Day 8: April 10, 2026
Will is reaching a strategic turning point on Day 8, preparing to trade the winding river for a difficult overland crossing as he navigates with guidance from local wildlife.
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Yeah, Will here. This is April 10th, Day 8, 2026. I might cut off here, I'm at camp right by a big ridge here, a bend in the river. So, but anyway ... Yesterday it cleared up, it was real clear, it got real cold. But in the sky, there's a jet trail, at a high level a jet flew over, and the trail stuck all the way across the sky. That's a sign of a warmer weather in the upper atmosphere. And then today it did warm up. You know, I'm warm being ... not that warm, but warm in, you know, not below zero. It got to about 15 today.
I made good mileage, traveled in a straight line for a change. I actually traveled for two miles, hauling on one load, had some really good conditions. But then I had my share of deep snow. I made camp here by the river. And I followed the wolf tracks, one large wolf, all day long, patrolling the river. And being kind of hazed in and I had to kind of wait it out, I didn't see a depth perception, so I couldn't tell the deep snow from the shallower snow on the river. But the wolf has the tendency of following the better snow, not too thick, so I basically followed his tracks. And it was pretty good size wolf, about the size of a big large person's palm, you know, if you grill your knuckles up, and you tuck your fingers down in your thumb. That size. I'm at a crux in the expedition right now, at least in the near term. I'm going to be portaging over, traveling over to the next river, Haldane River. And it's straight five miles north of here. It's going to be really a tricky ... and it's ... I'd ascended this high ridge here. It's about 100 feet, about a 60 degree level. And I'd sidestep ... it's just at the sort of edge where you can sidestep or kick in. But I did get to the top. And I was hoping maybe when I got higher, you know, there'd be less trees and wind swept, but it was not a very pretty sight. There was forest and really high thigh-deep soft snow, and a real ... a lot of it. So it's going to be an interesting ascent there. I'll talk more about that tomorrow.
I'm going to take a day off tomorrow, and then going three on and one off. Go ... If you're on the website, check out the satellite view [Will’s interactive map]. You can zero down, you'll see the bend in the river. And in tomorrow's, I'll walk you through the route that I have to take. I basically go five miles straight north, but I'll kind of quarterback that tomorrow. If you do check out the map, it'll make a lot more sense here of what the route is, and the strategy of getting across that. I've been making really late stops at night, you know, cooking my dinner with a flashlight, stopping around oh, 9:30 or so. It's even later today, but I'm hoping to get in a better rhythm or at least I'm stopping by about eight o'clock, so I'm calling in earlier, get the dispatch out earlier in the evening. I'm on Mountain time, so I'm one hour, you know, forward (or whatever it is) from Central time. And now, anyways, I'll catch you tomorrow and I'll call back in. And it's Will, on the Bloody River. Over and out
Will’s location at the end of Day 8. The Haldane River, where Will is headed next, is just out of view off the top of this map. It is readily seen by viewing Will’s interactive map , as he mentions in the dispatch.
In today’s dispatch Will follows the tracks of a wolf up the Bloody River. Here we share a video from the 2008 Ellesmere Island Expedition that may help visualize. “A week away from completing the 2008 Ellesmere Island Expedition, we were visited by a pack of white Arctic wolves. The pack of about 11 wolves followed alongside for a few days and visited our camp in the evenings.”