It has been a whirlwind- or rather an Arctic whirlwind of activity the last few days during the beginning of my Level 1 training course on Lake Winnipeg.

We met on Saturday in Winnipeg then transferred to Traverse Bay on the southeastern side of the Lake. I love coming here because most of the time conditions are eerily similar to both the Arctic and Antarctic. This year, we were greeted with a somewhat ice 40 below windchill.

The first few days are spent prepping my students with a crash course in safe and efficient polar travel. We focused on dressing and layering for the extreme cold, camp set up, ski and travel techniques, MSR stove use, food preparation and packing and much more. We start slowly. Practicing each concept before moving on.

Our first ski on the ice registered fairly high on the epic scale. I always like to easy people into the severity of this type of travel but that wasn't necessarily the case this time. We started out pulling sleds with the wind then circled back. Simultaneously, the wind picked up and we pushed forward into a blowing white out. Later we would learn that windchills dipped to 40 below.

To make matters worse, there isn't very much snow on the ice and we were forced to hopscotch our way from one patch of snow to the other connect the dot style. While the lack of snow may inhibit our ability to travel it also offers some spectacular 'scenery' the cracked and marbled surface is nothing less than stunning.

This year's group is fairly diverse with a wide range of goals from completing a Last Degree North Pole expedition to training for an Antarctic expedition to Rachael who is here as the Helly Hansen and Allied Feather and Down scholarship winner. She is our youngest team member here but has proven to be more than competent.

After prepping and practicing, we finally yesterday afternoon for our five night expedition on the Lake. It was a surprisingly warm -6 F this morning as the sun rose over our tents. We've been battling fierce winds for the past couple of days and we hoped today might bring a little respite. That wasn't to be the case as wind speeds steadily increased throughout the day. We did manage to find a somewhat sheltered bay to camp with decent snow coverage.

All in all a pretty amazing few days!