Well....we're surviving. A major blizzard has come through the whole Arctic, and we did not get picked up as planned. We're experiencing whiteout conditions; 100 yards visibility at the most. It's awful, and it's right across the Arctic, so there's a chance we might be here for a few more days. We have lots of fuel. Doug went out today in "zero" conditions and came back with 8 ptarmigan, which are like small quail. We had them for dinner tonight and they were just beautiful - just a wonderful meal. (Webmaster's note: We're wondering if John MacDonald, who is vegetarian, has been hungry enough yet to eat meat...?)

We stayed in the big tent for most of the day, with the stove on, trying to keep warm and tonight we will all be sleeping in the igloo again. My wife Fran calls it a "major breakthrough for mankind" that the five of us guys would sleep together. What can we do, y'know...?

As I'm talking to you the phone is filling up with snow. I'm trying to keep my coat around it. It's not terribly cold, about 10 below, but there's a strong wind and quite a bit of snow is coming down.

We're going to call in tomorrow at 8:00 am and we're hoping there will be a break in the weather so they can pick us up. Our scheduled flight home is tomorrow night; if we miss that we're scuppered. We're really hoping they will be able to come out and get us. On Doug's backup radio we've been listening to the whole Arctic and there are lots of people calling in to say they're "weathered in". There's a polar bear hunt going on about thirty miles off shore from us, and they're hoping to get picked up tomorrow as well.

We're safe, and relatively comfortable, with enough food and fuel, so we'll be just fine. I'll tell you, we're really glad we have Doug here. It would be uncomfortable to say the least, perhaps dangerous, if he wasn't with us.

The phone is really filling up with snow, so we'd better cut this off. I'll call you about this time tomorrow (8:00 pm King William Island time) unless we get out of here earlier.

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