Day: 1
Camp: 1
Location: N 53 07’ 38.2” W 99 06’ 13.8”
Distance: 17km
WX: -5am -13pm light North breeze 5-8km light snow
Travel Time: 5hrs 10mins
Up and packed by 7:30am, went over to the Grand Rapids Esso station and restaurant the only other business in town aside from the 2 ½ star Northbrook Inn that we have been using as our base for the last two nights. We packed in as many calories as we could with big plates of bacon, eggs, sausages, home fries, toast and coffees. We chatted with as many locals as possible this morning and got some information on local ice conditions and weather from a few different native ice fishermen. They say there can be some big ice cracks and open leads out on the lake but shouldn’t be a huge problem at this time of the year, some times they can be hundreds of feet wide and could take a long time to get around them. There is open water where we are putting in as it is at the mouth of the Saskatchewan River where it flows into lake Winnipeg, but we checked it out yesterday and are comfortable with the conditions we see.
After a bit of stress of the holidays, traveling, training, many late nights and 39 hours on the Greyhound bus, I hope everyone’s immune system is still strong and we all stay healthy for the duration of the expedition, we could be out 21 days of full exposure, maybe we can complete the trip sooner but it’s hard to tell. I figure we will not be moving super fast at first as we will be figuring out our systems, adjusting to the terrain, and it will take a few days for our bodies to adjust and for us to become efficient at set up, break down of camp and loading the sleds. We met a few R.C.M.P officers today and told them about our trip, I gave them a copy of our trip plan. I made the last call home to Robyn before heading out to the ice and let her know again our plans and estimated timeline. We weighed in our sleds and packs, the sleds were 140lbs each once evened out and our packs all weighed in at 25lbs, not to bad. Weather was quite mild today for this time of the year, not a bad way to start our first day. We were getting antsy to get going and looking forward to getting our first few steps on the ice. I have been thinking, talking and dreaming about doing this trip for quite some time now and am excited to finally get it off the ground and running.
Dennis the owner of the Northbrook Inn arranged us a shuttle with a few of his staff; we loaded up the back of an old pick up truck and got a ride down to the ice. Super nice of him to help us out and saved us a lot of time. We were all wondering if Robert and his clan from the day before were going to come out on skidoos to find us out on the ice and try to get more money for their guiding services or maybe rob us of some of our gear. No worries we never saw any of them, we saw two separate skidoos hauling sleds who were very friendly and stopped to find out what the hell we were doing out on the ice dragging sleds with no skidoos!
At the start point on the ice a small black dog came and saw us, I guess I made the mistake of petting him for a second because he followed us (me!!) all the way to camp and is still here sleeping on my bag outside the tent. He ended up riding on top of my sled and I pulled him all day. He wouldn’t leave and I’m afraid that he will eventually starve or freeze. If I come across more fishermen I hope they can take him back. Nice ski, I felt pretty good today, ice and snow conditions fairly hard packed and we moved fast for our first 5 hours of travel. One big bay we navigated was all big 1ft blocks of ice pushed up in fields from early season ice shifts. We came across a few long 2km + ice ridges as well as some 1 ½ – 2 ½ ft fully open water leads. We had to cross them and it was no problem other then getting our skis wet in the slush. So the Shillington luck kicked in already on the first day, my brand new skis started to totally delaminated, I’m not to surprised always happens when I buy something new. Going to try and find a cabin on the tip of Long point and stay there a nigh, if there is a fire place I can warm up the skis and seal the wood with aqua seal and hopefully fix the problem to the end of the trip. If the base of the ski doesn’t delaminate I’m ok for the trip. Great freeze dried dinner tonight Outdoor Gourmet shrimp and garlic pasta!!
