Day: 118

Navigating the Pack Ice

Temperature: 0F

Location: Committee Bay

Latitude: 67deg 49’ 54’’ N

Longitude: 87deg 36’ 33” W

Distance Traveled: 14 Miles

We are on the pack ice of Committee Bay today. The pack ice is a combination of open ice - called pans - and pressure ridges, which can be up to ten feet high. And then you can get into sheer zones, or rubble ice, which can be a quarter of a mile long. So there are many varieties of ice.

Today we had clear sailing for a while, though we didn’t have the best visibility. But then we got into some rough ice, ice I thought we would never get out of. We got out of it, and had clear sailing again, and then were right back into the bad ice. It seemed like an almost hopeless situation. Pack ice is sometimes almost a metaphor for life. You get into the bad situations and you don’t know how you will get out. You work hard and then get out in the open again. But then you get bogged down again.

I wouldn’t want to see an aerial photo of Committee Bay right now, because seeing it all at once might be overwhelming. And there is no way of telling how to get through this, even if you could see far ahead, because you would have no way of keeping track of your position. But I find pack ice quite fascinating, and some of the members of the team - Aaron and Eric - have never seen pack ice before, and I think they are getting a kick out of it.

It is really a challenge running the dogs through this, and they are running really well. After four months on the trail they are in top shape, and are delivering 100%. They are very enthusiastic, and very excited. It really helps to have a strong team of dogs like this. But it can be very dangerous. They dogs are pulling the lines out front, and a lot of times there are cracks where the sled can tip, and if you are not careful it can roll over on you. So you have to be alert, and always on your toes, ready to jump out of the way.

We didn’t travel as far as we wanted to today, and I think we will have three more days on the pack ice. But we’ve had pretty good weather. It was cloudy today, but cleared off around 4 p.m. We could see the open water to the north, as the clouds above the water cast a dark shadow.

The area we are in is quite stable, and where we are actually camped this evening is called old ice, which is ice that has been around for a year or two. And we chop up the ice for water and the salt leeches out of it, making for very clean, good tasting water. Young ice is very flat, makes for easy travel, but you don’t want to camp on it on a place like the Arctic Ocean, because there is a lot of pressure, and the ice can break up if a wind comes up.