Cabin in McLeod Bay
Icebound: Cumulative total remains 218 km
InReach: Day 10 No significant change in the ice Worked on Hanbury River “Plan B” maps Hope we don’t need them! Recon to ice edge tomorrow JK
Camp: 62.611°N 111.520°W
A difficult day. There was no apparent movement of ice down the lake though the rafts immediately in front of the cabin was melting and breaking up. The day was overcast with occasional light showers and mosquitoes in plague proportions. I spent most of the day reading a novel I found in the cabin, John was very restless and bored but kept busy burning rubbish and annotating the second set of Hanbury maps.
Much time was spent talking and soul searching over how to approach the remainder of the trip. We needed to consider the weight of everything we had to carry and acknowledge that we have lost strength and stamina since the Dubawnt River trip four years ago. There were options. The most likely was to fly one drum and two fuel cans into Jim Magrum Lake with Dave Olesen when he takes German Carsten’s gear in and we could then redistribute the rest and take more trips over Pike’s portage. Alternately we could revise the trip plan cancelling the Back River trip and go to Plan B, down the Hanbury River to Baker Lake, or various iterations of these scenarios. The past ten days had been something of an unwanted revelation for John in accepting the changes time is forcing on us. The most important thing has been to recognise there are options and get back on the water before John goes stir crazy. On a positive note John has managed to repair his blow up pillow and make it useable again.
Sitting at a table to eat was a definite luxury!