Day: 131

Happy Mother's Day

Temperature: 30F

Location: Melville Peninsula

Latitude: 68deg 09’ 23’’ N

Longitude: 83deg 13’ 45” W

Distance Traveled: 20 Miles

It is Mother’s Day, and I would like to wish my mom a happy Mother’s Day. I come from a very large family, nine kids total, six boys and three girls. Five of my brothers and sisters and their kids will be getting together with my mother, and this is the only day of the expedition that I wish I was home for the get-together, and I miss my mother quite a bit. She will be 85 on Thursday, May 13th, and I have a lot to thank my parents for. Both of my parents, Bill and Margaret, gave me the freedom at a very young age to explore, and that is how I ended up doing what I am now. One reason I am a happy person is because I had this freedom. And I came from a family with great love, and Mother’s Day is always a special day for me. It is also a sad day, because much of the time in the spring I am traveling and have to miss it.

Today was another foggy, warm day, it got up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. We couldn’t see much, though it cleared a little bit in the evening. It is quite boring for all of us, including the dogs. We are stuck in pretty deep snow. Paul did his measurements for NASA, and the snow is 7 feet deep where we are camped, and that is a lot of snow for the Arctic. We are also in a snow shadow, between the Gulf of Boothia and Hudson Bay. So you can expect to get a lot of snow in this area, due to the latent heat in the water, especially this time of the year. We normally get about 2-3 inches of snow in the morning, but we have been getting an extra inch or two lately.

We are five days away from Iglulik, going a little slower than anticipated, but we will still be there on Friday, unless we get a storm.