TOWARDS LAND'S LOKK

May 10, 2013

Hello, this is Toby calling in. It’s the 7th of May today; it’s the 38th day of our expedition. And we are now less than 30 nautical miles from our big goal, our big mission, which is Land’s Lokk.

Land’s Lokk was the northern most position that the second Fram expedition reached in 1902. And on the 8th of May 1902, Otto Sverdrup and the young geologist of the expedition, Per Schei, reached this destination. Land’s Lokk is on the north coast of Ellesmere Island, and is therefore facing the polar ocean. We have noticed over the last couple of days that we’re in a new or different climate; there’s a lot more moisture in the air and today was a really cold day. We had temperatures minus 20 degrees Celsius, but the moisture in the air and the wind made it one of the coldest days of our expedition so far.

We’re all very excited that we’re getting close to our big final goal. And when we get there, we will spend a couple of days looking for, among other things, a cairn that Sverdrup built up there that has not been found as of yet. So, we’ll spend a few times. I’ve done a lot of research in Sverdrup’s personal diaries, and all available other resources that we have access to, and it will be very exciting to see whether we will find something up there or not.

After we’ve been to Land’s Lokk, our expedition will again face southward and we are hoping to walk into the Arctic spring and different weather. We will then most likely travel down the east coast of Axel Heiberg Island, which is known for its incredible wildlife and natural beauty.

Everyone is doing very well. The dogs are working really hard in the conditions that we have right now. And John is growing a really nice beard at the moment, which we’re all very excited about. So we’re going to be really excited to call you from Land’s Lokk in a couple of days or maybe as many as four depending on the ice conditions. And I’ll be sure to call in, to be blogging in very soon, to let you know how our search for the lost cairn has gone. Until next time, hope you guys are enjoying the spring in the south.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/9/13, Day 40
Location: 81°32'N, 91°44'W
Traveled: 7.25 hours, 11.6 miles
Temperatures: -8°F am, -6°F pm

LITTLE LARRY

May 6, 2013

by John Huston

Larry is a dog. He is not little. Larry is 90 plus pounds of muscle and fur. These days he is skijoring with Hugh, but I spent two weeks with him earlier in the trip.

He is a pulling machine who loves to pull so much that he barks and hammers his harness when he’s stopped. He and his brother Axel are our workhorses and pull the heaviest loads in the back of our caravan. Larry has so much fur around his neck that sometimes it’s hard to find his collar. He also has a huge head, a huge mouth, one of the biggest mouths ever seen on a dog, and an equally large tongue. So he takes that fur, he takes his big old head, and it all combines to kind of give him a lion-esque regal presence. So he is often sitting there lying in ways that make him look like a very comfortable and contented lion who is never ever cold.

Every day these days, he seems to reveal more of his playful personality. Sometimes he paws at the legs of his skijor companion or other times he’ll roll over on his back and scratch his back on our ski tips. It’s these sort of hardworking and endearing qualities that have caused a lot of people to fall in love with sled dogs as we have done so with ours. They’re a huge part of trip and we really, really love working with them. So, good job, Larry; you’re a good boy.

We’re on Nansen Sound right now. We just finished another dinner, which never ever has trouble going down. Kyle’s appetite is increasing; he’s now munching on one of our 630 calorie fudge bars as a dessert. Toby’s brushing his teeth and Hugh is cleaning his glasses with his underwear. Good job, Hugh. We don’t have a lot of things to clean glasses with around here.

OK, thanks for listening. Things are going really smoothly. No wind right now, and we’re headed to Land’s Lokk and we’re going to tell you more about that pretty soon.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/5/13, Day 36
Location: 80°53'N, 89°28'W
Traveled: 7.25 hours, 12.8 miles
Temperatures: 2°F am, 2°F pm

HALFWAY FACTS

May 5, 2013

by John Huston

We’re about halfway through the expedition now, so it’s time for another installment of fun expedition stats and facts. But first a quick wrap up of what’s taken place over the last 2 days.

We’ve kind of been on the border of spring really popping on this expedition and it’s been very warm. Sometimes we’re skiing only in our long underwear tops and with our pants fully unzipped and ventilated on the side zips. But yesterday afternoon we got hammered by a good storm; we haven’t had a big blow like that on the trip. Visibility dropped to basically zero; we had a lot of trouble seeing in front of us. And winds picked up to 15 to 20 knots from the northwest, so we called it a day right after the first march, and took our time carefully putting up the tents and staking out the dogs, making sure nothing blew away. So, it was a loud night in the tent because it was getting battered by winds, but it all was safe. It gets your adrenaline up a little bit when you’re working in conditions like that.

