Recently in Notes from the Trail Category

The journey home has been long. The Tundra Train left Churchill about 5 hours late, which means we were loading dogs and sleds onto the boxcar around midnight.

We rode the train for the rest of the night and most of the next day. It was fun to look out the window and watch the transition from tundra to Boreal Forest. The trees increased in size as we traveled south. I also noticed that the amount of snow decreased as we traveled south.

We got off the train in Thompson, where we left our cars and dog trailer. While giving the dogs a chance to stretch their legs at the train station in Thompson, Paul drove up with the dog trailer in tow. Bubba (one of the dogs) let out a loud, excited howl the second he saw the trailer. He knew that the trailer meant we were heading home! I think that the dogs, like us, enjoyed the adventure, but were ready to go home.

We drove through most of the night in rain and fog. It seems like we left winter behind us and spring has arrived in southern Manitoba.

After crossing the border between Canada and the United States, we stopped to share a treat with the dogs. A gas station just happened to have a soft-serve ice cream machine, so we made sure that every dog got an ice cream cone. It took some of the dogs a few minutes to figure out that the ice cream was food, but most of the dogs happily wolfed down their treat, cone and all.

Everyone in the group was very happy to arrive in Churchill after a day of dogsledding on the sea ice. Our last day of dogsledding had just the right amount of challenge. The wind had died down and the temperature was fairly high (between 15 and 20 F). When I say sea ice, I don't mean ice like a skating rink. The sea ice in Hudson Bay is anything but flat. Wind and waves cause large chunks of ice to jut up at odd angles, making for a rather bumpy dogsled ride. Nikola described it as being in a rodeo. Skiing was rather awkward too, but everyone was in such a good mood, this didn't seem to matter. The distance from the Northern Studies Center into Churchill was about 15 miles, and about two thirds of that distance was on the sea ice.

It was hard work traveling over the sea ice.

On our way into town, we passed by the polar bear jail. During the fall when many polar bears migrate through Churchill, problem bears are taken here. Of course, there are no bears there now and all we saw were several large bear traps and a large empty building.

Large traps are used to catch Polar Bears that wander into town and cause trouble in Churchill. The bears are often held at the "Polar Bear Jail" until ice forms in the fall and they can travel onto the ice and hunt seals.

In Churchill, we staked out the dogs near our hotel. It felt odd to leave them out on the tundra, without setting up camp in between the two rows of dogs. After the dogs were fed, we went in search of food for ourselves.

The only open restaurant was Gypsy's, a bakery and restaurant owned by a Portuguese family. It was the perfect place for our post-trip celebratory feast.

During the following day, we broke up into smaller groups to explore Churchill. Dave and several others spent the morning feeding Brian LaDune's dogs. They had the opportunity to see all 150 of these Inuit dogs!

We drove around in Brian's pick up truck and tossed a large chunk of frozen meat to each of his 150 Canadian Inuit Dogs.

I walked to the Prince of Wales Fort, which is across the Churchill River. After being on skis for several days, it felt good to walk. The fort was surrounded by snow drifts as high as its two-story walls.

Later in the day, everyone met up to visit the Inuit museum in the center of town. The museum contains an astonishing amount of artifacts, ranging from a kayak and harpoon, to carved whale bones.

Our time in Churchill has been enjoyable. All of the people we have met here are incredibly nice, eager to learn about our dogsled adventure.

We spent our day dogsledding and skiing with our heads down and noses angled away from the wind. Sustained winds blasted us as we traveled along the coast of Hudson Bay to the Churchill Northern Studies Center. Wind speeds peaked at about 30 mph, with an air temp of about 0 degrees F today.

The Center is an incredible change from the camping we've been doing. It is heated, and has hot showers, a full kitchen, and internet access. The Center is a base for polar bear and other arctic researchers.

Tomorrow we will dogsled and ski about 10 miles to the town of Churchill.

We are in the midst of an all out gale. Winds blowing upwards of 35 mph have stopped us in our tracks. Air temps are about 10F, but the wind chill has pushed temps into the deep freeze.

One of our dogsleds getting drifted over.

Blowing snow is piling up in drifts around the dogsleds and we have hunkered down at an abandoned research station on the shores of Hudson Bay. We have kept warm building snow walls to shade the dogs from the wind.

 

This photo shows our dog, Franky, behind his snow wall.

We are passing the time resting, snacking, playing games, enjoying conversation and waiting for the weather to break.

We continue to follow proper protocol for camping in polar bear country. For example, you see in the photo of camp that the dogs are staked out in rows to the left and right, and we sleep in between them. This configuration ensures that the dogs sound off should a polar bear approach in the night.

Tomorrow we will hopefully awake to lighter winds. We will dogsled to the Northern Studies Center near Churchill.

 

We covered a lot of ground today - about 23 miles by dogsled and ski.

