Day: 38

Resupply Today

Location: Thelon River Valley

Latitude: 63deg 4' 33'' N

Longitude: 104deg 14' 40'' W

Distance Traveled: Day-Off, 0 Miles

This is our day off, day of the resupply. I made radio contact with the Twin Otter. The Twin Otter is a turbo prop plane on skis, and is the workhorse of the Arctic. We use these planes to carry up to about 3,000 pounds. We’ve used them in the Arctic Ocean, the North Pole, on the Greenland icecap and also in Antarctica. They are the basic workhorse of the Arctic, a very dependable plane. They have a range of about 1,000 miles.

This one came in from Yellowknife, carrying about 1,200 pounds of dog food, about 800 pounds of people food, fuel and a little bit of equipment. It was a pretty exciting time. For me it was a relief. I’ve been working on getting this resupply in place, first of all getting the expedition in the right position here on the other side of the Thelon River, which we made mainly because we had really great weather. We made some amazing miles the last 5-6 days, so we got out of the snow and up into the highlands where we wanted to be when this resupply came in.

The supply came in on schedule, about 2 o’clock. I have a small HF radio, and contacted the pilot about ten minutes before he came in. It was quite a thrill for all the team members seeing the plane come in. It was our first resupply by Twin Otter, and being out in this remote location puts it in perspective. Especially when the pilots came out, they were very impressed with the professionalism of our gear, the dogs, the way the camp was setup. These guys fly a lot in the north, and they know distances quite well. And they know there is no other person within a couple of hundred of miles of us.

The pilots were really nice people, and we talked with them for a while. We unloaded the gear, and after about an hour and a half the Twin Otter took off. Very fortunately, we had pretty good weather. It was clear, a little windy, and warmed up considerably during the day. It was zero degrees, which is an absolute heat wave for us. A perfect day for the resupply.

We’re going to take one more day off tomorrow, to rest the dogs up. We have extra food now for the dogs for the next 5-6 days, so we’re going to really fatten them up. We’re in very good standing here. It’s probably about 320 miles to our next destination, Baker Lake, where we are hoping to arrive by the end of February.