When the mushers awoke this morning, last night’s snow fall had turned into a snow storm. Lucassie Echalook, the eldest members of the safety patrol on snowmobile, had seen it coming and built an igloo to spend the night in, cozy and warm in his snow house. By midday, the wind had picked up and the snow storm was starting to turn into a complete whiteout. The race officials hence decided to call off the dog teams’ departure for Akulivik, postponing it to the next morning. With the wet snow falling, a lot of the racers’ clothing and equipment had become damp, so they made sure to bring it inside the cabins were some had spent the night, taking advantage of this “day off” to dry it up so that they would be ready to leave tomorrow. According to the weather forecast, the blizzard is supposed to clear up overnight and the sun should even come out by morning. If that’s the case, the dog teams should be on their way to Akulivik, where they could arrive anytime after lunch. Let’s just hope that the weather will clear up for good, so that the race can then go on without further interruption, all the way to Ivujivik, where the dog teams are expected to cross the finish line later this week.

After their arrival at Niarunguq, the race officials performed an equipment check up on each of the teams’ sled, and since some of the racers were missing certain items, time penalties were applied. As indicated in the results below, both Novalinga Novalinga’s and Adamie Inukpuk’s times were therefore adjusted by one minute for missing ammunition for their gun, and Johnny Arnatuq’s by 3 minutes for missing flares, having no compass or GPS, and no HF radio or satellite phone.

Note: As per rule #27 of the Ivakkak Rules and Regulations, each team is required to carry some equipment at all times on their dog sled. Each day, when out on the trail, the race officials perform check ups, to make sure that all items on the list are still on the racers’ sled (see Annex 2 of the Rules and Regulations under the Race Information menu). A one-minute penalty is applied to their time for each missing item.