Arctic Voice

Lots of rain but team head towards Cambridge Bay

August 23rd, 2008

The team are having difficulty sending blog entries but Stephen sent a few comments below about the latest situation, also Julie has been able to join them and is now travelling with the team:

August 17th 2008

Our position is 68 01 98N 107 40 26 W. 4 miles Southwest of Cape Croker at the entrance to Melville Sound. We are now beginning to track east across the underside of the Kent Peninsula. We’ve travelled 328 miles and have approximately 90 miles to go!

We had rough seas yesterday but as we were travelling in sheltered waters the waves were only about 2 feet. However had we been in the open sea they would have had to come off the water. We are making slower progress than we expected but hope to be at the portage point in 6/7 days. We hope to arrive in Cambridge Bay around 25th/26th August but that is dependent on the weather and the portage.

We are expecting to see some very interesting coastline coming up in the next few days - around the area called Kuururjuaq. Steep vertical rocky cliffs.

Yesterday we saw Bearded Seals and Wolverine and have seen the odd Caribou and just the one Bear!!! However we have seen significantly less wild life of any kind compared to last year -very few birds.

We arrived for the second time at the settlement at Bay Chimo very tired and wet and were welcomed into a local resident’s home with hot tea bannock and Caribou. We were given a lovely hospitable welcome and were invited to stay for the night in the warm and dry.

August 11th 2008

We are approximately 30 miles south of Bay Chimo. There’s been lots of rain and a thunder storm. We had our first encounter with a bear. We had just beached and saw a young bear. I fired a warning shot but it continued - another warning it continued ! another and it kept on ambling towards us but Glenn got a bit closer to it and we think it smelt his scent and turned tail.

Posted in expedition - phase two | No Comments »

Team make good progress; arrive in Umingmaktok

August 3rd, 2008

Download link

Hello this is Glenn on 1st August. Our position is 57 degrees, 41 minutes, 42 seconds north, 110 degrees, 56 minutes, 30 seconds west. We are actually camped in the little settlement of Umingmaktok which is near the top eastern end of the Bathurst Inlet. We’ve travelled across the top of Bathurst Inlet and we’ve had a very successful time travelling across there. We’ve had a few big open crossings but the weather held and we were able to get across without any sort of drama. So that was pretty good, they’ve been pretty long days though. The wind today is quite strong, it’s a strong southerly wind which is in our favour but it is bit choppy, so we’re waiting for things to calm down now before we put to sea again.

Everything is going to plan – we’ve obviously have had to look at our food situation because we’ve got to try and make it to Cambridge Bay on rations that we had that were going to allow us to go south into Bathurst but I think as things stand it seems to be panning out okay. We’ve had some wonderful sunsets because we’ve been paddling late into the night and the scenery is absolutely stunning up here. It’s still very reminiscent of western Greenland but very, very beautiful scenery; huge big orange granite rock structures and big blocky cliffs—the whole thing is very nice.

The people of Umingmaktok have been very very welcoming and at the moment they’re allowing us to charge up some batteries so that’s good news particularly in view of the Sat phone which is what we’re using at the moment. Anyway, love to everybody – tomorrow or possibly later today all all being well we’re going to head northeast into Melville Sound which is south of the Kent Peninsula and then up though Warrender Bay up into Elu Inlet which we should reach in about 10 days’ time all being well. And then we have to make portage across land and carry our equipment ourselves to get into the Queen Maud Gulf itself.

Posted in expedition - phase two | No Comments »

Team decide on new route

August 2nd, 2008

Download link

Hi this is Glenn (on 27th July) with our update for the blog. Our position is 67 degrees 56 minutes 45 seconds north, 110 degrees 24 minutes 28 seconds west. We’re about 6 miles southwest of Cape Barrow and that of course is east of Kugluktuk, our point of departure. We’ve had a number of days tent bound, we’re getting very sort of fickle weather - sometimes it’s quite still and the wind seems to vary from day to day and sometimes in fact within a day. This morning as I look out from my tent I’m looking at very picturesque scenery reminiscent of western Greenland. It’s a beautiful spot but the wind unfortunately as I look out at the sea is going from right to left which is bad news for us. As I mentioned, the scene is very much like Greenland, it really is very beautiful. We’ve been paddling through these red rocky islands — it’s much more forgiving than last year, it’s not quite as barren I would say — very pretty. A few days ago we had a lunch stop and as I pulled out onto the beach I was faced by a wolf just staring at me. Steve unfortunately didn’t see it as he was a bit too low down but Alison saw it. We just looked at each other for a few seconds and then it turned tail and went off and disappeared into the landscape — it was quite an amazing experience seeing a wolf.

