Day 2: April 4, 2026
Will is finding his rhythm on Day 2, prioritizing a conservative approach to acclimation and administrative routine over raw mileage as he navigates the cold air along the Bloody River.
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Well, this is Will here. Day two. It's April 4th. Kind of a long day today. The river—the Bloody River here—if you look down at the satellite photo, you'll see it's lined with real tall black spruce trees. I expected really deep snow here, and that's what I've got. About near-ankle ... high knee, er ... low-thigh, high knee snow here. And I'm going in two loads. Bit of a long day, breaking trails and going back for the other sled, back and forth. A good way of spending the day though. Lots of animal tracks here. There's wolves, and the fox, and there's rabbits, and there are a couple of beaver trails, ptarmigan ... rabbits ... rabbits are quite popular with the fox. No animal sightings quite yet, no bears, fortunately. A couple of ravens followed me here today.
It's cold on the river. The river, generally, it's settled cold here right now. It'll be nice during the day. But in these rivers like this, when its settled weather, it gets really cold. The cold settles down into it. So it's much, much colder than what you would get at a normal reading here. It's probably 15 below at night, isn't too bad. Not much of a wind. It's kind of cold this evening here. The sun sets, the sun sets about 8:30. It's about probably minus 5 right now, being in the tent. Just a ... bit of a nice day, but really slow going. And just kind of testing out my body here. Kind of ... things are working real well, no major problems. You get pretty tired the first two or three days on an expedition like this. It's good to go a little bit slow here at the beginning. And I got my ... getting my routines down, that takes a couple of days in a tent before you get all your equipment organized and that. I have the stove going in the tent, so it's quite comfortable. I've got plenty of fuel. I plan for a little extra fuel here at the beginning, because I anticipated colder weather. And I wanted to be a little bit more comfortable, not rationing at this point when you're really physically demanding. It's great to have a little heat in the evening. And, also, heat a lot of water. It's all deep snow here, so I'm melting snow for my water, which is a longer process. Ice is much better. It's probably three times faster than melting snow. Ice water tastes better, but I'm not too fussy here on the taste. What's really noticeable here in my environment is the invigorating fresh air. It's just incredible. As soon as I stepped out off the ... out of the plane yesterday, when Dave dropped me off, it was just invigorating almost like a cold liquid when you're breathing, and it's really inspiring.
Yesterday too, it was not really bittersweet, I was dropped off, the trip and plane disappeared, then there's this sudden silence. I usually anticipate—if I anticipate anything on an expedition—it's what it's like the first day of your dropping off. And any type of anticipation, you know, projecting ahead in the future, at least on expeditions, it never is at all like it. You know, I thought it would be: I would look out over the Great Bear Lake, and have this inspirational moment. And it wasn't quite like that. Although it was a great moment, it was invigorating, you know, a little bit of ... a little bit of pensive yesterday. I want to get my body worked out. Even in my younger years, in 20s and 30s, I was very careful on that first three or four days of the expedition. That's when you really can get an injury by pushing a little bit too hard. So, you know, you can err on the conservative side. But it is slow going here, so it's going to be, I don't see it ... condition ... conditions changing here in the next probably four or five days. Up ahead, maybe about 10, 12 miles, I've got an overland, which will be interesting. Once I get out of this river, and get higher up, losing the trees, the conditions will change. It will be really hard packed, much easier to travel. It was this way in 2023, when I left on the Copper Mine river, I had the same snow like this, and I had a real severe five-day storm, the second day of that expedition. But it seems like the weather is going to be settled here for quite some time. And it's going to be a little bit more time consuming getting into a higher elevation, it's a little ... it's wooded, there's not a lot of gain in elevation these first 15 miles, but I think once I get out of the river, I have to make a traverse over to the next river, to the left of here (the left being west). And generally that ... I should have better conditions at that time, but we'll see what happens. But anyway, it's not an incredible amount of adventure today. I just kind of enjoy spending the time here, and it's almost like Northern Manitoba here, it's not like ... Arctic at all. So I will sign off here. Will here. Day 2, April 4, 2026. Over and out.
Will’s location at the end of Day 2
Will sends in his daily dispatches over satellite phone. This shot was taken as part of his 2023 expedition.
Will mentions that black spruce trees, as in this photo, line the Bloody River he is traveling along. (See photo source for more information.)