Day 36: May 8, 2026
Perhaps having been “too motivated” to take advantage of frost conditions, Will listened to his body and paused for a day off after four consecutive 12-hour days. [Listener’s note: the audio transmission cuts out today before the dispatch is completed.]
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Hello, May, Will here, May 8th, day 36 on the Horton River. Got up at 4 o'clock and got my oatmeal going, a drink going, started filling my thermoses, and I was feeling a little bit run down. And I figured, well, maybe it won't be a fifth day on a row here. I was a little bit too motivated, I think, and decided rather than burn out, it would be best to take the day off here, do some repairs, needed stuff I have to do anyway.
So I went back, slept another five hours, which helped it, and then got up and did repairs on the stove, took the stove apart, which is a routine maintenance. I used an MSR whisper light stove, a pressurized gas, not the can, but the gasoline, gas, light gas, coal and fuel. Yeah, superb, superb stove, but routine, maybe every month or so is good to clean the valves.
And then I had a couple rips in my sleeping bag from a zipper ripping the ripstop nylon, and it got out of control and coming ... kind of getting out of bed here like I'm tarred and feathered— feathers all over. So I repaired that. And then the much-needed soap down of this air mattress that I had. Couldn't find anything, but as I suspected, I found some problems around the valve. So that's what I thought it was anyway. So I am in the process now of putting some repair glue on that. Hopefully that will hold.
And then, a mediocre day here, really kind of cloudy. I wasn't too ambitious being in the tent, but that's the way it is here. And it's comfortable inside, you know, nothing real stunning, warm and dry like a sunny day. But, you know, this weather just kind of hangs in there, nothing real startling in terms of breakup. You get the clear warm weather comes in. This is difficult. And when that warm weather gets over the cold ground, it turns into clouds and so forth. It's kind of a cycle that repeats itself for a while.
So it is going to be, you know, a little time on breakup. I am excited, though, about continuing traveling when I can when the surfaces are hard. And then traveling right through is appealing to me with the sleds ... beyond the river when it starts breaking, going through that whole process. And then when the breakup happens, I'll be totally involved. So there will be a lot of exciting time coming on as opposed to right now.
I also started thinking more about, you know, food, and all the food I have, the reality of time I have and so forth. And the reality also that there's no way of getting out of this one. I have to get to the Paulatuk myself. There's no pickups or anything handy this way. And it's going to take still a huge effort, you know, to complete the mission of this, which I'm looking forward to. But I had to get to ...
Will’s position is unchanged as he takes a day off for rest and necessary repairs and maintenance. Visit Will’s interactive map for complete control of magnification and orientation.
Will’s Iridium satellite phone provides pole-to-pole coverage for calling in his dispatches each evening—but not every transmission makes it all the way through.