First Camping Trip of the year....

So, on Friday I packed up my qamoutik and then just after dawn (around 7:45 am) I left for Short Lake with Daniel and Annie, Leevan, Traugott and Lane. Leevan and Daniel were travelling by dog team, since they are going in a couple weeks to the annual Ivakkak race, a 400-500 mile dog sled race in the old style of racing... The route to Short Lake is 40 miles so it was a good practice. Traugott (Dan and Annie's son) rode with me on my skidoo and Lane (the other son) rode with his mom. We left the older guys to come on their own time since dogs travel much slower than skidoos. We picked up Mark's dogs halfway, where he had left them the night before since it had become too dark to take them all the way. So, it was a bit of slow goings for us- drive ahead, stop wait for the dogs to catch up, drive further... It was a gorgeous day however so it was nice to take our time.

We got to the campsite in the morning and lucky for me, Daniel and Annie had been there a few weekends before so the tent was already set up. Nancy and Mark's tent was bursting at the seams with people so Annie offered for me to stay in with them, on the condition that I share my mattress with Leevan. It became a bit of the camp joke that night, as Leevan is a single guy and Daniel said, he has been trying to find him a good wife. Hahaha...

I was exhausted for some reason but managed to have enough energy to eat some lunch and go to the fishing spot. I laid down on the ice and almost instantly I saw fish swimming past my hook. Within about 3 minutes I caught a nice bite and pulled her in. First fish in a few years since the license issue has finally been worked out. It was fun, but once the fish became a bit more sparse, the tiredness hit me again and didn't have much energy to anything other than go to the tent and relax.
I spent a few hours playing around with Imaapik (Mark and Nancy's three year old boy who really believes he is spiderman) at the tent. I love that feeling of relaxing and hanging out in the fresh air, with the wood stove burning and crackling away all day.


We had a huge feast for supper- sushi (with fresh charr, only minutes old), melt in your mouth fried garlic caribou, fresh bannock (made by Andrea, Mark and Nancy's youngest girl) and some giant Nova Scotia scallops (compliments of moi from my Christmas cooler), and some chilled red wine. Everything tastes a million times better when you are in a tent so it was a fantastic meal in a full tent (11 adults and a few kids). I went to bed early, maybe around 9 pm, and had one of the best sleeps I have ever had in a tent. The night was silent and the sky FULL of stars as I went for my last pee before bed. Beautiful!



In the morning, the sky and the land seemed as one, as they were both completely white. Makes for a challenging drive home as bumps and ruts on the trail are harder to see. We woke up around 7:30, and the dog sled guys got on the road early. Annie and I stayed in the tent for a while just chatting and relaxing before packing everything up and putting back in the sled. We took off before lunch, and took an hour down on the lake fishing before we started the trek home. Some of the dogs were running with us again so it was kind of slow going for a while. Then Mark caught up and sent us on ahead, and he waited for the dogs instead.

We got home around 4:30 pm or so. Felt much later, and I was so starved that I ate an icy, frozen egg sandwich while I unpacked my things and brought them in the house. I chatted with a few people on the phone, took a bath and headed to bed by 9:30 TOTALLY drained. I love that feeling, makes you feel like you have REALLY done something on the weekend.