It's 6:00 pm Cambridge Bay time. We're alive and well.

We want to thank Adlair Aviation - particularly our pilot, Laurie - for safely transporting us to and from King William Island. For information on charter flights in the area, contact Rene Laserich or his sister Joanne at: Box 111, Cambridge Bay, N.W.T. Canada X0E 0C0 Phone: (403) 983-2569

Monday morning dawned with heavy fog. When we called in the weather report, we were "fogged in". The bay was filled with ice. We knew we had to switch to "Plan B" and haul everything to the inland lake. It would have been easier on us to take everything in two trips, but we when we heard about the strong winds in Cambridge Bay, we opted for trying to do it in one. We hoped to complete the move before the winds reached King William Island. The terrain was extremely rough and we knew bad weather was coming, but we were slowed down by all we had to carry; the camping gear, food, cooking equipment, telephone, rifle (a safety precaution), all the camera and video equipment, and the rickshaw. We had to set up on a gravel ridge, high and exposed, to find a dry place to camp. Then the winds hit.

We experienced gale force winds yesterday and last night. The winds were too strong to allow the plane to take off to come and get us and we had to sit there through the gale in our tents. It was "a blast" I'll tell you! And it was cold! The temperature was just above freezing, so with the wind chill it was well below freezing. In any event, we've survived. We're out of there. It's strange... you leave the place for an hour and it's like it never happened.

We've kind of lost track of time, I'm not sure what time they picked us up. We've been here in Cambridge Bay just over an hour; long enough to shower and have something to eat. It feels great to have a hot shower! Maybe it's been longer than an hour... we're kind of dragging our tails...

I'm sorry to have left you in the lurch yesterday, but we had no choice. We should have charged up the phone battery while the sun was shining. After the weather turned bad we realized that the battery was dangerously low. We had put ourselves in jeopardy. We needed to call in the weather reports to the airline, and had to save our precious remaining battery power. By today the battery was dead and we couldn't call. We were afraid we might be stuck out there another day because the airline company would be wondering what the weather was like before they could make a decision about sending out a plane.

We were planning a longer trek next year, retracing the original journey starting in April; the 150th anniversary of when the crew actually left the ships... Right now we're having second thoughts. But we'll feel differently once our feet have recuperated.

The weather here in Cambridge Bay is just above freezing. It's bad enough here - we would not have wanted to spend another night out there on King William Island.

You can report that we're fine. We have some things to do here for the next couple of days, some photographs to take and people to visit. We'll be leaving to come home Thursday night, taking the "red eye", and arriving in Toronto at about 7:00 am Friday.

I'll give you a shout tomorrow night and let you know if anything noteworthy is happening.

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