The last few days have been pretty crazy. The expedition house has been full of boxes of food and expedition equipment has been bulging out of every corner. Its great to meet the team and they are all obviously very experienced and at times I have felt a bit out of my depth. I’m sure I will pick it up in time for our departure date. It’s quite a skill being patient enough to pack your food rations for the next few months. We pack our snack boxes in 5-day increments, which adds up to 13 bags of food for the whole trip. There is a tight weight allowance so you have to measure out your food carefully.

 

Our snack bags (which is what we eat throughout the day, on the move) consist of:

• 100g Chocolate
• 70g Meat
• 1 Cliff bar
• 1 Cracker bar
• 100g Nuts
• Soup
• 70g Cheese

It’s important to keep eating because you are constantly burning calories to stay warm. If you get hungry you will get cold and that saps all your energy. Which out here is essential. I had a glimpse of that yesterday when we went out to drive the dogs. We were out on the trail out for about 4 hours, but within 5 minutes of leaving I was freezing. It really shocked me. I hadn’t worn nearly enough clothes. I was in my full body suit and outer jacket but had nowhere near enough warmth. Your under layers are essential and I wont make the same mistake again.

We are now finishing packing for the dog sled race. It’s a 6 day round race to the next village and we’ve decided to join as training for the trip. It’s going be good to get out there and iron out problems while we can make some changes. Tomorrow we are expected to travel for twelve hours straight and we have to run along side the sled. No skis allowed. That’s 28 miles in snow. It’s going to be a tough first day.

Looking out tonight I saw the northern lights for the first time. They are truly beautiful. Dancing clouds of colour.

Anyway, till next time keep checking out our progress. I can say without a doubt it’s going to be exciting.

 

Sam

With most of the team here finally, and the expedition coming up quickly, we have been working overtime trying to get everything ready. Food needs to be packed so that in two months when we pull it out of the box, we aren’t missing anything, and gear needs to be tested and readied for the expedition. With all of that we have to do, the dogs still need to be run every day.

 

Time is running short. But every day, when we get out on the ice with the dogs, everything seems worthwhile. Passing kilometer after kilometer in the silence, with the beautiful and surreal landscape stretching out around us, our stresses disappear. Training in Iqaluit is not just getting our body ready for the physical stresses of skiing all day every day, or staying warm in the cold. Training is also getting our minds ready for the solitude that we will find on the ice. Ellesmere Island offers some of the most remote landscapes in the world.

For me, training also involves figuring out what camera equipment I should be taking with me, and how my equipment will handle the cold. I’ve already learned so much about taking pictures in the cold, but in training, I always have a warm place to come home to. Hopefully, we will all be able to learn as we go, and adapt to our environment well enough to get our job done. The pictures from Ellesmere Island will be used to show the world the effects that global warming has on our planet, and because of that the pictures are one of the most important aspects of this trip.

In a couple of days, we will have our best training run yet. We are doing the 6 day race from Iqaluit to Kimmirut and back. We will get to test our gear, our food, and our stamina in another beautiful landscape. For us, the race is about figuring out our systems, and having fun. Winning would be a great bonus though!

Ben

Iqaluit, Nunavut

I have now been in Iqaluit for about a month with Sarah and Eric to train the dogs and to prepare gear and equipment for the expedition. Sarah and Eric have been great teachers and I have tried to my best ability to be an equally good learner. Last week, Ben also joined us up here and by the end of this week the entire team will be gathered here with the exception of Sigrid who is finishing the Iditarod as I write this.

For the rest of our expedition training which lasts until March 28, all of us will contribute to a daily blog about our experiences and development as we get ready for the great trip on Ellesmere.

Since I arrived here in mid February, Sarah, Eric and I have trained the dogs during the daytime and worked on expedition gear and equipment in the evenings. For me who had not ran dogs using the fan system it has been important to get used to this system that varies from the tandem system used in the south or as seen in the Iditarod by Sigrid. The tandem is great in the boreal forests of Norway and Minnesota where it is important that the dogs do not get tangled up in trees or other obstacles. On the sea ice, however, the fan system where each dog has its own line attached to our sleds is great. In the rough ice the dogs running on the fan can avoid dangerous obstacles and if one dog gets its line caught it can easily be released by the dog driver that sits in the front of the sled.

It has been grand to learn the fan system from Eric and Sarah and I am now ready to be the third dog driver on the expedition. My lead dog is named Bylaw and he has already become a great friend. I am looking forward to working with him and the rest of the team for the next three months.

The plan for our training over the next couple of weeks is to continue to run the dogs and pack all our gear and food. It is an enormous task to prepare for a lengthy expedition like this. The highlight of our training will be our participation in Kimmirut Quest 2008 (Qimualaniq Quest) which is a dog race between Iqaluit and the village of Kimmirut about 180 kilometers south of Iqaluit. The expedition team will participate with our three dog teams. The race starts on March 15 and lasts until March 21. We are all looking forward to trying our equipment on the sea ice, through a mountainous plateau and to spend our first of many nights together in the freezing cold of the Arctic winter.



Stay tuned for more updates,



Vennlig Hilsen (Best Regards)



Toby