We’ve had some sad news that Julie’s mother has been taken seriously ill, and she now won’t be able to join us. So our dilemma now is how do we cope with the rest of the journey because we’re not going to get a resupply and all our logistics hinged around travelling down to Bathurst Inlet. We’ve thought this through and our plan now is to travel on to Cambridge Bay which was the original destination and we will take a slightly different route — not travel down to Bathurst but we’ll probably call into a small settlement on the way called Baychimo and there may or may not be anyone there. Our problem really is going to be rations and we are short on rations for that of the journey to the point that we’ve got enough if all is well If we’re stuck for days and days then we could run short but no doubt we’ll win through one way or another. We’ll just have to go on a bit of a diet!

There’s a lot of ice around — yesterday we had to pick our way through masses of pack ice and as I look out I can see ice flowing by. So we’re in an area that is still congested with ice but it’s fairly broken and we can get through it. It just makes life a little more awkward. Anyway love to every body at home and hello to everybody reading this.

(Note from Pippa: Alison has a blog too which shows the team’s location, take a look at: http://alisonsigethy.typepad.com/)

Posted in expedition - phase two | No Comments »

Team leave Kugluktuk on kayaking journey

July 23rd, 2008

Download link

Hello this is Glenn with the first Arctic Voice blog entry of 2008. We left Kugluktuk about four days ago after a flurry of preparations. We had a lot to do with getting food ready and provisioning for the expedition. We’re now after a few days of travel about 50 miles east of Kugluktuk. Our position is 67 degrees 40 minutes 49 seconds North, 112 degrees 55 minutes 05 seconds west. We’re camping on the mainland next to a little island. The winds have been very variable; we’ve had some quite cold winds and some very hot southerly winds – unusually hot.

The seas have been good – we’ve had a slight chop here and there but generally speaking the conditions have been good. We’re quite tired today because every day we’ve had it’s been like paddling across the English Channel in terms of distance and it’s quite tiring, but we’re bedding in quite well. A few days ago Alison had a tough day because she took some dairy produce amongst the mashed potato that we’re eating so we’re being a bit more vigilant with the diet. And yesterday I had a pretty tough day as I think I picked up a virus that was going around in Kugluktuk, but on the whole we’re going well.

We’ve heard there have been a lot of wolves here in Kugluktuk. We didn’t see them ourselves, but we have seen seals. We’ve also heard that there’s been a woodpecker at Baker Lake which apparently is extremely unusual and may be another illustration that animals are moving further north. The temperature changes have been quite dramatic – I’ve mentioned the wind – the southerly wind makes it very hot and then you can turn towards a northeasterly and be very cold. There’s quite a lot more fish in this part of the Arctic as we’re going east and we’ve met a lot of fishermen out on the waves, some of them with their grandchildren – the Inuit elders with their grandchildren. Some of them recognise us from last year when we talked to the schools. Anyway, we’ll be back with another update in a few days about how we’re getting on. Love to everyone back home.

Posted in expedition - phase two | No Comments »

PHASE TWO: Summer kayaking journey 2008

July 11th, 2008

The Arctic Voice expedition team are gathering in Kugluktuk to begin the second phase of the expedition. In August 2007 Stephen Doughty and I completed the first 900 mile phase of the expedition which took us from Inuvik in the Canadian North West Territories to Kugluktuk in Nunavut. The journey was very eventful as you can see from last year’s blog. As well as fending off bear attacks and getting stuck in ice, we learned an enormous amount about the people of the Canadian Arctic and the changes they are experiencing because of climate change. We were privileged to meet so many interesting, kind and welcoming people during our journey.

Stephen and I, together with our new American team member, Alison Sigethy, are preparing to undertake Phase 2 of the expedition. This will take us 600 miles east from Kugluktuk to Cambridge Bay through one of the most remote places on Earth. We also hope to visit Gjoa Haven to visit two of our link schools. As last year, we aim to visit schools along the route in the hope that we can further the links between the Arctic schools and those in the UK.

We also hope to continue our research into how climate change is affecting the people and environment along the Northwest Passage. Change is happening fast – ironically in 2007 — the Passage became ice free for the first time in living history. During last year’s journey the people we met told us of diminishing and thinning ice, changing migration patterns, hotter summers, milder winters and the appearance of unexpected plants and insects to mention but a few changes. Through the Expedition and the Educational Project I hope to do what I can to tell the story of the Inuit and to make people aware of how they can make a difference in their own lives.

