The journey home was very smooth and easy with the exception of 2 very surreal moments. The first was the check in at Resolute!!! The lady who was responsible for checking us in for our ‘First Air’ flight from Resolute to Iqaluit has managed to build herself quite an exceptional reputation. To say that she is a little on the slow side would just not do her justice. There are 4 flights a week out of Resolute with a maximum of 8 passengers per plane and she is single headedly responsible for delaying 97% of all the flights. Being fully aware of her exceptional talent we arrived 3 hours early for our flight and stood at the check in desk in a bid not to miss our connection in Ottawa. The situation was looking promising as there were only 5 of us on the flight. After 48mins the situation began to deteriorate as she was still trying to check the first person in. There was a long debate as she tried to justify why she was charging us for luggage and ticket alteration fees and a whole host of other penalties that she then promptly forgot to actually put through the system. I suspect the whole situation wasn’t helped when after 80 mins Charlie could no longer hold back the flood of irritation that had been building up inside and started asking what on earth she was doing and whether she thought she could work at MIT. Needless to say we just became another statistic and a mere 40 mins late we finally managed to take off with all our bags and passengers.

We were fully aware that we had some excess luggage when we started the journey however when we came to check it in to Air Canada in Ottawa we came very close to just leaving it in the airport. At first I laughed at the man because his accent was so strong that I thought he had simply made a mistake and the translation was lost in his deep French pronunciation. After some clarification we all stood in total silence as they wanted more for each bag than the original cost of the flights. Once again Charlie launched into a full frontal verbal assault at the man, this time however the conflict of the strong French and Scottish accents nullified each other and they both just displayed a look saying ‘I’m sorry, are you speaking to me? I’m afraid I didn’t understand’. At that point the credit cards came out and we swiftly moved on.

Home hasn’t exactly been relaxing yet and we took Easter Sunday off before getting back to work on Monday. We are off to France tomorrow to see my family and enjoy a few days training in the warm and the sun.

Sorry for the long radio silence, the generator decided to pack up and so we have been rationing our precious power for the past few days. So much has happened since the weekend that I wasn’t sure if I should break it down into two separate posts or just tell the whole story in one go.

After a few more long days working away we managed to get camp looking fantastic. The shower was… I want to say brilliant because out in the middle of the Arctic the concept of a shower is a little on the ludicrous side. The truth of the matter is that it brings back floods of memories of being in Africa when you have to contort yourself into unusual positions just to get your whole body wet. Once that is achieved, under the incredibly slow (and short lived) trickle, you have to try and get all the soap of before the water ‘tank’ runs dry. Regardless of all that we can wash ourselves and we have grown quite fond of our little shower.

The kitchen sink has performed fantastically and we can wash up all the dishes after every meal now. It has all become so efficient that we even empty out our meal bags out onto plates and sit around the table to eat them. I have no idea why but they seam to taste much better of a plate rather than in a bag. Speaking of efficiency we have established a routine with the heater now and are able to keep the temperature in our home at a perfect level. We do have a hose to connect the heater directly to a 45 Gallon drum and run the heater continuously but despite the additional hassle we found that we can monitor the fuel far more efficiently if we run the heater from the 5 gallon jerry can on the back. When the Jerry can is full we can run the heater on its lowest setting for between 9.5 and 10 hours. The lowest setting is ample to keep our home warm and when the fuel runs out we can leave it about 2 hours before having to relight it. We have had long debates about the toilet and have agreed and settled that it will stay outdoors in the ice. Cold as it may be dealing with the pluming of an indoor one is just not going to be realistic at this stage.

We have taken to a regular fitness regime and every day we walk, ski, run or hike up at least one of the hills. I was so excited when we reached the top of one of the big ones to see that there was a clear run of snow down one side. Although the bindings and boots are not exactly designed for skiing and I didn’t execute it in the most graceful of manners I couldn’t resist telemarking down.

Excuse the change in tense here but the story was written in staggered instalments.

After all the work we put into getting our home up and running we then got a devastating call from the London head office… we are coming off the ice!!! For a whole host of reasons it has been deemed that our job is done and we are on our way home. Our extraction was synchronised with the main resupply for PAM and we then had to completely disassemble our home. We all felt a little shocked and sat in silence for a while, I suppose each of us was thinking the same thing one way or another and then starting to get on with job. The flight was delayed by a day giving us enough time to return the whole place as we had found it ( Well not exactly as we found it, we didn’t fill the cabins back up with snow. We actually took great care to board up the doors and windows to protect them) and then Charlie hopped on the plane as it came through on its outbound leg to go on up to see Pen, Ann Daniels (mother of 4) and Martin (sweat cheeks) while Katie and I made final preparations for departure. Once everything was packed and out by the runway Katie managed to get her very first glimpse of an animal, a wolf. The wolf was actually rummaging around the bag with the cameras in so we couldn’t get a picture but Katie was very excited to see her first wild polar animal none the less. The plane was late on its return leg and Katie and I had taken to trying to guess the song that we were singing songs through our emergency whistles to try and stay warm. The flight home was quiet and sombre and we all sat staring out of the windows watching the polar ice below (and Katie wants me to mention the enormous pink moon).

Life here is brilliant, as brilliant as Arctic dwelling can get in fact, might not compare to a few weeks sailing around the coast of Southern Thailand, but within its genera, its pretty dame good! My only compliant is that I still haven’t seen an animal of any kind! (Sorry Hector soon as I do I will get picture up for you.) The weather has been overcast the past couple of days and a nippy wind has picked up making it feel a little colder (or ‘brutal’ as the Canadians would say), but this hasn’t stopped the work. We have been beavering away with a multitude of home improvements, worthy of any mid morning TV show.

The latest instalments have been; a new kitchen with sink built into the worktop, a shower cubical with changing area, coat rack and boot area, fuel bund with dispensary taps, and an external home for the generator (with chimney for the fumes). Last night we even put up a dining table, found a few old plates and I made us beans on toast … who could ask for more!

Even with all these luxurious home comforts we have surrounded ourselves with, life isn’t quite like being at home, there is always a longer process involved in receiving the end goods. The shower for example. If you decide you want to have a shower you must first collect a bucket of snow, leave it by the heater for several hours to melt, then fill the bag with nozzle attachment with the water and put it up on the top shelf over the shower, then leave for several more hours for the water to warm in plastic bag. We purposely built the shower right next to the heater hoping sufficient hot air would rise to the roof of the porta cabin and heat the water sufficiently to take the Arctic chill off it. Tarka is about to try the first shower this evening so we will see…! Another example, Charlie pointed out to me the other day as he came in laughing at the randomness of cold weather living, was when he could hear sawing and wondered in to see what I was creating next, only to find that was in fact sawing away with the large wood saw, but what I was desperately trying to cut through was the weeks rashen of cheese!

I even managed a short run this morning up and down the runway, my poor lungs were the only thing to suffer, with every freezing inhalation causing a deep burning pain. Couple more days and I am sure they will have got the gist.

We are working on the video of camp but having a few technical issues…will keep trying.