Day 14: April 16, 2026
Will is adapting to the temperatures of an unseasonably cold high-pressure system, using his day off to dry gear, rue the mattress problem, and get into the "explorer’s mind."
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Hello, it's Will here on April 16, 2026, day 14 on the Haldane River on the headwaters. And what rules right now on the expedition is the really super cold weather that I'm in. The area has been in .. it's been a late, higher than ... lower than expected temperatures in the whole Arctic, this region here, the last month or so, whether that's it or not. But I'm at a higher elevation. The Great Bear Lake is at 500 feet. I'm right around, I think, 1100 right now. And 1100 feet makes a big difference at this latitude. Back in the temporal latitudes, the rise of 1,000 doesn't make much difference. But when you get higher, especially in the spring like this, the winter lasts longer. But it's very stable weather. It's a high pressure, colder high pressure system. Very little wind right now. It's right around 2 degrees minus. And I mentioned last night, I made a real short recording because my phone was freezing up last night. But it was 10 below, 11 below when I entered the tent. And the temperature was cratering down. I think it got probably about, probably close to 30 below. I can tell by the, you know, when you cut off butter or you try to bite it off. You can take part of your tooth with it.
But, yeah, it was really cold. I took the day off today. I went four straight. And I got a good workout yesterday. But I really needed to dry out my stuff and get a little bit of a rest. The problem in the cold weather is the moisture. Moisture gets in your clothing. The bad problems are it gets into your socks and your boots and you get cold feet and your gloves. And I'm on fuel rations now. The first couple weeks I've been ... used a little bit more than average fuel. You know, usually at the beginning of an expedition, I have a couple, couple, first couple weeks ... you also want to get rid of that extra weight. But rather than, you know, planning that as the expedition goes on, spring comes in, the temperature warms up. Well, the opposite is happening here. It's getting colder as I'm getting further north and into the spring. So, yeah, I'm on ... The fuel rations, what that means is you don't have extra fuel to heat the tent and particularly to dry off. Most people, I find, can handle, you know, this type of travel if they have extra fuel in the evening to keep warm. And it's a totally different story when you don't have that heat and you don't have a way of heat drying your clothing out. That becomes a real kind of a zen experience.
And then, well, anyway, it's colder here than normal. And I'm with the fuel rations here. Now I took the day off. One of the main reasons for the day off was I needed to dry off. Thankfully, I have this black tent and the wind isn't bad. And it's actually quite comfortable in here without the heat on. I managed to dry out my sleeping bags, which was quite incredible because they were all iced up. And even with a good stove, it's hard to dry. But because of the energy of this time of the year, it's pretty nice inside. It'll drop off. As soon as the sun gets lower, it really gets cold in here fast. I am approaching the longer days consistently. But you still get a darkness of around, oh, around seven, eight hours where it's super cold out. And I've been running, going to bed later. And then we have sleeping in through the, you know, super cold time at about 6 o'clock I'm avoiding that. So I'm doing my chores and that usually around 8 o'clock, when it's somewhat tolerable. But, you know, it's just cold weather. I know how to handle it. And it's just part of the adventure here and the uncertainties of stuff.
So any rate, I'm really looking forward to the travel day tomorrow. My spirits are always, on an expedition—regardless of what's happening—are always high. And I'm really into the traveling mode right now, making good miles. I'm really exhausted at the end of the day. I've been sleeping cold, too. The problem is, I have a down-filled air mattress, commercial air mattress. It's got a damn leak in it. And that's a major problem. Because if you have sleeping security, you know, with a warm bed, it's one thing. But when you're in these icy conditions and the air goes out and you're on the hard ice, you know, get up a couple times and blow it up. I mean, it's just part of it. I can fix that once it gets warm. I mean, it's a process where you put soapy water over it to find the little pin point leaks in it. But there's no way I can do that right now because of the cold temperatures. And I just have to put up with that. But the great thing about exhaustion is you still sleep, even though, you know, it may not be the most comfortable sleep.
One thing I never take for granted is warm feet. And any time I'm sleeping in a bigger bed, regardless of where I'm at, when my feet are warm and comfortable in a dry bed, you know, it's just like heaven. So that's kind of a perk here of living in these conditions. But I don't make a lot out of it though. This is nothing like Antarctica, you know, where we had 100 below wind chills. It's a little different, though, when you're traveling alone. You just have to, in these cold temperatures, you have to be careful a little bit more. But that's just another part of the challenge where you have to keep your mind, the explorer's mind real clear so you're always operating, even in certain situations where they're a little bit more intense sometimes. This is Will here now, on April 16th. The sun is coming back, that's for sure. And it gets pleasant during the day. It doesn't get above zero yet, but it's really beautiful weather. And I'll check out now. Over and out.
Will’s location at the end of Day 14. Today was a rest day, so his position is the same as Day 13. Visit Will’s interactive map for complete control of magnification and orientation.
As the sun goes down, so does the temperature (from the 2008 Ellesmere Island Expedition).