Morning came slowly as a result of restless sleep all
night.I couldn’t get the nagging
thought of my missing bow case off my mind.What will I do up here close to the North Pole, on a once in a lifetime
trophy polar bear hunt, without a bow?I
have to stop thinking like that…it will come, it has too!
Hotel to the Stars
After waking and getting organized, it was down to breakfast
with the rest of the crew.In Ottawa I met Warren Strickland
from Alabama
who would also be bowhunting, and two good guys from out west that were going
to try for their bears with rifles.We
all met at the dinning room and had a hearty breakfast.
The head guide came over to let us know that weather
conditions were not favorable, and we wouldn’t be going out on the hunt
today.Of course, I wasn’t going anyway
without my bow.What this news meant is
that I wasn’t going to really loose a hunt day due to the bow problem, unless
the plane from Ottawa
couldn’t land either and my bow would be delayed yet another day.Time to call the airport!
The report from the airport wasn’t good.No planes today, and no confirmation anywhere
that my bow had even been located.Several people offered to loan me a rifle, until I explained I have no
interest in taking a bear with a gun.If
I don’t get one with my bow, I’ll go home empty handed, thank you very
much.God help the airline if it turns
out that way however!
Between breakfast and lunch we each killed some time digging
though gear bags and getting our clothes organized for the hunt.When you figure out how much you’ll actually
be wearing when you go out, and then take away what you know you’ll not need
(travel clothes and the like), its pretty easy to repack down to only one
medium sized gear bag and “hopefully” a soft bow case.
Lunch ate up some more time as we tried to get into the
swing of the general attitude of the North Country.No one is in any hurry to do anything, and if
you try to rush anything you’ll only frustrate yourself.Go ahead, ask me how I know!After lunch I dressed up (it is forty-one
below zero with 30-40 mile per hour winds after all!) and went out and took a
couple pictures for all you guys down south.One is the front of the hotel we are in and the other is the sun porch
off the second level of the same hotel.Not many people out catching the rays today!Perhaps tomorrow?
The Hotel 'Sun Porch'
Just before dinner we all got together and went down to the
garage building to get fitted up with our caribou skin suits.That was interesting!Because I may be stranded here another day or
two, I’ll close for now and save the caribou suit part of the story for tomorrow’s
installment.Dinner was good, and I
polished off the first of two books I brought along for the trip.My fingers are crossed for better weather and
a bow case tomorrow, so the story will get a little more interesting.In the meantime, they tell me to expect to
spend about half the trip sitting around waiting for weather to clear or
flights to come.Evidently this is S.O.P
(standard operating procedure) up the high north.
