by John Huston

On Saturday evening a pack of 12 wolves raided our campsite and, thankfully, the only casualty was my beloved blue stuff sack which held my lunch food.

It was sitting in the vestibule of our tent where I had left it and a wolf picked it up and ran off toward the horizon with it. We weren’t in camp at the time. We were up visiting the very friendly staff at the Eureka Weather Station and we had brought our dogs with us, so the staff could meet the dogs as well. As soon as we saw the wolves in camp, we started running toward camp. I knew Toby was a pretty fast runner, but he astounded all of us and chased after that young male wolf with my lunch bag pretty darn quick. He got close to him and started talking to him like a dog, but the wolf would not give up the booty. So, my lunch bag is now part of that wolf pack.

So that was kind of the highlight of our stay here in Eureka or one of them. We saw a whole bunch of wolves. They came back Saturday evening or middle of the night twice. So we were out of the tent and making sure the dogs were safe and the wolves didn’t get too close. We were never in any danger and neither were our dogs. We got some awesome photos and video.

We spent the rest of our time here relaxing, catching up on sleep. Kyle ran through all the video equipment and reorganized everything and looked at some of the video footage. And Hugh and I and Kyle spent the better part of today going through all of our food and, believe it or not, removing some of the butter because we’re not consuming nearly as many calories as we thought we would be. We had a really nice stay here; the staff has been very welcoming and social. There are 8 people who work here right now. We launched a few weather balloons and got tours of the facility and learned what life was like at the Eureka Weather Station (check out the video to see for yourself).

Tomorrow morning we head out north, up Nansen Sound and we’ll be gone without resupply for the next 36 days, the longest such stretch on the expedition. We’re really looking forward to it. Our destination is Otto Sverdrup’s furthest north, a little place called Land’s Lokk so stay tuned. We’re happy to be returning to expedition mode. And we’ll be back soon. Thanks, bye.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 4/30/13, Day 31
Location: 80°04'N, 87°15'W
Traveled: 8 hours, 15.5 miles
Temperatures: 2°F am, N/A pm

STEALIN' WOLF