Day: 2

Five Hours of Daylight

Temperature: -35F

Location: Great Slave Lake, NWT

Latitude: 62deg, 13min, 3sec North

Longitude: 114deg, 15min, 3sec West

This is Day 2, real clear and cold today. We had our first day of total clear skies, and we got our first fix on the exact sunrise and sunset. The sun rose at exactly at 10:28 and set at 3:33, which gives us about five hours of straight daylight. We had about an hour and a half of twilight on either end. With clear skies we get a lot of twilight, but when it is cloudy there is very little. We’re on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, and looking south across the lake is like looking across a vast ocean. We’re surrounded by Canadian high pressure, which is a breeding ground for the real cold air. This air originates about a thousand miles from here in the Mackenzie Valley, and this is the cold air that flows towards the Unites States, actually as far south as Florida, and sometimes in January it freezes the orange blossoms. Typically it produces a very clear, silent, deep cold, and tonight we will probably have about 35 degrees below zero, but very calm.

We’re on the eastern edge of this high pressure as we move into The Barrens. In another three weeks we will be in another weather system, a lot stormier, windier, cloudier weather. Right now we are bathing in this nice calm, cold weather. The cold is actually quite relevant, when it is 20 to 30 below with no wind it is actually quite pleasant, but when it’s windy it is another story. At 3:20 the wind set yellow, and there was no atmosphere at all, it just dropped off the limn of the earth to the south across Great Slave Lake. Of course, you can’t see the opposite shore line, it’s about 100 miles away. At the same time, the moon was rising on the opposite side, and the purple light of the earth’s shadow is quite spectacular. And with the combination of the sky and the lake the earth looks completely flat, almost like a dime.

The high pressure cold air is really exhilarating, your step is much faster, and it’s actually hard to go in the tent in the evening. We were out doing chores into the dark, organizing our gear. The dogs are running well, but are very tired at the end of the day, and I think they are thankful for the short day. We run about four and a half hours, or a little less, and also take a lunch break and rest the dogs. But it will take a little while for the dogs to get in shape. We’re also thankful for the short days, and we’re a little sore here as well.