Today we entered Nansen Sound for the first time, this huge body of water that leads out to the Arctic Ocean and our furthest north point that we’re heading towards called Land’s Lokk, which is also Otto Sverdrup’s furthest north point and a special destination for us. We’ll tell you more about that later. Ski conditions were totally awesome and we are out in the middle of the sound and looking at mountainous cliffs on two horizons to the northeast and to the south.

OK, here come some expedition stats from the first half of the expedition:

• Total distance traveled so far – 284.4 nautical miles

• Number of bears seen – only 2
• Number of wolves – 35, including 12 around Eureka repeatedly
• Number of Arctic foxes we’ve seen – 5
• Number of seals – that would be 8
• Number of musk ox is 31.

• Number of 32-gigabyte memory cards full of video and photo so far – 17. Good job, Kyle.

• Most common water source early on in the trip – snow, preferably very dense snow blocks from wind-packed snow berms
• Most common water source lately is chipped pieces of ice from old sea ice blocks and/or icebergs.
• OK, and what we do with that water, number of liters of water drank per person per day -
-John, myself, I drink about 4 ½ liters. I need a lot of water or I turn into a useless grump.
-Toby, he drinks 2.5 liters per day, but sometimes he drinks only half a liter. I don’t know how he does that.
-Kyle, he drinks 3 liters and Hugh does as well, 3 liters for him, too.
• The biggest eaters lately would be myself and also Hugh. Again the North American stomachs are far outperforming these small European stomachs across the tent here.

• OK, typical dog/skijor arrangement from front to back is Elle, and then Napu, followed by Larry and last in line is Axel. The people kind of shift around, but those dogs more or less stay in the same position.
• The dog who is best at lying on its back with paws up for long periods of time at random points during the day would be Elle.
• The dog with the biggest head is Larry, no contest, and he has a mouth that’s almost as big as his head. We’ll have more about little Larry coming up; he’s a fun, special dog.

• OK, typical hours traveled per day is 7. We take time to film and walk on the land sometimes, and things like that, so that’s why the hours traveled are relatively small compared to other like North Pole or South Pole expeditions.
• Number of liters of fuel used per day for the whole team is about 1.2 liters.
• Hours we run our MSR stoves every day is about 4, plus or minus.

• The current champion of the team quiz is Kyle, and Hugh is a very close second up to this time. We make quizzes for each other that are humorous and entertaining about once every two weeks.

• Most distance covered in a day is 16 nautical miles, on the day we arrived into Eureka with very light sleds, awesome ski conditions.
• Our shortest distance covered in a day is 3.8 nautical miles and that happened yesterday in about 4 hours of travel and the storm hit and we called it a day.

• OK, favorite hand wear, what we were on our hands during the travel day –
-Toby, is the Steger Expedition Mitts.
-Kyle, also the Steger Expedition Mitts.
-Hugh, he likes the Devold Wristlets, which are like sweater wrists that go around the thumb, back of the hand, front of the hand and part of the wrist.
-And myself, John, I like my old cross-country ski gloves that I grabbed as I left town just on a whim, so I’m glad about those.
• Most common outer shell layer worn lately is the Bergan’s Microlight Jacket. It’s very lightweight, it’s got a hood, it breathes super well, and it also blocks some of the wind.

• We like to take hikes on land, whenever we can, to get up high, see the views, see what Sverdrup and his men would have seen and look for animals and that sort of thing. So we’ve done that 13 different times; it’s quite enjoyable.

• As you may know we had a pack of 12 wolves raid camp while we were in Eureka talking to the staff away from camp with our dogs. The casualties of that wolf raid were -
-My lunch bag full of chocolate truffles and nuts and butter and bacon.
-My spoon which was in that lunch bag; I have two, thank goodness.
-Hugh’s Thermarest was stepped on by a wolf and got a puncture, so it had to be replaced by a backup one out of our resupply.
-And here, my lunch bag where it was stored in the tent vestibule, there is now what we call it, a bite mark. So our Bergans Wiglo Tent has been bitten by a wolf, but it’s all right.

• OK, wrapping it up here, number of minutes per march and per ski session is about 90.
• We have about 15 minutes for every break.
• Normal ski conditions lately have been totally awesome, light snow cover, a few softer berms here and there, a few sastrugi to ski over, but very, very good ski conditions. We love it.
• And the number of days until this expedition reaches its completion is only 33. And it seems like it’s going to go very fast for us out here on the ice.

Ok, thanks for listening everybody.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/3/13, Day 34
Location: 80°30'N, 87°54'W
Traveled: 5.25 hours, 10.5 miles
Temperatures: N/A am, 2°F pm

INTERVIEW WITH KYLE

May 3, 2013

by John Huston

Today we interview Kyle O’Donoghue, our esteemed team video, what do you call yourself , film maker whose a super nice guy, very easy to get along with. He’s an eager learner and this is his first polar trip, so he’s the new guy on the scene. We’ve got a bunch of questions for him.

