Iqaluit again!

Well yesterday I made a second snowmobile trip to Iqaluit. My friend Kamikee phoned me Friday evening and asked if I would go with him to pick up a new snowmobile. We headed out at 7:00 Saturday morning in company with a young woman who works for the tourism ministry who needed to get back home after being here for a few days. It was snowing a bit but not too bad. However, the wind was whipping the snow up a fair bit. The first part of the trip was fine, but as we got to the 60km portion of the trip that is up on the barren plateau, it was snowing and blowing very hard, and all traces of the trail were buried under snow. There were deep drifts in places as well in which the machines would bottom out, and then we would have to dig them out. Once again, my GPS proved its worth, and although we were off the best line sometimes, we made it to each of the emergency shelters which I had entered as waypoints. We finally made it into Iqaluit after a total white out on Frobisher Bay at about 1:00PM. We picked up the machine, had lunch at a Subway, and headed out again on the two snomobiles. The trip back was much better and we could see the trail almost the whole way. We made it back in five hours. Altogether we were on the machines close to 12 hours. Needless to say I feel pretty beat up today, but it was worth it. I'd do it again if the opportunity presented itself. The coutry is totally awesome! We still haven't had much spring weather, although it is much milder than it was. Today we had several hours of sunshine and the snow was melting. We are getting close to 20hours of light now (not sunlight, but long twilights)and it is hard to sleep in in the mornings when it is getting light by 3:30AM. I'll be describing this as it progresses until I leave on June 19.