Day: 114

It's a Heart Attack Special Day

Temperature: -10F

Location: Simpson Peninsula

Latitude: 67deg 59’ 22’’ N

Longitude: 88deg 37’ 45 ” W

Distance Traveled: 25 Miles

We are crossing what is called the Simson Peninsula, which separates Pelly Bay from Committee Bay. The latter is a very large bay, about 45 miles wide, which we are going to have to cross in a few days.

Today, we had crummy weather in the morning. Yesterday was very good weather, which actually set up a lot of fog. There is a lot of open water to the north of us, in the Gulf of Boothia. And generally when you get a warm day, this sets up a few days of very foggy weather. So we had a lot of fog and overcast skies in the morning.

But then a new front came in from the northwest, and some cold weather came down. This blew away the clouds, and it cleared up pretty nicely. The wind was at at back. And then, to the east, we could see low cumulus clouds. This is a sign on open water. You can tell open water when it is clear like this because it will have moisture above it. And that is Committee Bay. We are going to have to go a little south of Committee Bay to get around this large expanse of open water.

But is has been a good day of traveling. 25 miles, and the dogs are running well. The wind picked up, but this was actually good for us, because we had a lot of standing snow on the surface, and the wind blew that into drifts and packed it somewhat hard. And the travel was fast, especially toward the end of the day, thanks to that wind.

Due to the cold weather today I made my Heart Attack Special, for which I am famous. It is bacon fried in a quarter pound of butter, added as a topping to noodles or rice. This extra grease helps keep us warm. But it really isn’t that bad outside, probably ten degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and will probably get down to 25 below tonight. But we are pretty acclimatized to the weather, so this is nothing to us at this point.

It is light in the tent again at 9:30 at night. The sun just set, and we will have a long twilight. It gets kind of dark around 11:30, but then the sun will come up again around 2:30.