We departed Qik early in the morning in a bid to get dropped off before our drivers for the day Jaipottie and his son kyle headed further north. Despite the time, Yves and Celine who have been incredibly helpful, gave us a departing gift of brownies!! We are definitely going to appreciate them when the going gets tough. After a few hours driving we were dropped off near to where Alex had his head injury and where we were all picked up. Smack bang in the middle of nowhere. Standing there realising this was our opportunity to continue further north towards Clyde river and continue learning about the east coast of Baffin Island. Despite the early start and following a late night doing last minute packing and final goodbyes, we still managed to get some good miles under our feet before stopping for the night on an open estuary between distant towering cliffs.
It was a beautiful spot with the mountains behind us still glowing in a pinky colour with the setting sun and the icebergs in the distance gradually turning from electric blue to green. We managed to get all the necessary snow melted for the next morning before hitting the sack. What struck us whilst lying there was the lack of sound. There was not a breath of wind and all we could hear throughout the night was the odd snore or one of the dogs have a short walk and a shake off. At least with the snoring it is obvious who the culprit is. I had forgotten my alarm was set for 5 am, I soon corrected it for a bit later in the morning when I realised it was still dark and freezing cold. Morning in the Arctic is always a nice surprise. All the moisture in your breath freezes to the lip of your sleeping bag during the night so when the time comes to wake up this has a tendency to flutter down onto your face in ice cold spots. On top of that if you happen to touch the side of the tent this has the same effect but on a grander scale! Heading off with the sun rising into the sky and burning off any cloud, we continued on to our depot of food. It was a fairly standard day with Tala running about in her crazy fashion, while Colin whined constantly at the injustice of being on a lead. Jemima I am afraid despite some spectacular final attempts to catch her, remains in Qik. We miss her dearly. We knew we were getting close. Coming round a head land a hut slowly appeared and what made it even more special was that smoke was rising from it. This meant one thing warmth! Then off one hill appeared two boys tobogganing down it and going off a small jump. It was quite a surreal sight. Tala meanwhile was ignoring all commands and exploring the new smells and surroundings. Arriving we were soon offered a warm room for night, a choice of caribo and Arctic char soup and some tea. Both soups Jamie and I decided were delicious. All this, despite our conversation either being translated by the 12 year old boy Edmond or through a mixture of English and hand signals. We couldn’t have asked for more then they provided us with a huge chunk of iceberg ice saving the task of collecting a load of snow to melt. It also makes some pretty epic tea, hot chocolate or maxi nutrition viper for recovering. Not quite as good as the glenlivet on iceberg ice but carrying that would be an unnecessary extravagance. It has been some incredible hospitality from our hosts who were surprised to see 2 men walk over hauling sleds.
The coming days see us heading further north towards our next depot. Meanwhile Alex is heading further south to Ottawa for further medical evaluation and recuperation. We are hoping he has a speedy recovery and to see him shortly.