Heavy snow delays progress
Feeding the dogs
Hi this is Glenn – this is the winter journey update. Our position is North 70°, 21 minutes, 12 seconds, West 83°, 11 minutes, 54 seconds. We came into camp very late last night. We’d had a long day. The snow by the end of the trip was very, very deep. It had warmed up yesterday to about -25° C but the southerly wind which we had chilled us quite a bit even though it was southerly it chilled us a bit when we stopped. By the end of the day the dogs were very, very tired indeed. We arrived at a fish camp with 6 or 7 other Inuit people here and they’re all fishing in a frozen lake for Char. So we’re spending the day resting the dogs and resting ourselves.
Arrival at fish camp
We took a route out of Iglulik and we crossed the Fury and Hecla Strait and we’re now travelling up the Gifford Fjord. In fact we’ve reached ahead of the Gifford Fjord and we’re now ready to cross part of the northern tip of Baffin and move on up towards Arctic Bay. This area is very interesting historically – this was where one of the first English explorers, William Edward Parry, had his base for one of the big first expeditions that over wintered in the area. It’s only when you are here that you realise how barren it is – and you wonder what when through those early explorers’ minds.
Simon’s original plan was 7 days from Iglulik to Arctic Bay but it’s taken us three heavy days to get here. I’ve looked at the map and my feeling is that it’s a good seven days to go if we’re lucky. So we’re a little bit behind schedule but we’re going well and living off the land to a large degree at the moment. We’re just having bannock and fish to eat and the other night I had a meal of Walrus liver so it’s country food to say the least.
I haven’t been able to take any video because the temperatures are low -40C making it very hard – the batteries are absolutely dead. I’ll try to warm things up a bit when I get into town. Nothing else to report – it’s cold but what would you expect up here! The only other thing I might mention is the scenery. At the moment it’s hilly scenery around, fairly low gravelly looking hills. Lots of snow obviously on the land and that’ll be here for some months yet. But low lying hills really.
The dogs are going very well. We’ve got about 19 dogs. Of those 9 are puppies. They’re tiny little things but they seem to be going really well. In the morning they’re all huddled up in one cohesive sort of lump and they look round at you as if they’re saying please don’t pick me when it comes to harnessing them up in the morning. But basically you grab hold of one put its harness on and before we know it we’re away.
Anyway love to everyone at home. And I’ll get in touch in about 3 days’ time.
(To see Glenn’s current location go to the Expedition Page, Phase 3 and take a look at the map here is the link. )
