Waiting out the Wind

We knew that Banks Island is windy, so we made sure we had the right clothes and gear to deal with it.  We built layover days into the travel schedule, knowing that there would be times when it would be too windy to paddle. I took a Brunton ADC Wind device so I could record wind speed, temperature, and wind chill.

The day we were dropped off the winds were light and the temperatures were mild, which made it a lot easier to set up that first camp.  After a quick lunch we turned our attention to assembling the canoes.  With the light winds we were able to get all three of them done in two hours, leaving time for a  hike before dinner.
 As we ate a late dinner, the already light winds dropped even more.  It was so calm that the water on the river was like glass.  A yellow-billed loon swam by; we could clearly see his reflection in the water.  After dinner Karen only half-jokingly suggested we strike camp and  hit the river.  But it had been a long day and our sleeping bags were calling, so we crawled into our tents around 10:30 looking forward to paddling the next day. 

But ... the wind had other ideas.  No sooner had we settled down than it started to blow and the temperatures dropped.  The overnight low temperature inside the tent was 42°, so outside it must have been in the mid 30s. By morning it was blowing between 10 and 20 mph right out of the north and there were whitecaps on the river.   We clearly weren't going anywhere. In fact, we weren't able to go anywhere for a couple of days.

 So we slept in and had leisurely breakfasts.


We took long hikes.






We visited the local wolf den.  No-one was home.


We watched lots of birds and accidentally got really close to a pair of nesting Brant.











We found lots of muskox carcasses and enjoyed the just-starting-to-bloom wildflowers. 

 We hiked some more, took long leisurely lunch breaks, and marveled at the artistic abilities of arctic hare.

And finally, just when it looked like we might be spending a third night at the landing site, we realized the wind had diminished, so we decided to make a break for it.  That's one of the good things about traveling above the Arctic Circle in summer - you don't have to worry about the sun setting. 

Now when I say the wind had dropped off, I mean it was blowing less hard than earlier.  We were still paddling in whitecaps straight into 10-15 mph winds. We got on the river around 9:00 pm and managed about two and a half hours before cold and fatigue got the better of us.  We covered just over 10 miles - a pretty slow pace, but putting the landing site behind us really gave us the sense that our adventure was truly underway.