Saturday was a balmy -10C and I went up river with the Environment Canada team, to look for river frost flowers. We found only a few, as drifting snow quickly obliterates them, but I took a couple of photos.

We then went up to the rapids, parked the snowmobiles (the snow was getting deep, and the terrain hilly), and hiked up the portage.

Absolutely gorgeous country, unspoiled by human contact.

Sunday, Helen and I went out to the west side of the Bill of Portland Island to collect ice cores there. The jumble ice has blocked passage around the island, so we parked the snowmobile on the east side and hiked over the island, with our heavily loaded rucksacks… tools, safety equipment, ice corer, sample containers, ice saws, satellite phone and GPS, etc. We hiked across the island, clambored across more jumble ice, and reached flat ice where only last week there had been open water. The ice was growing at a rate of about 10 cm (or 4 inches) per day. We collected several cores as well as snow and water samples which Helen will analyze for diatoms.

The wind came up on our way back from the island, and blowing snow flowed across the ice like sand across a desert. By the time we reached land, our snowmobile tracks from the outward journey had been all but obliterated. By this (Monday) morning, a howling gale had developed, with winds 60 km/hour from the east. This will undoubtedly create open water where we stood just yesterday.

While we went scouting, Anita took advantage of the nice weather on Saturday by playing in the snow.