The day of our departure dawned warm and sunny with a southwest wind bringing temperatures of -5 degrees celcius. Perfect for a snowmobile ride of approxiamately 25Km.
Arriving at a site selected during a previous recce we quickly cleared the site and set up the tent. While this was happening the wind shifted around from the north bringing with it the snow and colder temps we had been expecting. After a warm lunch around a nice fire we gathered in the snow with our backs to the wind and learned the finer points of constructing a quinze. Anyone who started to feel cold merely had to crawl inside and do a stint at excavating the snow from inside the developing shelter. You were soon warm from the exertion inside that closed space.
Once the shelter was complete, we revisited the fire to warm ourselves a little while being treated to some knowledgable advice on ice-fishing. Our education complete(?) we moved onto the ice to face the 30Km wind and -15C temp. (You figure the windchill) Just for the sake of curiosity, and something to do, some rangers got to experience the difference between drilling a hole through 45cm of ice with an auger and cutting it with an axe.
You don't appreciate what you have until you have to do without it. The fishing wasn't great but a nice 3 pound rainbow did surrender to the RCMP officer who had come along. No cuffs were necessary as the fishy character experienced flash freezing and ceased all struggle. The Stiff was last seen being carted by the law for further interrogation.
There is a fine line between ice-fishing and simply staring at a dark hole in the ice looking like an idiot.
Thinking we may be getting close to crossing that line and not able to see it in the sometimes near white-out conditions, we retired once again to the fire and for a demonstration on trapping small mammals such as squirrels and rabbits. This was followed by a rabbit skinning demo performed on a snowshoe hare caught earlier and brought along.
It being close to 1700 hours and getting dark, it was decided more logs were needed on the fire and some water boiled up for supper and hot coffee. With the wind and snow still coming from the North and the mercury falling to -20C. we settled in for some BSing around the fire and talk of how cold it might get. Some even suggested we might want to have some heat in the tent. It is a bad thing when the person responsible for making that decision knows he has a real warm sleeping bag and thinks everyone else has the same. I apologize for not recognizing their discomfort but I swear for people who didn't sleep much for being cold they sure did snore.
Next morning saw the thermometer reading -30C and everyone with nice rosy cheeks. After breakfast, activities centred around breaking camp and getting the sleds running. Seemed fitting the the only sled that didn't want to start was the newest and most powerful. Pulling the plugs and pouring gas into the cylinder quickly convinced it to join the rest. Just a quick note here. If you have a mustache and it has accumulated a layer of ice, don't cover it with a scarf and ride a snowmobile at -30C. Should you do this, use caution when removing said scarf. It may have attached itself.
Our trip out was not as comfortable as the trip in as we had to ride directly into the wind. We were forced to stop every couple of kilometres to check each other for signs of frostbite of which we all shared just a little. In the end it was quite a learning process for those of us who had not spent much time outside in that type of weather before and for myself I learned that as a leader I must be more aware of the comfort of my patrol as they may not always show how uncomfortable they are. As a patrol we must all take responsibility for our well being by being honest with ourselves and the rest of the patrol with how we are feeling and knowing our limits.
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