It had been a bit of a rough few days for the team and both our dogs, Colin and Tala. Colin had made up for all his high pitched and constant whining by making us aware of Alex being down. I will cover this more in the next blog. Since then we had called the RCMP for some assistance and bundled both dogs into the back of a komatik, which is a big sled dragged behind a skidoo, before driving them back at high speed to our starting point in Qik.
It was that night that Colin managed to escape! We woke in the morning to no Colin. All that was left was his tracks wondering about the entire area. We could tell it was him by the weird dragging trail in the snow as a result of the cord that was still attached to his collar. Following this trail led us all round Qik from the surroundings of his sleeping area, to the dog sled area on the edge of town before heading to the dumb. It had clearly been quite an active night of adventure for him. Maybe the bug for adventure had bitten him a long the trail. We did however find Jemima, who had evidently run all night to get back. We hadn't been able to get her before leaving (although she was following us, she is pretty wild and feral) so we knew he must be around. She looked a bit stiff and was clearly very hungry. In a bid to get colin to come to us we tried to lure her in with food. We tried a pile of food close to us. She clearly decided this was too close, a second was placed with a trail of Inukshuk dog food leading to it. Myself and Jamie stood between the two piles. Despite our best efforts, she managed to eat all the food we put out without coming close enough for us to take her back home. She even wandered round and ate the initial pile we put out.
A new plan was needed.
48 hours later and still no sign. We jumped onto the skidoos and headed towards his old haunt. Fortunately and slightly unexpectedly I spotted him lying in the ground with his fluorescent cord on the snow. Jumping onto the cord, in case there was a risk of him getting away, I reeled him in. It was clearly a bit of a shock, unsurprisingly as he had been relaxing, curled up in the low lying winter sun. It didn't take long till between us we had him on the back of the skidoo. As he was sitting on my lap I was hoping the warm feeling was due to his furry coat and general body warmth rather than him peeing on me. I was fortunate in this respect, however he drooled (which froze instantly) all over my arm as he gazed at the surroundings we were zooming past.
Back at the RMCP base camp he was safely and much more securely tied up.