Elle and John are Hawks fans
by John Huston
Some of you may be wondering if we’ve been using our ski sails.
Well, we decided not to use the ski sails because the effectiveness of our wonderful skijor dogs has far exceeded our expectations when we planned the trip so much so that we are a few days ahead of schedule and have ample time for a walks on the land and for filming.
Closing down May 17
Yesterday was the 17th of May, Norwegian National Day, and we celebrated and helped Toby celebrate with a very special feast of six courses, and here they are:
- Course Number One – John’s maple chipotle bacon without the maple
- Course Number Two – Some candied wild British Columbian salmon that was vacuum-sealed for us by a friend and was excellent
- Course Number Three – We had some Asian rice chips
- Course Number Four – Toby’s famous greasy bacon pasta casserole that has become our favorite trail meal. Toby is an excellent cook and he has a very nice beard too.
- Number Five was the special famous chocolate bars brought from Norway by Toby, some Freia chocolate with the fruit and nuts included inside.
- And the Sixth Course was some coffee to wash it all down. I had a cup of decaf.
And we really enjoyed that. We enjoyed relaxing, just a few skis on the land. And today we headed south into what is increasingly, increasingly becoming springtime, and up here that means temperatures that are hovering just below freezing and lots of sunshine.
Toby checks out the Musk Oxen
About an hour into the first march today we spotted a herd of musk oxen up on a nearby hill. And so Kyle, Toby and I skied over to investigate while Hugh watched the dogs. And there were 16 total musk oxen in the herd, and we were able to get pretty close and get some awesome photos and video over the next two hours or so, so that was super fun. And then took a relatively short travel day after that, and made a decision to start traveling at night which will begin around 11:00 tonight and end around 6:00 in the morning tomorrow. So, if the weather holds, we’ll be traveling while you’re sleeping, so we get cooler weather for the dogs and we don’t get as sweaty ourselves. All right everybody, thanks for listening and hope your spring is going well.
Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/19/13, Day 50
Location: 80°45'N, 91°05'W
Traveled: 4.25 hours, 8.2 miles
Temperatures: 14°F am, N/A pm