We are passing through some brushy areas with small trees. The deep, fluffy snow collects in these areas, making it difficult to get a dogsled through. The dogs bottom-out, like swimming in snow, and the sled starts to snowplow and tip over. However, none of these places slowed us down more than we expected.

The wind has changed from the northwest to an easterly gale, and we wonder what change in weather that may bring. The wind of 15-20 mph today dropped our windchills to subzero. The air remained in the teens or low 20s.

We saw more polar bear tracks in the snow today.

We pulled into camp at a little after 6 PM, and luckily we found a good spot out of the wind.

A frosty morning in camp.

We are sleeping in sleeping bags that can keep us warm down to 60 degrees below zero. The photo shows Amy waking up this morning after spending the night cozy in a dogsled bag. Behind her are some of our team waking up after sleeping under the stars.

The scenery is changing rapidly. As we move further north, the trees are getting smaller and smaller, and fewer and fewer.

The efficient traveling conditions allowed us to log many miles today. Our tired bodies were uplifted when we arrived at Hudson Bay, and its shining expanse of white flatness this afternoon.

Today we saw a white arctic hare that blended in with its snowy surroundings, and we saw a fox scampering across the tundra in front of us.

We pulled into camp at about 6:30 tonight. We are camped at an abandoned research station on the shores of Hudson Bay.

Most of the area polar bears have recently moved onto Hudson Bay to hunt seals. Tomorrow we will venture out onto the bay by dogsled to see what the ice holds.

We arrived in Thompson, Manitoba, at about 2:30PM. We drove straight to the train depot, staked out the dogs, and then put our sleds, dogs, and gear in order next to the tracks to await the next leg of our journey.

We heard several times that the Tundra Train is "always late." It remained true to its typical tardiness today, at a couple of hours behind schedule. Once it arrived, at about dusk, we loaded the dogs and sleds in the box car along with someone's truckload of fresh produce, a plush living room set, and some miscellaneous luggage. It took about 15 minutes, we grabbed our seats and the train started to creep north.

Really, it creeps north at only about 28 mph, and sometimes much more slowly. The slow pace is necessary because the frost heave from the tundra has left the tracks in a terribly uneven condition that would bounce a speeding train right off the tracks like a rubber ball.

We will be training overnight (about a 13 hour ride). Then the conductor stops the train on the tundra - not in a town - and we will carry on by dogsled to Hudson Bay and Churchill.

When the train arrived we had everything ready to load into the bagage car.

All of our supplies were loaded onto the train along with food and other supplies bound for Churchill and other remote communities along the train tracks.

We've had several varying reports from the conductor regarding the arrival time for our drop off point. Originally we heard mid-morning. It kept getting pushed back due to the rough track conditions.

At 1PM, the train screeched to a halt, the freight door slid open, and we started an assembly-line to unload the gear.

The train staff took quite an interest in us. All three of them gathered in the box car to admire our jovial scene. The conducted snapped photos, looked at me with a smile and said, "I may never see this again."

We waved goodbye to the train and watched it bounce away down the tracks.

 

We came across a large set of wolf tracks yesterday.

The group quickly harnessed dogs, hitched them to the sleds, and finally launched our dog teams across the frozen tundra.

We are fortunate our trail conditions are relatively firm with wind-packed snow. The sky is blue, the Arctic sun is shining, the temp is about 32F and the winds are calm. This region is known for high winds, and a ground blizzard swept through last week. We feel fortunate for these ideal conditions.

 

Lufa, one of our lead dogs, jumps into her harness to get the heavy sled moving.

 

One building exists between where we launched and Hudson Bay. It is called Watchee Lodge.

We dogsledded six miles to the lodge and took a lunch break. During February and March, photographers and tourists flock to Watchee Lodge. They are here to see mother polar bears emerge from their earthen dens with polar bear cubs in tow.

I spoke with a polar bear tracker there who searches out polar bears so visitors can be guided directly to them.

Most of the polar bears just recently left this area to hunt seal on Hudson Bay. The polar bear tracker says they saw a bear last week, but they haven't been looking because they are closing up the lodge for the season. I ask the polar bear tracker if we will see any polar bears. With a steely expression he grunts, "I hope not."

We dogsledded a few hours after Watchee Lodge and camped on Fletcher Lake.

The moon is bright, but we still see white-colored northern lights fade in and out across the lake.

Sunday we traveled about 15 miles. The wind started out gusty. We saw several firsts. We saw tracks in the snow from polar bears (including a mother and two cubs), caribou, wolves, wolverines, and fox.

The wind subsided and a blazing sun is giving us a tan. The temps again today are about 32F. Today we traveled about 15 miles, and set up camp in the sunlight.

 

At 6AM we arrived in the Wintergreen kennel to start loading sled dogs into the trailer, and launch our journey to Hudson Bay. That's earlier than we are typically at the kennel.

