Point Barrow

Saturday, August 29, 2015 Point Barrow, Alaska 71°23'N 156°28'W At Prudhoe Bay, as hoped for, the wind blew from the south all night. By morning, the wall of ice on the northern horizon had disappeared. We decided to poke Gjoa's bow out beyond the barrier islands and see what, if anything, the wind...

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Blocked

Tuesday, August 25, 2015 Prudhoe Bay, Alaska 70°22.969N 148°03.618W If you'd asked me last year where I thought there might be an ice blockage, in August, during our western half transit of the NWP, I would never have said the Arctic Alaska coast. However, here we are and we are blocked from proceeding...

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Tuk Arrival

Wednesday, August 19 Tuktoyaktuk, NWT 69º 26.8N  133º 00.1W After a solid first week slogging it out against tough headwinds, we finally got a break. The wind went into the East, Gjoa kicked up her heels and we were off on a broad reach in NE25-30 knot winds. We set a new noon-to-noon speed record...

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Nunavut - "Our Land"

Now that we have left Nunavut, here is some factual information about it that maybe we should have shared at the beginning of our year-long visit. The most stunning fact is how few people there are here, just 33,000 spread across a vast land the size of Western Europe. On April 1, 1999, Canada's original...

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On our way

Sunday, August 16, 2015 Amundsen Gulf 69° 23.03N 118° 51.1W What a difference a year makes. On this date last year we were holed up in Arctic Bay, waiting for the ice to clear so we could continue our journey westwards. As you'll recall, 2014 was a difficult ice year. Peel Sound and Victoria Strait...

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Afloat at Last

It's a long story and I'll omit the gory details, but, the crane operator, promised for last Tuesday, did actually arrive. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the same guy who had left us in the lurch previously and he again had a million excuses as to why he couldn't do the job. Another big letdown...

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Still Waiting - Update

Almost a week since my last post and nothing much has changed. We are STILL WAITING here in Cambridge Bay. Unbelievably, the crane operator that was lined up to launch us last week left town without even a goodbye, leaving us high and dry still on the shore and extremely frustrated. Another operator...

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