guided for years and currently works on a wolverine study in the Old Crow Flats. He worked for an oil exploration company in the Shallow Bay area in the late 1980s, and he's been to Herschel a couple times via helicopter.

It seems more people are using the area, he said.

'It's getting used more and more by people around the world,' said Frost, noting that on Herschel, they found a visitors' log signed by travellers who went from Alaska to Greenland by snowmachine and dog teams.

'People are using the land more. Inuit are using the modern technique of hunting his animals.'

A large metal ship that appeared to be Russian-built dry-docked on Herschel was a strange sight, said Frost. The patrollers used the vessel as a landmark to guide them to the island.

MacKellar said one of the stipulations for this trip was that it not become an annual event. The trail took them through two national parks, and before going they had to submit an environmental impact study as snowmachines aren't normally allowed in the parks.

But long patrols toward McPherson are a possibility, the corporal said.

Both Frost and Lasson noted they'd love to repeat the experience.

'I'd go in a heartbeat,' said Lasson.