04/25/2026
Wabakimi 2026 - Day 6
Today we planned to spend the day out fishing deeper water beyond our bay. The forecast was calling for a brief but rapid warm up to zero around mid-day. Given we were camped so close to the previous campsite and we had left a stack of processed wood behind, Martin and I decided to take the pulk overland and bring the wood back. To our surprise we made the round trip in just under 30 minutes. After lunch the temperature had climbed up to 0 C. Tom, Candace and Ken headed out to the lake under blue skies, and by the time I followed clouds were coming in and the wind was picking up. I met up with the group and Candace headed back to camp, by the time I had a hole cut my gear was near buried by blowing snow, within minutes of dropping my line we were in the middle of an intense snow squall and the temperature started dropping. That's when, between breaks in the wind, we noticed a large animal moving slowly in our direction, fighting the wind and snow. We figured it was either a moose or caribou (or maybe a wendigo!) and must have been a half kilometer away. Before long, the squall intensified, the trees were bowing over and soon we could barely see the shores through the blowing snow, let alone the animal out on the ice. Our tracks had disappeared, and at the peak we could barely see 10 m away. We gave up on the mystery animal and decided it was time to get back to camp. We returned to find Tom and Candace's tent had taken a beating, poles had bent so we rigged up some reinforcement. By dark the winds died down and we were back down to -20 C and dropping. The pressure changed from 960 mb to 945 mb and back to 966 mb and the temperature swung from -20 C to O C and back to -25 C (without windchill) over the course of 24 hrs, by far the most intense weather system I had ever experienced on a winter trek. It was a Type 2 kind of day.
