Day: 66

Planning for Pelly

Location: Baker Lake

The weather moderated, I think it is about 35 below. It will probably drop to about 45 below tonight, but it is clear.

We had another busy day, we gave a couple of presentations. We did one for the grade school, and then another for the high school. We sent up a tent and kind of a miniature camp, along with a couple of dogs, and also do a power point presentation. In the grade school we got a standing ovation before we even did anything, which is a sign of a successful presentation!

I’ve been making a few more calls up to our next destination of Pelly Bay, which is probably 450 dogsled miles to the north. We will be doing a route that, as far as I can figure, no one has crossed. We will be going over some pretty high hills, and by just calling around Pelly using the Yellow Pages - English is not their first language - I connected with a man by the name of Letrik, a fellow who works at the co-op there. Tonight we got together again over the phone to go over maps, and he gave me some GPS coordinates of a route to get us through some passes along the way, and he also confirmed that the rivers up there are totally frozen. I was worried about open water and getting caught in some of these valleys, but the rivers are totally frozen, which is very good for us. He also gave me some shortcuts and ways around waterfalls up there. So he was a very good contact for me today.

I also gave him my website info. People do follow the website quite closely up here, they are very into the route and the coordinates, and every day they check in and get the dispatch and the satellite GPS coordinates. They are all very fluent in GPS, everyone uses it up here, and latitude and longitude is kind of a way of life when you live on the land.

So it was very uplifting talking with Letrik, and he is making some advance contacts for us in Pelly. This way people know we are coming, and already make friends in advance. So I give my regards to everyone up in Pelly, and we are really looking forward to meeting the town. We will be up there in about four weeks, but will keep touch via the website, and I will also be calling Letrik in about two weeks again.