I skipped a day because I was too exhausted to write. I am bone tired, but otherwise in good spirits. This morning we saw our first moose, an enormous creature with a rack as wide as a Volkswagen. It trotted through our camp and Martha hurried to shush the dogs. I guess the moose are in rut and any noise or irritation can turn them surly. Moose are a bigger problem than bears when you are running dogs, she said, although polar bears on some expeditions are a true menace. She said a basic grizzly will follow a camp sometimes, and even look for opportunities to steal food, but for the most part they are wary of humans and stand clear. Polar bears, on the other hand, hunt everything. They live on such a thin margin that they cannot afford to pass up an opportunity of any kind. Martha has a friend who came north to photograph the landscape and ptarmigan for National Geographic. A German guy. He was transported way up on Baffin Island and he went to bed in his tent with a shotgun beside him.
