Getting Ready

The logistics which go into a 30 day canoe trip in the wilderness are daunting. The other five on the team had been preparing for months. When the 6th member was unsure he could make it, I was called and invited to be his replacement. That was June 28th, less than 3 weeks before all my food needed to be mailed to Bettles, Alaska!

Since we will be cooking in three 2-man groups and since on my last WREAF trip my "dinner partner" brought our dinners, it was my turn to bring dinners for two. Wanting to add a little creativity to the project despite the short time frame, I came across a great website, www.backpackingchef.com

Once I saw Appalachian Apple Pie and Pineapple Upside Down Cake, I was sold!!! You can't buy food from them, but they give instructions on how to design meals and where to get free-dried meats and vegetables. If I had had more time, I could have dehydrated everything myself but with trying to get all my planned August work done before I left August 5th, my plate was full.

The first order of business was to figure out how many calories we should be consuming per day given that the trip is above the Arctic Circle AND we will be exercising and quite wet at times. We decided to push for 2000 - 3000 calories a day. I'll stay on the lower end consuming roughly 40% of the dinner, although it might be tempting to sneak a little extra of the Appalachian Apple Pie.

Breakfast: 2 Apple/cinnamon oatmeal packets, tea, Emergen-C in my treated water
Lunch: pork or beef jerky, dried fruit, trail mix, chocolate/peanut butter protein bar
Dinner: Base of pasta, rice, ramen or potato. Additions of dehydrated turkey or chicken, bacon, cheese, or beans. Additions of dehydrated vegetables. Some of the dinners have toppings of coconut or cashews (should go well with the Thai peanut rice), or parmesan powdered cheese for pasta dishes.
Dessert: Apple pie, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, puddings with bases of graham cracker or toppings of Toffee bits or coconut OR candy AND/OR homemade hot chocolate with a little kick.

It all looks nicely vacuum-packed above. Look below and you can see what the kitchen looked like at 12:30 am after a round of putting together the dinners!!!

All the food had to be shipped to Brooks Aviation to arrive in plenty of time for our departure to the river. Here is my husband packing the 9 boxes of food on July 18th, our shipping day. It may seem like a lot to eat, but my portion of food is less than 49 pounds for 30 days including all the zip locks and vacuum bags.

To follow our trip, the below link should direct you to a google map.

http://www.findmespot.com/mylocation/?id=98bcR

Also, see updates at www.sootoday.com:

• Photo bombed by grizzly bears
• Grizzly country. On the Noatak River with Gary McGuffin