Ivakkak 2010 departed from Quaqtaq at 9 AM. It was a light flurried morning when the 16 dog teams embarked on their 450-kilometer journey. First time racers Allen Gordon and his partner Toommy Kooktook were the first to take off. With one minute intervals between each teams’ departure, it wasn’t long before they were all gone. Helicopter rides were given by Nunavik Rotors to the villagers to give them a chance to see the dog teams out on the race trail. This is when it became obvious that some of the dog teams had taken a wrong turn.
As the day went on, it became quite windy on the vast and sometimes unforgiving harsh climate territory. Only 5 teams made it to the first checkpoint, 65 kilometres from Quaqtaq, near Pingurjuarusiq, where the officials had set up camp in a nearby cabin. Canvas tents were also pitched for the night.
Unfortunately, the rest of the teams veered off track toward the Ungava Bay, and as the wind grew stronger, they decided to set camp where they had made it to, in Iqaluppilik. According to the race officials, those 11 dog teams were 22 kilometers further behind the first 5.
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Out of the five teams who made it to the checkpoint, Willie Cain Jr’s team was the first to arrive at 4:17 PM, followed by Noah Annahatak’s team at 4:40 PM. The 3 other teams all came in after dark, all within an hour, between 8:30 and 9:30 PM.
Note that the arrival times of the 11 teams at the other location are still unknown at this moment. The race results portrayed below are therefore unofficial until those times are confirmed tomorrow by the race officials, who will be waiting for those remaining 11 teams with the first five at the Pingurjuarusiq checkpoint. More details to come…
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RESULTS AS OF: March 22, 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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