Packing the Beaver float plane for departure. Norm Meek's truck is in the foreground.

We left Cambridge Bay at 9:20 this morning, and flew east to King William Island. Due to a strong headwind, the trip took two hours instead of the usual hour and a half. We landed about five miles south of Cape Crozier to leave food for the second half of our exploratory hike. John MacDonald volunteered to be the one to wade to shore carrying the food through the icy water, cache it, and wade back to the float plane.

At 11:55 am we reached Erebus Bay to bury the remains. There was too much ice in the bay to allow us to land, so we landed in a small inland lake about two miles from the site. After a brisk hike to the site, we collected the skulls and femur and put them into a metal box. We built a stone cairn over the box, said a prayer, and placed the plaque. This took approximately two hours.

We landed at 3:30 pm at our chosen destination and began to set up camp. Our precise location is 69 degrees 6 minutes North by 99 degrees 26 minutes West. Our total flying time today was three hours and used about 40 gal. of fuel. By about 5:00 pm we had set up camp and prepared to settle in for the night. Derek cooked us up one of his delicious pasta dinners, with a cheese sauce and a concoction of spices. Earlier today we came within about 50 yards of a caribou doe and calf. They did not seem to be frightened of us at all. We flew over about 40 - 50 musk ox as we approached our campsite. There is musk ox wool all around the campsite, so we know they are in the area. Lots of waterfowl were seen as well; tundra swans, eider ducks, terns and snowgeese. Snowgeese cannot fly at this time of year, and from the sounds we heard we assume there was an encounter with a fox, although we did not see it. The weather is overcast, about 9 degrees Celsius. The temperature will likely go below 5 degrees tonight. Showers are imminent, we can see them coming. It is about 9:30 pm; we are all very tired and expect to be asleep soon, lulled by the rain.

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