Day: 133

Snowball Weather

Temperature: 33F

Location: Fox Basin

Latitude: 68deg 31’ 17’’ N

Longitude: 82deg 00’ 48” W

Distance Traveled: 20 Miles

This is the warmest day we have had in 133 days. We were able to make a snowball today. The first couple inches of the snow thawed out, and the sun was very strong, there was not a cloud in the sky. It was very windy, from the northwest, probably about 30 mph.

We left the Melville Peninsula, and are now out on the Fox basin. The Fox basin is the northwest region of the Hudson Bay area. We are back on the sea ice, though we are camped on an island right now. But we are back to having our guns in the vestibules in case of polar bears.

We ran into a couple of hunting parties over the past couple of days, hunting for caribou. One party, that we passed yesterday, got 13 caribou. As we get closer to Iglulik we are seeing more and more hunting parties. They pull large sleds on snowmobiles, probably twice the size of our sleds. They almost look like covered wagons. The snowmobiles are usually four cycles, which means they are very quiet. They will stop, and there is usually a family in the “covered” wagon, so one person will pop out, then another, then another. Some of these have six or seven people riding in them.

We ran into one family today that had stopped at our camp. They had traveled 200 miles today. As they took off again one of the little kids fell out of the sled, and we were yelling at them to stop. It was kind of a funny scene. The mother was very worried, yelling at the old man to stop the snowmobile. They stopped, and the seven year old kid ran up, dressed in caribou clothing. He hopped into the covered wagon and they were off again.

We should be at Hull Beach around 5:30 tomorrow. And I know we will be Iglulik on Friday afternoon. We are expecting Hugh’s wife and his daughter Wynn, as well as Aaron’s wife Cassie. So if the relatives are listening, we are on target to arrive on time.

We have really nice, clear weather for a change, but it is very windy. The tent is flapping, and it is very good sleeping weather. I sleep better in this windy weather than I do in calm weather. I’m cooking dinner here, and we are having the last of out protein. I think we have about three ounces of cheese left. We got a sauce and then put some bread in it. The bread serves a psychological purpose, making you think it is more full-bodied than it really is. But it still tastes good, and we’ve got plenty of starch.