John (J): Are you ready, Kyle?
Kyle (K): Ready.
J: How ready are you?
K: Pretty ready.
J: OK, you better be.

J: Question #1 – how’s it been going since we left Eureka yesterday morning?
K: Since Eureka, it’s been going really well. Our sleds were really heavy coming out of Eureka, so we were worried we were going be doing low mileage, but dogs have been awesome, ski conditions have been great, and we’ve been making good miles.
J: I concur.

J: Question #2 – What happened when you were 18 years old?
K: I believe that is what they call a leading question, but the answer you’re looking for John is when I was 18 that was the first time I was really in snow. There wasn’t a lot of snow growing up in South Africa.
J: Kyle grew up in South Africa. Apparently they judge interviewer’s questions there as well.

J: Number 3 – When did you first learn how to ski?
K: I first learned how to ski starting in December 2011, so about 18 to 20 months ago.
J: That’s not too long ago. Where did you learn how to ski?
K: I learned how to ski in Norway.
J: Is that where you live?
K: That is where I currently live, yeah.
J: OK, Toby lives in Norway, too.

J: Describe your progression with the skiing and kind of all this polar stuff since I met you in Finse during our training expedition last April.
K: Yes, Finse was a pretty steep learning curve, first time pulling sleds and I’d only been on skis for a couple of months at that stage. Since then I’ve had the team’s crazy training regime which has involved pulling tires and spending lots of time on skis. So yeah, I’d say it’s a pretty good progression. I’ve only fallen about 7 or 8 times this trip so far.
J: So Kyle’s been doing a really good job skiing out here, very impressive.

J: What is your typical routine upon arriving in camp each evening?
K: So when we arrive in camp, Hugh and John stake out the dogs. Toby is our water boy, he gets the water, and John and I put up tents.
J: And we do a very good job at each one of those routines.

J: Kyle, what do you miss most about home?
K: I miss my friends and family and I miss my girlfriend Marthe.
J: That’s so sweet.

J: OK, Kyle, you had a bit of a shocking start to this trip. What happened and what has changed since then?
K: I think the Arctic kicked me in the rump when we got off the plane. I got frostbite on my nose and on my cheek within about a minute and a half of getting off the plane. Since then I’ve learned how important systems are and looking after yourself before anything else, and it’s getting much easier now that it’s getting warmer. And yeah, it’s been a steep learning curve.
J: But he’s done a really good job at it, and just so you know, Kyle’s face looks very good. We see it all the time and the frostbite is very, very minor.

J: OK, next question – Who has the biggest beard on the team?
K: That would undoubtedly be the Dale-Harris/Sverdrup attempt, which is looking very good at this stage.
J: Who has the smallest beard on the team?
K: That would be me. It’s called the weasel.
J: But you’re trying.

J: You have been skijoring with Axel in the back of the team for the last several days. Tell me a little bit about Axel.
K: Axel’s amazing. I think he’s the strongest dog on the team. He pulls like a maniac all day. I’m at the back and he wants to be at the front and sometimes I can barely even stop him with 3 sleds behind me, so he’s awesome.

J: Who is the biggest eater on the trip?
K: That would be Hugh.

J: Who has the cleanest coffee mug on the trip and who has the dirtiest and why?
K: John has the cleanest and I’m pretty sure I have the dirtiest because I still haven’t washed it and it’s Day 30, 31, 32.
J: What does that look like?
K: It looks like a brown ring of coffee around the top of my mug, but it’s pretty good. It filters all the little bits out of my coffee in the morning that I don’t want.
J: Oh, very clever. That brown ring, just so you know at home, is accentuated by the whiteness of the rest of the coffee cup.

J: OK, last question, hard question – What is one thing that you found harder than you thought it would be about being on this expedition? And what is one thing that is easier than you thought it would be?
K: I think I found the filming a lot harder even though I thought I prepared really well and I had some experience filming in the cold; it’s been much harder than I anticipated. And something I found easier, I think is physically because our dogs are so awesome. I think the actual walking and pulling has been easier.
J: Well, thank you very much, Kyle.

Soon we’ll have an interview with Toby coming up in the next few weeks. Thanks everybody.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 5/1/13, Day 32
Location: 80°17'N, 87°31'W
Traveled: 7 hours, 12.8 miles
Temperatures: 21°F am, 23°F pm

STEALIN' WOLF

May 1, 2013

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

INTO EUREKA

April 27, 2013

by John Huston

Today on a nice warm evening, we arrived in Eureka. Eureka is a small weather station and research base staffed by just a few people year round.

