Day: 164

Greet the Team at MSP Airport

Temperature: 55F

Location: Pond Inlet, Nunavut

Latitude: 72deg 42’ 01’’ N

Longitude: 77deg 58’ 54” W

Distance Traveled: 0 Miles – Pond Inlet

We are getting ready to leave Pond Inlet. The plane was scheduled to leave at 2:30, but it will be more like 5 or 6. Usually the charter is usually later than scheduled, especially the return flight, or “back haul.” I’ve been sleeping on the ice for the last week here, since we arrived. Hugh has been sleeping in the community, staying with one of the families. The other four team members are at the bed and breakfast.

I normally would stay in the community, with the people, but I decided that I wanted to spend my last days with the dogs. It’s been very beautiful on the ice. Mornings especially, have been very clear and cool, kind of a fresh, crisp air. A lot of wildlife, birds, all sorts of sea gulls. I’ve also been living on the ice with a community of dogs. All the dogs from the community are staked out down there, as well as the 31 of our own. So there are probably 100 dogs on the ice, and it is kind of nice being in that community. There is a structure of howling back and forth, and it gets pretty active from 10 at night until about one in the morning. About 2 a.m. things kind of quite down, and the town slows down. And from about 3 to 8 or 9 in the morning it is really quiet. And then the birds come flying in around that time of morning, the ravens always check out the camp, the dog food. At first, when the ravens came in, they kind of took our dogs by surprise, and our dogs were very, very upset the first couple of days. They were giving alarm barks and everything at the ravens. But then they finally realized that with ravens you can’t really win, you just have to give in. And any food that is out loose will just get picked up by the ravens.

They kind of pick the place clean at around 5:30 in the morning, and then the sea gulls come in to kind of check things over. So that’s life on the ice. I’m going to miss sleeping outdoors, it’s been about 165 days now. We will be flying out today, heading down to Thompson, Manitoba. You should know that my website will be off the PolarHusky site in about ten days, so if you want to access my site, just go straight to willsteger.com.

And once last thing: We are flying in Tuesday, and if anyone in the Twin Cities area wants to meet us. We will be on a flight from Hibbing to Minneapolis, which arrives at 12:16. The flight number is Northwest 3187. And if anyone wants to come and say hello to us, we will be at the baggage claim, probably coming out around 12:30-12:45. And hopefully there will be some press to greet us, and our families will be there.