I nearly hurled on discovering spiteful looking worms in Cream’s turd. I wormed him immediately with Bayer’s Drontal Plus, the only effective wormer to rid my dogs of tapeworms, whipworms and hookworms.

A 21-year old drowned in the Mackenzie River this morning. He’d stolen a snowmobile and was “skipping”, a dare revving the machine and driving at speed from ice floe to ice flow across open water.  I remember two years ago a hunter drowned this time of year when his machine went through a hole in the ice. He was unable to get himself out because the rifle across his shoulders had wedged him under like a barb.

My dogs are shedding their winter coats. I helped speed the process by brushing out all loose hair. Winter coat fur falls like a hippie having a hair cut. Come to Blitz and it’s like taking a little boy to the barbers. Around Saxon it looks like an Aussie sheep-shearing ranch. I left it where it fell thinking these downy clusters might prove valuable nest building material for birds like the snow buntings. 

Walking through Inuvik I saw a domestic cat. I’m no lover of the creatures. Up here it’s an unusual sight seeing cats outside apart from lynx or cougars, also called mountain lions or pumas.

The sun is up for 24 hours a day for the next 56 days. Serious photosynthesis. Mumm’s sprouting seeds guarantee me fresh essential minerals and vitamins.

Out in 1 am sun I repaired two more doghouses before painting them with preservative. They’ll be dry by morning. A 3 am walk is like walking at noon. I walked Marshall, Saxon and Blitz down to Chuk Lake not over ice but tundra. I armed myself with a canister of bear spray.
 

I’ve finally straightened everything out indoors. Gear that survived the winter is clean, aired and racked.

Walking two teams of dogs behind my place tonight I was bitten by my first mosquito of the season. I killed it. Twizzle looked in wonder at a white crowned sparrow as it pecked out of range of the black guy's chain. He didn't look to eat the bird. I could see him asking himself what on earth this creature was. Twizzle looked childlike, head tilted with eyes wide and bright. Ice finally broke up. The Mackenzie River is now flowing. Fishing nets will be set this weekend.

I saw friend Albert Jerome today. He’d paddled a canoe from his cabin a mile or so up river. Albert remembers his father telling him the first time he heard about World War Two was when it was all over. Albert is a proud Gwitch’in Indian living in isolation.  Weather forecast on the radio talks of sunshine all night. 

It rained hard this morning. Most of my dogs lay and looked from inside their boxes like kids peeking out as heavy showers spoiled playtime.

Everyone soon livened up. Happy, we all moved off from behind my place for a couple of hours. The creek was running high. Patiently I walked up stream and it narrowed. As I hoped we found a fallen tree spanning the gap and we crossed, everyone except Saxon. He decided to swim. The dogs enjoyed sniffing fresh moose droppings that looked like chocolate covered Brazil nuts.

I stepped out the back for a few hours hiking with Bomber and Beef. On south facing slopes bearberry clusters still gripped the tundra groundcover. Squashed they looked like injuries on Beef’s white fur. We rested half way and I lit a fire to keep off the chill.