Day: 162

Plans Set to Come Home

Temperature: 50F

Location: Pond Inlet, Nunavut

Latitude: 72deg 42’ 01’’ N

Longitude: 77deg 58’ 54” W

Distance Traveled: End of Expedition – Pond Inlet

We finally have our departure time and date. We are going to be leaving right around 2:30 p.m. this coming Friday, June 11. There is a charter coming up bringing supplies for a mine that is coming from Churchill, Manitoba. And we will be return with that plane, flying down to Thompson, Manitoba, which is the end of the road. It is about eight hours north of Winnipeg. And so we will be arriving in Thompson I would imagine around midnight on Friday. The plan then is that we are setting up some trucks, probably one rented truck, to pick us up along with the gear and the dogs. And then from there we will head south towards Ely.

So our exodus from the north is underway, and I am pretty excited about the return, and having a time we can count on regarding leaving. It’s been a kind of wait and see week here, but we have finally pulled off the charter. Leaving at 2:30 means we will probably really be leaving about 5 or 6, because the charters take time to load, and they don’t always arrive on time. It’s not like a scheduled flight, but one you just rent out. And what we did was rent out what is called the back-haul, the return part of the charter. Normally, like when the mining company hires a charter, they pay for both legs of the trip. But in this case it has helped them out, and we get a reduced rate. We got a really good price for flying almost 2,000 miles, with almost 5,000 pounds of gear, dogs and people. We are all pretty excited about getting home and seeing everything and everybody.