We arrived in Ottawa and settled into the Lord Elgin Hotel. After having a bite to eat we had an early night, all equipment accounted for and The following morning we awoke to a pleasant morning and went into town to get some supplies for the expedition. This ranged from peanut butter to candles and matches. Shortly after we found a coffee shop and discussed the forthcoming expedition, discussing issues like Polar Bears to the low temperatures that were being recorded at Resolute (-42). In the evening we hosted Mr Rick Sellick for dinner, he had been extremely helpful in the logistics for this trip and also Matt's previous expedition; what was also invaluable was his knowledge of Nunavut and the areas we are planning to operate in.
The following morning we arose and had breakfast to find that there was a large snow storm forecast to hit the North American continent. This would unfortunately hinder our plans to visit Richard Webber, an extremely famous Arctic Explorer who lives just outside Ottawa. He advised that we stay put due to the amount of snow that had already began to fall and his wife Josée came into town in their 4x4 and dropped off our supplies including the shotgun that they had kindly procured on our behalf. This will be used as a last resort to discourage any Polar Bears that take more than a curious interest in us.
We then did our final preparation before heading out to the airport. Due to the heavy snow we decided to leave late in the evening, to ensure that we arrived in a timely manner for our early morning flight, this proved to be a wise decision as the road conditions were deteriorating as we set off. The following morning we managed to negotiate all our baggage onto the flight up to Resolute. This is not as simple as it sounds as there is a connecting flight onwards to Resolute.
The flight time from Ottawa to Iqaluit is approx 4 hours long and we arrived in the early afternoon to -30 at Iqaluit airport. Unfortunately we were delayed here due to a mechanical problem, and boarded our twin prop flight to Arctic Bay 2 hours later than planned. We had been warned that all of our baggage may not be accompanying us to Resolute due to the flight being full to Arctic Bay and Matt was concerned at how this would impact on our preparation for the expedition and we had to wait until arriving at Resolute airport to find out if our equipment had accompanied us. Luckily upon arrival at a very dark and cold Resolute (-42) we checked ourbaggage outside the terminal and much to our relief found that it had all arrived. We begin packing pulks tomorrow.
Matt as close as we hope to get to a polar bear.
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