Day: 49

Picking Up the Pace

Temperature: -30F

Location: Dubawnt Lake

Latitude: 63deg 22 ’ 4’’ N

Longitude: 101deg 0’ 1 ’’ W

Distance Traveled: 16 Miles

Another day on Dubawnt Lake. We covered 16 miles. We now have very stable February weather, cold, clear, and just a little northwest wind. It is typically 40 below Fahrenheit at night, might warm up to 30-25 below during the day. But it is very stable weather.

We are also gaining about six minutes of sunlight a day. Typically, in the Arctic regions, the sun will start coming back about now, in February. And by mid-March there is literally an explosion of light, where the light increase 12-15 minutes a day. And by the first of April it is back to 24 hours of light. So we’re right on verge here of gaining a lot of light each day. I’m looking at the almanac, and see we’ve gained one hour since we started. In January we were gaining light in the morning, but now it is about three minutes each in the morning and evening. So we are feeling optimistic.

The dogs ran well today. We’re over the hump here with the heavy sled, and the dogs were pulling well. We’ve got a couple more days of travel, and on Friday we take out day off for the educational program.

Things are going really well here. It is late, about 9:30, late for us. We’re in the tent with some candles, which are kind of dim due to the lack of oxygen in the tent. It’s almost time to go to bed. The teapot is on.