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Kitesled expedition live 19/3/09
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March 19th, 20092009 Expedition live., Its a windswept life!, News
Update from Ben:Despite looking like 100 miles of unmade road when I turned up in Churchill, I didn’t feel too bad. I got a taxi to our lodge, and not surprisingly, ran into Dave just emerging from his natural habitat- the hardware store.
He’d just spent 40 hours on what he called the Ghost Train, a 1000 mile rail line from Winnipeg to Churchill. There were two passengers, Dave and a Korean travel writer. They had three staff looking after them. The track is sinking into the permafrost, and the train often goes no more than 10 kilometres an hour. At times for some reason it goes backwards.
Dave was in high spirits and was full of enthusiasm for Churchill, in fact was planning to move here and raise a family, he liked it so much. All I could see was that it was grey and dark, and there was a wind-chill of -50.
Tuesday was something of a missing day for me. I woke up with a sore throat, and managed to sleep for 20 out of the next 24 hours. While I slept, Dave fell in with the local dog sledders, particularly Claude, who was organising this years Hudson Bay Quest- a four hundred kilometre Dog Sled race finishing in the Inuit town of Arviat.
I felt a little bit more human yesterday, enough to drag myself down to the Gypsy Bakery, an understated title for the social hub of Churchill. Run by three young Portugese brothers, it’s a European style cafe restaurant with a crowd of northern roughnecks, dog sledders, Inuit, and other townsfolk. There we met Rose, an Inuit/Cree woman who’s husband was out trapping fur up towards Arviat. She took our Mountain Hardware parkas and customized them, sewing Arctic Wolf fur around the hood of mine, and Silver Fox around Dave’s. Dave was concerned the fox might be seen among the Inuit as woman’s fur, but he got some appreciative nods from the locals so I don’t think he’s so worried now.
We spent the morning packing the sled and now we wait like a sailing ship in Master and Commander, for fair winds. The Hudson Bay Quest starts on Saturday, and we really want to be in Arviat by Monday night. Apparently there’s a traditional feast planned for the end of the race, and that’s not something we want to miss.
We might even get there by Monday. It’s nearly 400km away, but there’s South East tail winds forecast for the weekend. Fingers crossed.Ben.
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