Friday, 12 May 2017

A most Productive Day

This morning is brighter still but maybe it's partly the sun reflecting off fresh snow. The area of blue water within the white is turning slowly from a streak to a triangle as the down river end reaches out to meet the banks. This might sound like slow progress but compared to five days ago where we were looking for inches of change this is much more rewarding.

Dry goods to go to Middle Camp starting to build
Yesterday, considering it snowed for much of the day we smashed it in camp. Everyone really pulled together. Dry goods arrived, were checked and then split up into camps before being packed into checkered bags or roller bags ready for distribution to their new homes.

Dry goods mid cataloging 
With limited help from me and lots from a small band of Russian guides and fish inspectors Glenn began the task of lining up the worst engines for repair. It took a while to figure out which engines were here as with a low water end to the season last year a few middle repairs "occurred". With luck this year we will see a more gentle season on engines and boats. But as I look out across the river I wonder how what I saw last year was even possible.

It looks good but still needs some love
With dry goods done, as well as a lot of packing away of tools, ropes and anchors, Iona was able to get her supplies as well as the last of her utensils in order. It's been tough on all of us having had to cancel a week and the small things have really kept things motivated. We discovered that one of the supplies was misinterpreted and arrived as small jelly sweets. These are utterly delicious and naturally a few of the deformed ones have been set aside for staff testing.

Moral Boost
We built an igloo. Well our interpretation of an igloo. It seems to just have gone up and up. Iona suggested we google how to build the roof but I pointed out that Eskimos don't have google although I'm fairly certain they have better access to it than us. Once we got too cold to carry on we had a quick snow ball fight and went inside to delicious roast chicken.

Iona and Toby apply all important cementing layer
I hope to have more blue and less white tomorrow and a report on another productive day. The more we do the more we find needs to be done which for once is a good thing.

Jack Selby