The dogs knew something was up instantly. I walked several dogs from their doghouses to the trailer. Lightning had a glint in her eye, leaned forward for mechanical advantage, and pulled me with all her might to the trailer. Then she hopped into the portable kennel and I closed the door. The photo shows the main entrance to the Wintergreen kennel this morning.

We hit the road with 20 dogs in tow at 6:30AM. It's now about 17 hours later and we are still driving. We are in Canada's Manitoba Province about 100 kilometers south of Grand Rapids. It is snowing.

We stopped for a generously privided lunch at the home of an expert on the Canadian Inuit Dog, near Winnipeg. The photo shows our guide Don Watson leading the dog Steve back to the trailer after a water, stretch, and bathroom break.

We will pull off the road and camp soon.

The dogs know a new adventure in a foreign land is underway, and they are excited. We are too.

The day began with our routine dog chores. With trips going on all winter, it has been rare to have a full kennel. Now, every single dog is in the kennel. Our daily dog chores include feeding the dogs, giving them water, and cleaning the kennel. When all 80 dogs are in the kennel, the chores can take about an hour. When we go to Hudson Bay, we will have 20 dogs. I'm sure you can imagine how much less time dog chores take with only 20 dogs.

On this particular morning, our shipment of dog food arrived. This shipment comes every three weeks. After chores, everybody pitched in to transfer bags from a truck to the storage shed. Even one of the puppies got involved in the process, climbing on top of the bags of dog food.



The Wintergreen staff held a meeting to plan our pack-out for the Hudson Bay trip. Jason is in charge of making sure that all of the gear is in order. We will use the lists of items you provided in yesterday's Daily Dilemma to help us figure out what to bring. LynnAnne is in charge of organizing and packing our food for the expedition. This involves careful menu planning and attention to the dietary needs of the participants. I am in charge of the dogs. I will pick the dogs that we bring, make sure that their kennel boxes are ready to go, and pack enough dog food for the entire expedition.



Working as a team is very important for the success of the expedition. We are all in this together, so we need to communicate clearly with each other and coordinate our efforts as we prepare to head to Hudson Bay. This communication and coordination will ensure that all of the necessary tasks are performed, we don't forget anything, and we all get along.

Dave is back from the Bahamas, and he will arrive at Wintergreen tomorrow. Everyone is excited to have him back! He will make quite the transition--from studying iguanas in a warm, tropical environment to studying polar bears in the cold and snow.

Happy Trails,
Amy

The dog sledding season in Minnesota is coming to a close. Temperatures are rising, snow is melting, and the trails are getting bare in spots. At Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge, near Ely, Minnesota we have just finished our last round of local trips and now we are getting ready for Project Polar Bear.

At Wintergreen, we have 80 sled dogs. They are all Canadian Inuit dogs (with the exception of Dave Freeman's four Polar Huskies). Check out Saylix's entry in the Dog of the Day section to learn more about the sled dogs.

During this past week two camping trips and two lodge-based trips were happening, keeping all of the guides who are going to Hudson Bay busy. Jason, Kate, LynnAnne, and Don led the two camping trips. Ellen and I led a lodge-based trip. We taught six people how to dogsled, spending three days cruising around the trails near Wintergreen.

The conditions were fast and icy. It had rained two days before our trip started. Then, the temperatures dropped below freezing. This meant icy trails. Lucky for us, we also got a fresh dusting of snow. It was as if winter held on for one more week, allowing us to complete our final round of trips.

For the lodge-based trips, we use small sleds and four-dog teams. This is a great training opportunity for the dogs and guides. The dogs get to pull a lighter load than if they were on a camping trip. They also move along at a faster pace, compared to when they are pulling a heavy load. The guides cross-country ski in front of the dog teams. After skiing all winter, I really feel like I am in shape and ready for the challenges we will experience during Project Polar Bear.

In the coming days, we will make preparations for our trip to Hudson Bay. The dogs will rest, while we humans will stay busy. The truck and trailer for transporting the dogs are getting tuned up at the mechanic. Camping gear must be packed. Food for both dogs and humans will be organized and packed.

I have been keeping track of the weather in Churchill, Manitoba, which is much further north than Ely, Minnesota. Churchill is the town nearest where we will be dog sledding for Project Polar Bear. In fact, it is the town we will end in. Churchill did not experience the spring thaw that we did last week. There, temperatures have fallen below zero almost every night. Even though spring has arrived in Ely, I am confident that we will find more winter weather when we get to Hudson Bay.

Happy Trails,
Amy

This is where we will be posting daily updates. Please check back often starting March 30th.

Before heading the Hudson Bay we will be studying Iguanas in the Bahamas and we hope you will join us!

The Iguana Research Expedition 2009 runs from March 20th through March 29th. We hope you will log in daily for this unforgettable adventure.