Day: 132

Inuit Hunters Stop for Visit

Temperature: 28F

Location: Melville Peninsula

Latitude: 68deg 21’ 40’’ N

Longitude: 82deg 46’ 21” W

Distance Traveled: 20 Miles

Another day of cloudy weather, though it cleared up later in the day. We are still in deep snow and it is very warm, got up to about 27-28 degrees. The ultraviolet rays from the sun are very intense.

Around midday we ran into a hunting party, three Inuit on snowmobiles. They are from Iglulik, and were looking for caribou. We talked about routes to various villages after Iglulik, as we are trying to decide which direction to go.

They mentioned they have a hockey tournament in the village of Clyde River, which is 400 miles from Iglulik, and everyone travels by snowmobile. And Iglulik won the title from Clyde River. So we found out that there is a trail from Iglulik to Clyde River.

We are traveling a little slower than we want to be because of the deep snow. Even with the trail here the snow is very soft, nothing packed. The clouds were also higher today than they have been for almost a week, so we did have some sunshine at the end of the day. It looked like it was going to clear off, the barometer is high, and we thought it would cool off tonight, but it is still pretty warm.

I am not a very good judge of temperature, because everything seems so balmy right now, but it is probably about 20 degrees outside right now (but it feels like 50 degrees).

We are a little short of food, nothing serious. I made my Heart Attack Special and we put that over pasta. We have plenty of pasta and rice, so we are not doing that bad. But we are skimping and trying to extend the food, especially the protein. We will probably have fresh caribou soon, when the hunters come back.

We are planning to be in Iglulik on Friday, and plan on being in the next village on Wednesday.