Day: 46

Entering Dubawnt Lake

Temperature: -38F

Location: Barrens/Dubawnt Lake

Latitude: 63deg 7’ 17’’ N

Longitude: 102deg 4’ 02’’ W

Distance Traveled: 10 Miles

We were able to travel today. The wind broke last night around midnight, and the storm slowed down. The wind was about 10-15 mph when we got out of the tent this morning, about 38 below. Extremely cold in the morning. There were large drifts around the tent and sleds. In fact, our tent was really drifted in, so we didn’t get a lot of air in. As a result, our candles began going out in the morning. This is a sign that there wasn’t enough oxygen coming in, due to the fact that the entire backside of the tent was drifted in.

It took us about an hour to dig everything out. The snow was more hard pack than the last storm. We got going around ten o’clock, after a two hour dig out and organizing everything.

It was really a tough day of travel. Heavy sleds and really large snow drifts. It seemed like we were stopping every other minute. It was a really long day, and we only covered ten miles. But we are now on the shoreline of a very large lake called Dubawnt, the largest Barrenland lake. And we’ll be on this lake for at least a couple of days. We’ve got about 50 miles of travel, but the going should be good.

It’s cold again tonight, 40 below. The walls of the tent are totally frosted up. It’s clear outside, beautiful northern lights to the south. I was just outside a couple of minutes ago, the stars are out. Sirus, the dog star, is rising, Venus is in the west. It is a beautiful even, but boy it is really cold. The wind has picked up a little tonight, but it looks like it’s going to be a good day tomorrow.