Coordinates: 66.18.922 N, 65.32.032 W
Distance Traveled: 19.26 mi / 30.99km
Temperature: -16 °F/ -27 °C
Wind: 3 MPH / 4.82 KPH
Cloud Cover: Mostly sunny with high cirrus clouds moving in by late afternoon.

A small crowd of community members came down to the ice to see us off this afternoon. We lashed our sleds and hooked up our dogs with a few butterflies in our stomachs. Our dogs were well rested and excited to pull after a week's rest. Between us and the flat, open ice of the Pangnirtung Fiord was 100 meters of jumbled barrier ice, the broken ice that lines the shore, pushed up by tides and wind. We knew our dogs would pull with a great deal of strength and that the sleds would be careening in a somewhat out-of-control way, bouncing like a pinball off the mounds of ice.

I was mushing with Stetson in the first sled. We were both hanging on with all our strength and dragging our feet to try to slow the sled down. Finally we emerged from the barrier ice onto the flat ice of the sound. I let out a sigh of relief and said to Stetson, "Well, that wasn't so bad!"

Coordinates: 66.36.799N, 65.13.563 (just on the southern tip of Summit Lake)
Distance Traveled: 9.32 mi/ 14.9 km
Temperature: -10 °F/ -23 °C
Cloud Cover: Cloudy
Barometric Pressure: 985 hPa
Sunrise: 6:23 a.m.
Sunset: 6:37 p.m.

Yesterday there was no hope of sending out a text and photo dispatch. Winds were gusting up to 70 miles per hour. It was impossible to walk outside without being blown down the glare ice of the river. Our tents were shredding, cords breaking, tent poles snapping and blowing sand and snow was finding its way into every nook and cranny. On my watch, the graph of the barometric pressure plummeted for twenty-seven straight hours, indicating a storm of great intensity.

Coordinates: 67.00.571 N, 64.39.964 W
Distance Traveled: 13 mi/ 20.9 km
Wind: 5 MPH / 8 KPH
Barometric Pressure: 1048 hPa
Cloud Cover: Clear with a couple of lenticular clouds and alto cirrus clouds in late afternoon
Sunrise: 6:12 a.m.
Sunset: 6:41 p.m.

 

I was cutting ice chunks with an axe to weigh down the snow flaps on our tent when I looked up to see Simon cutting large snow blocks out of a snowdrift with a saw. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Building an igloo."

Coordinates: 70.26.000 N, 68.37.00 W
Distance Traveled: 23 mi / 37 km
Temperature: 3 °F / -16 °C
Wind: 2 MPH / 3 KPH
Barometric Pressure: 1051 hPa
Cloud Cover: Clear
Sunrise: 3:34 a.m.
Sunset: 9:40 p.m.

Loading the sleds with full rations, hooking up the four dog teams for the first time in two weeks and mushing out of a village in front of hundreds of spectators provides lots of opportunities for adventure. The sea ice in front of Clyde River was much more flat and smooth than it had been near the shore of any of our previous community stops. Partly this lack of jumbled ice is due to minimal tides in Clyde River, contrasted with dramatic tidal fluctuations in Iqaluit and other villages further south. We all guessed that our departure from Clyde River would be less chaotic without the jumbled ice barrier to negotiate. Before getting too confident, however, we all tried to remind ourselves that anytime dogs are involved the potential for some chaos exists.

Location: Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut

Today Simon pointed out lemming tracks to me in the snow. Other than the polar bear tracks we saw just after crossing the Akshayuk Pass in Auyuittuq National Park, these were the first tracks I had seen since we started climbing over the waterfalls.

The upper reaches of the pass were wind-scoured and almost completely free of snow. Without the snow for shelter, there seemed to be very little margin for life. The low temperatures and the high winds made dangerously low wind chills, even for furry rodents. At the lower elevations near the village of Qikiqtarjuaq and in the lee of some mountains where snow could collect, life seems to be more present.

Lemmings are three to six inch long rodents that stay active all year long. Lemmings are food for Arctic animals like fox, snowy owls, weasels, ermines and skuas.

Coordinates: 69.31.110 N, 72.29.211 W
Distance Traveled: 25.92 mi / 41.7 km
Temperature: 7 °F / -14 °C
Wind: 10 MPH / 6 KPH
Barometric Pressure: 1015 hPa
Cloud Cover: Clear skies
Sunrise: 3:35 a.m.
Sunset: 10:04 p.m.

