Welcome to the BWCAW blog of Ely Outfitting Company and Boundary Waters Guide Service!

See our websites at ElyOutfittingCompany.com and BoundaryWatersGuideService.com.

We are a Boundary Waters canoe trip outfitter, Quetico outfitter, and guide service in Ely, Minnesota. This Boundary Waters blog shares photos, stories, humor, skills, and naturalist insights from guiding in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

Most entries are from our founder and head guide, Jason Zabokrtsky. He is the Boundary Waters Blogger.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Hudson Bay Recap

We've returned happy and healthy from our Hudson Bay dogsledding adventure.

Every spring, after the Minnesota dogsledding season ends, Wintergreen Lodge leads dogsled adventures to various destinations such as the North Pole, Greenland, Svalbaard, other Arctic locations, and the Rocky Mountains. Eight of our Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge guides left Ely by truck and dog trailer on April 3 bound for Churchill, Manitoba, via truck, train, dogsled, and ski. Local Ely Wintergreen guides who joined the trip include Paul Schurke, LynnAnne Vesper, Kate Ford, Don Watson, Ellen Root, Dave Freeman, Amy Voytilla, and Jason Zabokrtsky.

We drove to Thompson, Manitoba, boarded the "Tundra Train" going north toward Churchill, and then got off the train at a tundra stop for a six day, hundred mile journey by dogsled and ski to Hudson Bay and Churchill. The trip also included five additional adventurers who joined to learn about dogsledding, winter camping, Arctic wildlife and tundra travel. A unique feature of this trip is that schoolchildren around the globe followed our progress via electronic updates to WildernessClassroom.com, an educational nonprofit led by Dave Freeman.

We experienced dogsledding on the frozen Manitoba tundra and pack ice of Hudson Bay, endured the unrelenting frigid winds of vast open expanse, and journeyed along the tracks of recent polar bears and polar bear cubs. This photo shows our team on Hudson Bay. Pack ice extends to the horizon.

4 comments:

Betsy F said...

Did you know that Google Earth doesn't know where Thompson is? It thinks it's way south near the US border.

Rich Hoeg said...

Great work ... particularly your link to the classroom. Having worked to make education a bit more fun myself for years, I thought your slideshow was crying out for some animation! (which being a nerd, I happily provided). Hope you don't mind; everything points back to your web site. http://photopeach.com/album/ythlra

Jason Zabokrtsky said...

Betsy, traveling through a place that Google Earth doesn't even know exists sounds particularly adventuresome, aye!?

Jason Zabokrtsky said...

Rich, that's a fun slide show. Thanks for putting it together. Cool! I'm planning to put a 2008-09 dogsledding bloopers slideshow together and photopeach may be the way to go.