Glenn Morris, Arctic Voice Project Leader

Posted in expedition - phase two | No Comments »

Extreme weather in Kugluktuk as team depart

September 4th, 2007

Hi, this is Glenn and this is the Arctic Voice expedition report on the 26th August. This will probably be our last report before we get back to the UK. We just really wanted to check in with everyone and let everyone know obviously we’re still well. We’ve received fantastic hospitality while we’ve been up here in the North it seems everywhere we’ve been we’ve been well received and the people have been wonderful. Interestingly on some of the issues that the expedition is concerned about — while we’ve been here the town of Kugluktuk has had extremely heavy rain, in fact they had six inches in one day, and the elders have told us that they’ve never experienced anything like that in their entire lives. No one remembers so much rain. So much so that parts of the road got washed away. It’s more than they would have in a year and it all happened in one day while we were here. So yet another aspect of the weather patterns that are changing up here.

An interesting thing that we’ve found up here is that the elders used to be able to predict the weather quite accurately. Sometimes this was done by smell and they would be able to sense if the air was coming from the south – it would smell of leaves and flowers – and from the north it would smell of the sea and so on and so forth. This allowed them very accurately to predict the weather. But what we’ve heard from them now is that those smells are masked by the smells of burnt fuel and all the other aviation smells and so on so they can no longer do that. They’ve also told us that the weather is plain unpredictable now and it can’t be forecast by the signs that they used to be able to use.

A lot of success with the schools. We’ve spent four days in the schools talking with the children. All of them have been wonderful, very interested to know all about the kayaks and what we’ve been doing and we’re working hard to set up some exchanges particularly with the schools in Cornwall, Roselands School and Gorran Haven Primary School. The two schools here, that’s the elementary school and high school are both linked with the two schools in Cornwall, and both teachers here the teachers in those schools, that’s Cathy Keeling at the elementary school and Tim and Gary at the High School, very keen to get some stuff set up with the schools in Cornwall so that’s all looking really promising.

We’re doing a lot of work setting up links in Kugaaruk and Taloyoak and Gjoa Haven and when Dave Johnson and I do the winter leg of this journey hopefully we will have set up some really good contacts there. We will continue the blog I’m sure but it may be slightly more low key than so far.

buy viagra
buy generic viagra
discount viagra
buy cialis
generic cialis

We’ve been interviewed by the BBC, Canadian North Radio and also we believe we’re going to be in the local paper up here which is called Nunavut News North. We may leave before that comes out but we’re going to try and get hold of some copies.

At this stage I think we should certainly thank our sponsors because the equipment we used has been superb on the trip and we’ve been very, very happy. Feathercraft Kayaks, who have helped us on this first leg of this journey, have been absolutely wonderful. The kayaks have been brilliant and we’re more than happy with those and their performance. They have now been washed clean and packed up ready for the next leg. The Vango equipment, we had a Vango tent which was a Vango Force 10 Spindrift still in excellent order other than the bear attack but we’ve managed to repair most of that I think and we also used Vango sleeping bags as well during this journey. The Palm equipment has been almost faultless I would say, fantastic kit, and we’re actually bringing that back with us because I believe Palm are studying it and we’d like to thank them and so no doubt we’ll call and see them. Lomo dry bags we’ve been using. We’d love to thank Lomo, a company up in Scotland. Just brilliant, we couldn’t have done it without all these pieces of equipment. Lendal paddles we’ve used. They’ve been fantastic with kinetic touring and kinetic touring S paddles. They got us through, and what can I say, all this stuff’s been absolutely wonderful. The team has been using Kobold watches and kept fantastic time and extremely robust things particularly given the temperature fluctuations we’ve had. So we’re more than thankful for those.

Also, thank you to Paramo in Wadhurst in Kent. We’ve developed I believe a very good relationship with Paramo. They’ve served us well on this trip and their equipment has been faultless. We’ve used their shell layers for all the landwork we’ve done and the base layers both on land and below our kayaking equipment. And as always with Paramo it’s been absolutely faultless, so we’re extremely happy with that. We’re going to continue to use this equipment next year and for all of next year and for the continuing part of the expedition. So thank you to everyone.

And McMurdo quietly in the background, we’ve had our Personal Locator Beacons tucked in our buoyancy aids and we would like to thank McMurdo too.

We’ also like to thank Showcarriage, who arranged all the freight and transport for our kit – and their agents at Heathrow, in particular John O’Brian of Team Worldwide. Also a big thank-you to M & S Dental Care in Fort William who gave the team dental first aid training and dental first aid kits. So thank you to Gregor, Ken and Kevin at M & S Dental Care.

Regards to everyone and looking forward to seeing everyone when we get back.

Aftermath of rainstorm in Kugluktuk
The aftermath of a severe rainstorm in Kugluktuk

Flooding in Kugluktuk after unprecedented rains

The heavy rains damaged roads in Kugluktuk

Posted in expedition - phase one | 1 Comment »

Team reach Kugluktuk - Journey’s end for this year (audio post)

August 21st, 2007