Today we achieved one of our expedition goals: to cross over the Barnes Ice Cap, a remnant of the last glacial period. Theo was the first to point out the ice cap in the distance. At first it was barely distinguishable from the snow-covered hills in front of it. The most noticeable difference was that it seemed smoother and more uniform. As we drew closer, however, the magnitude of the ice cap became more clear to us.

Coordinates: 69.41.118 N, 74.07.384 W
Distance Traveled: 18.42 mi / 29.64 km
Temperature: 13 °F / -10 °C
Wind: 0 MPH / 0 KPH
Cloud Cover: Full sun

Simon calmly turned around to me and said, "They should not be out there. They are going to sink." I looked behind me to see Stetson and Ed Viesturs mushing out onto the lake we had just reached. Simon and Lukie's sleds had been the first to arrive at the lake and the two men had cautiously ventured out onto the ice to check it with their harpoons. They returned with an ominous look on their faces that said we would be skirting the edge of the lake instead of crossing it. The past six days of full sun and temperatures hovering just below freezing had taken its toll on the ice and remaining snow.

Just now, however, the word about the thin ice hadn't reached back to Stetson's sled. I turned around and motioned to them with my arms that they should get closer to shore. Stetson called "Haw Haw!" to his lead dogs and Whisper and Jones responded immediately turning the team towards shore and bringing Stetson and Ed to safer ice.

Simon and I continued on the ice, hugging the shore. The shrinking snow-cover on the land had exposed lots of sharp rocks that would damage the soft plastic shoes on Simon's runners if he mushed over the tops of them, so he decided to stay on the ice, but stay close enough to the shore to be safe.

On and off through the day it snowed. I enjoyed watching the quality of the snowflakes change over the course of the day. When it was warm and very calm, the flakes were large and fluffy, almost like the white cottony seeds that blow from a dandelion. When the weather warmed up a bit and the wind began to blow, the snow fell in heavier sleety drops that were almost rain and melted as soon as they hit our jackets and tent rainflies. I remember earlier in the expedition when it was colder and the flakes were much smaller and with a less intricate crystalline structure.

I have often heard it said that Inuit people have hundreds of Inuktitut words for snow. I have asked many Inuit people if this is true and some will laugh and say, "Perhaps not hundreds...but very very many." One thing is certain - slight changes in the wind, humidity and temperature can produce very different kinds of snow.

Coordinates: 69.51.114 N, 78.11.071 W
Distance Traveled: 34.16 mi / 54.98 km
Temperature: 3 °F / -16 °C
Wind: 10 MPH / 6 KPH
Barometric Pressure: 1059 hPa
Cloud Cover: Clear skies
Sunrise: 3:17 a.m.
Sunset: 11:07p.m.

Have you ever taken a nap sprawled out on top of a moving dogsled? I did today as I rode with Lukie. Lukie prefers that his dog-teaming companions ride instead of ski, and I was happy to take a break from skiing. 

The one downside of riding instead of skiing is that it is easy to get cold. When I'm skiing I often stay comfortably warm in just a few light layers, even on the coldest of days. My goal when skiing is to not break a sweat. To do this, I shed layers just before I start to overheat. Then when we stop for a snack break, I don my big coat to keep warm until we start moving again.

Coordinates: 69.44.011 N, 80.47.748 W
Distance Traveled: 33.81 mi / 54.41 km
Weather: Temp 12°F / -11°C, Wind 5 MPH / 3 KPH
Barometric Pressure: 1049 hPa
Cloud cover: Clear
Sunrise: 3:17 a.m.
Sunset: 11:28 p.m.

There can be no fashion consciousness when your skin is burning. Ever since we left Clyde River, the sun has been relentless. It rises well before we wake and doesn't set until we are fast asleep. It reflects off all the white snow and ice and burns even the undersides of our noses and under our chins.

Each one of us has his or her own methods for trying to protect our skin. Stetson, Abby and I slather on the zinc oxide sunblock and don baseball caps and bandanas. We joke that with the thick white paste on our faces we look a bit like geishas or clowns. One day when my zinc layer was especially thick, Stetson asked if I was trying to scare away the polar bears.

Will covers up with his hood and a leather "beak" that attaches to the bridge of his sunglasses and covers his nose and cheeks. The famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner gave the beak to Will when they were both preparing for expeditions in Antarctica in 1990.