It basically looks like a very small town with various buildings, garages, a small boat dock. We are camped on the sea ice just a few hundred yards from there. So this is where we will be resupplying before we head on our big long journey north. And it’s a nice time to rest, give the dogs a break, and to make some plans about how much food and fuel and all the little details for our longest part of the journey which is coming soon. So it feels as we’re kind of half way, even though time wise we’re not half way yet, but it does feel kind of like a halfway point. So, we’re enjoying some relaxation; it’s going to be a real long sleep tonight.

Yesterday we encountered this massive kind of Alpinesque iceberg. We played around there for a little bit; that was pretty fun. Today featured a bunch of wind in the morning in our faces and then we rounded a point and the wind went away and the skiing just turned out to be totally awesome. So we netted 16 nautical miles in only 6 hours and 45 minutes of travel, by far our best ratio yet. Everyone’s happy and healthy. We’re excited for some rest, we’re excited to give our dogs 2 days off here, and we hope you have a good weekend. Thank you.

*Toby, Elle, & Napu Speeding into Eureka*

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 4/26/13, Day 27
Location: N79°49', W85°55'
Traveled: 6.75 hours, 16 miles
Temperatures: -1°F am, 5°F pm

INTERVIEW WITH HUGH

April 25, 2013

by John Huston

For today’s blog I’m going to interview Hugh Dale-Harris, our Canadian teammate and a really great guy.

John (J): Here we go. Are you ready, Hugh?
Hugh (H): I’m ready.

J: First question, how does this trip compare to your expedition to the North Pole and your other expedition across Arctic Canada?
H: Ah, this expedition is different in that we’re traveling straight north through most of Ellesmere Island. The biggest difference probably is that we’re traveling by skijoring so each of us has one dog. The previous two expeditions we traveled by dog team. And also actually what’s similar between the two of them as well is that we’re traveling in springtime which is the time to travel in the Arctic.

J: What do you miss most about home?
H: I miss my family the most for sure. Lilly, ChiChi, Lizzy, and Amy, I miss you guys so much. Can’t wait to see you in June. Love you so much.

J: What is your favorite thing to eat when we take breaks?
H: Favorite thing to eat when we take breaks has got to be the soup; it’s an instant soup. We have some bacon parmesan, a whole box of sections of butter, and it’s awesome. I love it.

J: What happened yesterday afternoon?
H: Yesterday afternoon while I was enjoying my previously mentioned soup, we saw a pack of 8 wolves coming up to check us out, probably a couple of hundred meters off. Toby spotted them. They looked like ice chunks, it’s amazing. They just kind of appeared out of nowhere, howled and the dogs responded. And then they sniffed around a little bit and stayed their distance and then they basically vanished into the Arctic again. They’re amazingly camouflaged.

J: What happened last night shortly after we went to bed?
H: Shortly after we went to bed, we were awakened by the dogs’ barking and growling, which is not uncommon because they can kind of play with each other or argue over some leftover food. But we looked out and they were looking in one direction. And the wolves had come within about 50 to 100 meters of our camp to check us out while we were sleeping.
J: We were safe. Nothing happened.

J: What is your favorite time of day out here?
H: Favorite time of day is muscle-milk time. So as soon as we get in the tent at the end of the day, peel off our layers, take off our boots, and enjoy a hot drink, and for me and a few others of us, it’s muscle milk, which is like a sweet warm beverage; it’s kind of like a hot chocolate.
J: Hugh likes to drink hot drinks and he’s really good at doing that.

J: Hugh, what is your favorite hot drink on this trip?
H: The previously mentioned muscle milk is a favorite, but also my coffee first thing in the morning, instant coffee, is great. It’s one of those Starbuck’s instant coffees and it’s actually pretty good. I love it.

J: OK, in the tent, who do you sleep next to when you sleep?
H: When I sleep in the tent, I sleep in the middle and on my left is Toby and we sleep head-to-foot kind of thing. And then on my right is John, and we sleep head-to-head so when I roll over I can gaze into his eyes.
J: That’s not true.

J: Quickly describe the sleeping bag and how you’re using it these days.
H: Right now what I’ve done is opened up the sleeping bag. It’s actually quite warm because we have 24-hour sun right now, so over night the tent actually gets pretty warm. So I open up my sleeping bag and just use it basically as a duvet. And I wear like just a light jacket to keep me warm, so it’s comfortable.

J: Thanks for doing the interview, Hugh. You did a really good job. He does a lot of good jobs and other things out here, too. All right, more interviews and more fun blogs coming up. Stay tuned.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: 4/25/13, Day 26
Location: N79°49', W86°28'
Traveled: 7 hours, 13.5 miles
Temperature: -7°F am

Blog

TOWARDS LAND'S LOKK

LITTLE LARRY

HALFWAY FACTS

INTERVIEW WITH KYLE

STEALIN' WOLF

INTO EUREKA

INTERVIEW WITH HUGH