July 18th, 2010

Today we left Pangnirtung and headed North above the Arctic Circle for Pond inlet. Pond inlet had beautiful mountains and glaciers. The ice was flowing into the inlet from Greenland and hunters can be seen on the ice hunting seals while keeping an eye out for narwhal pods. When we arrived the temperature was at least 20C, it felt like a warm summer day in Vancouver. Pond inlet is on the northern tip of baffin island and the sun is high in the sky 24 hours a day. It is even more difficult to keep track of the time of day than pangnirtung because pond inlet is further north.

We met a guide and he suggested that my dad and I try to hike horirder(spell check) mountain. It was a couple days hike from the town. The next morning we began to trek towards the mountain by walking along the coast. To our relief the Mosquitos were very minimal on this hike. About 3 hours into our trip the weather took a turn for the worst. It started pouring rain and the cold rain made it difficult to cross the marsh. We got through the marsh and we were supposed to cross James creek to get to the mountain. The creek looked more like a river at the time and there was no way that we could cross it. We walked down to the mouth of the creek where the water rushes into the ocean. Here we found numerous large pieces of wood that we used to quickly make a small shelter were we could hide from the intense rain.

In order to keep warm we found a old rusted barrel on the beach that we filled with drift wood and burned using naptha. It took a long time to get the fire going in the rain but eventually we got it going. It turns out that were we camped was a old hunting ground that was used to cut up the kills from the hunts. There were bones of all kinds everywhere. Fortunately there was an abandoned tent not far from our site which had several liters of fuels. This fuel helped keep our fire going in the rain.

Written by Adam McLeod

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