Day: 50

Leaving Dubawnt Lake

Temperature: -40F

Location: East End Dubawnt Lake

Latitude: 63deg 31 ’ 16’’ N

Longitude: 100deg 45’ 4 ’’ W

Distance Traveled: 16 Miles

This will be our last day on Dubawnt Lake. We covered about 16 miles on the north end of the lake today. It’s been a very cold day, 40 below Fahrenheit, as usual, when we got out of the tent this morning. The wind picked up against us from the northwest. Not a really strong wind, but enough to make it cold. At one point I had to take the GPS out of my clothing to get a reading and my hands really froze up. It was a little wake up call of just how severely cold it is in these areas. For the most part, we are comfortable, because we are always moving and dress properly.

Tomorrow we are going to be going down the Dubawnt River, which should be interesting. We can see open water in the distance, about five miles away. You can tell the open water, because it steams. And on a clear day like today, the sun reflects off the open water, which reflects back into the steam, reflecting the dark color of the water. So the steam is a blackish, kind of ominous color.

I could see this thin layer of steam to the northwest, and you have to kind of know what it looks like in order to see it. That way we were able to tell where the river is. This could mean a couple of things. It might mean the whole river is open, or it could be just a few small holes that steam up like that. Sometimes just an open hole on a river can pump out quite a bit of steam.

We will be traveling tomorrow as usual, and then take Friday off for the education report. We are sitting in the tent right now, having a dinner of spaghetti. Tiring a little of the food. The frost level is very high in the tent, which means it is a bitter cold day out there. It is probably about 40-45 below Fahrenheit now. We really frosted up today. Our face masks and fur ruffs were really frosted, which is the sign of a good wind chill.

But we are staying very comfortable here. We should be in Baker Lake we figure in another 10-12 days of travel.