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Last night was my first night sleeping
out on the ice. I was awakened several times during the night
by the sound of the ice cracking. It sounded like distant gunshots.
I slept in my sleeping bag on top of a 2" thick foam mattress
covered with caribou skins. To my surprise, I was very
First night on the ice
comfortable and warm
although it was extremely cold last night. Last night I told my
guides that my sleeping bag was good to -90 below and they asked
me what I'm going to do if it gets down to -91 below! Then they
laughed! We also have a small kerosene heater in the tent that
helps keep the bitter cold out.
My guides have had
many encounters in the past with bears coming into camp, but luckily
we didn't have any. They said that if the bears come into camp,
we'd have to encircle the tent with the dogs.
I left my PSE Gorilla
twins outside last night along with my arrows. I figured that
because of the extreme cold, if anything were going to happen
to my equipment, it would have happened. The first thing this
morning, I got up and shot about 30 rounds. I wore only the clothing
I knew I would be wearing when I shoot the bear because I wanted
to see how long I could last outside without my caribou skin clothing
on. First morning on the ice.
It is so cold this
morning that you can actually "see the air"--you can
almost cut it with a knife. We had Freddy Chef sausage and hash
browns for breakfast and then the wind picked up and we got socked
in. We couldn't break camp until 2:00. We spent most of the morning
talking about our families and their ancestors and how they lived
on the ice. One of the things that really impressed me was that
they used seal fat to burn for heat.
Traveling North
We traveled about 10
miles today through the pressure ridges. The drifting snow covered
the jagged blocks of ice, so our sleds kept getting hung up. The
edges of the ice cut into our sleds and also the ropes holding
our supplies. It sometimes took all three of us an hour or more
to chop the ice out from underneath the sleds.
Both guides got banged
up a little today trying to get the sleds out of the ice and David
got severe frostbite on both of his cheeks. Any of your skin that's
exposed will freeze. As I was helping them I was making sure I
wouldn't get hurt because then my hunt would be over. All in all,
the dogs are holding up well, but the intense cold is unbelievable.
Case of frostbite
I'm using a K&H
Products porta brace to wrap around my GL1 Canon Video Camera.
I put hand warmers inside the pockets on the porta brace. It works
excellent and keeps
the camera warm. We're pulling into camp early today because of
the severe weather. We can only see about 100 yards now. It's
been kind of a disappointing day. We're setting up again in the
middle of nowhere using a pressure ridge for a windbreak. Looking
forward to tomorrow.
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About
Ray
