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.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Windbound

We are in the midst of an all out gale. Winds blowing upwards of 35 mph have stopped us in our tracks. Air temps are about 10F, but the wind chill has pushed temps into the deep freeze.

Blowing snow is piling up in drifts around the dogsleds and we have hunkered down at an abandoned research station on the shores of Hudson Bay. We have kept warm building snow walls to shade the dogs from the wind.

A photo shows our dog, Franky, behind his snow wall. Another photo shows a dogsled getting drifted over.

We are passing the time resting, snacking, playing games, enjoying conversation and waiting for the weather to break.

We continue to follow proper protocol for camping in polar bear country. For example, you see in the photo of camp that the dogs are staked out in rows to the left and right, and we sleep in between them. This configuration ensures that the dogs sound off should a polar bear approach in the night.

Tomorrow we will hopefully awake to lighter winds. We will dogsled to the Northern Studies Center near Churchill.

No comments: