Although the weather was nice and clear today, the dog teams had their fair share of misfortune today. For Noah Annahatak, it actually started yesterday, when three of his dogs got injured on the trail: two of them getting cut on sharp rocks and another one’s leg falling through a hole in the snow, causing him to limp. Not wanting to risk hurting his dogs anymore than they were already, Noah had no other choice but to abandon the race. Being in fourth place, it was a hard decision for him to take, and it is with great sadness that he watched the dog teams leave this morning from Tasialurjuaq, and then headed back home to Kangiqsujuaq, carrying the injured dogs on his sled. Meanwhile, back on the Ivakkak trail, Etua Lucassie was having some problems getting started, having lost nearly half of his dogs after they got tangled up and got loose. Fortunately, with the help of the safety patrol, he was able to retrieve all of them. Further ahead on the trail from Tasialurjuaq, a wrong turn took the dog teams a little too far up hill. Those farthest ahead had to come back on their footsteps for close to 10 kilometres to get back on track. So the ones that were leading on top of the hill, ended up last and the ones who were still not too far up were now in the lead. At this point Tamusi Sivuaraapik had gone missing. He was nowhere in sight, too far ahead on the wrong trail. But he somehow found a way to cut across the mountain and meet up with the rest of the dog teams on the right trail, ahead of all of them. The rest of the day went by without any other incident, except for one of the safety patrol drivers, Epervik Parr, who’s snowmobile fell in some slush on the river, getting him pretty wet. Fortunately, there is a cabin at Pangaliriaq, only 15 kilometres or so ahead on the trail from where the dog teams are settled for the night, where Epervik went to dry up his clothes overnight. He will meet up with the dog teams again tomorrow morning, as they head towards Deception Bay and get closer to Salluit, weather permits.
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Since the weather forecast was not looking promising for tomorrow, with another blizzard coming their way in the afternoon, the dog teams might have to spend an extra day out on the trail. Extra dog food was therefore sent by snowmobile from Salluit, and brought by a local crew composed of Mark Alaku and Charlie Pinguartuq to the Raglan mine dock at Deception Bay, where the safety patrol will be able to pick it up on the way tomorrow morning.

Also note that due to poor transmission by HF radio and satellite phone with the race officials on the trail, the race results will not be available until further communication can be established, hopefully sometime tomorrow morning.