Team decide on new route
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/)
