Ashley, age 13, U.S.A.

Dear journal...

Ottawa July 5th
Dear Journal, I had a great day today. I got to meet all the kids! We got to hang out and learn a lot about everyone. We had a great meal cooked by a nice gracious family. The meal was delicious. One of the kids we met was named Kuria, and was from South Africa! He was really nice, and helpful! Kuria is 15. I can’t wait until tomorrow!!

July 6th 2008—Iqaluit
I had a great day! We woke up at 5:45! We had to wake up so early because we had to catch a 9:05 flight. We had a gret three hour flight. After, we didn’t have some great news: the weather was bad, so we couldn’t go on our next plan! We waited at a girl’s house named Matty to see if we could still go. We met up with our last Young Ambassador. Her name is Beth! She is really nice, and has been to the Arctic a few times. Her summer job is to help the tourists in the Arctic. That sounds like so much fun! Beth cook lunch and dinner with Matty, and it was delicious. We weren’t going to make it out so we went ot the museum. The museum was amazing; we got to see all sorts of stuff like special snow gear, and how an Inuit woman carries her baby in her jacket. What was really cool about the museum was that the people still use some of the stuff from the museum. For example, a lady who came into the museum who was with her husband and baby had the special kind of jacket! Another really cool thing was when she left, it was raining, so she walked out and threw her big white hood over her baby so she wouldn’t get wet. I think that was the most interesting thing at the museum! After we left to go see the sled dogs. I couldn’t wait! On the way, I asked Matty how many dogs she had. She said she had 54 sled dogs but she sold a lot so now she only had 19! That is still a ton! When we got there, I jumped out and run to go see the dogs. They were so beautiful. Matty told us that we would bring one. I asked which one. She showed us. It was a cute red, orangeish color. He was still a puppy. Then it was time to feed the dogs. It was not regular dog food, it was so different. It was like a huge brown box, and you had an axe. We used the axe to cut the dog food! Then we gave it to every single dog. Then they also ate fish! Like little mini fish! They had at least 40! After we fed them, we pet them. One of the dogs taks—in a way. I was saying goodbye and one of the dogs jumped up and hit his nose onto my lip! Aaaaargh! It hurt so bad, and my lip was bleeding and swollen! By a few hours later it got better. We had a lot of delicious food to eat, and watched a quick movie. It had Matty in it. By the middle of the movie, me and Kuria had to go clean the dishes because we didn’t help cook! I never laughed so hard in my life! He kept going on. I really laughed for an hour, and you can ask anyone! Then we went up to a large cabin and got ready for bed

July 7th
We woke up and went for breakfast at Matty’s house. After we went to the science museum and learned a lot about cool things (plants and ice). We went back and talked about the center and then we went there. We watched a movie about safety in the Arctic. We wnt back to Matty’s house where we spent a long time packing. Then Ainhoa and Flaam helped weigh the luggage to see if we were 2900 pounds. Fortunately we were close (3180). We went to the beach and got stuck in quicksand a lot. Flaam saved us. On our way back we say dead whale blubber. We all got on the roof and jumped. Flaam and Kuria took pictures of me jumping off the roof. Then Matty told us that we were leaving. At the airport we played hang games. Then we heard that we might no make it because there wasn’t enough room in the plane. Then Sebastian and Luc arranged it so we could go. The girl pilot was really mean and rude. We landed safely by the river and went on to bring the luggage really far away, and it was heavy especially the rafts were 95 pounds. Then Matty set up our tent as demonstration. Then we snacked and went to bed.

July 8th 2008—Soper River
Today was my first day of rafting. Turns out it was not so good. We ended up almost tipping after ten minutes but luckily it didn’t tip. Then we got out and took a break. We got back out again and got stuck for 20 minutes. Flaam got out of the boat in the ice cold water. I already felt the water because there were holes so my feet were numb so I got out and helped Flaam. After thirty minutes, we managed to get out. Flaam and I were freezing, except my feet were numb. Flaam was really cold (colder than she’s ever been before) because she was in up to her waist. We stopped to fix our feet. I had no socks on so my mom rubbed my feet (they became un-numbed). I cannot believe Flaam went in the boat after that happened. I walked for sure. Mary was very nice for lending her walking stick to me because I had a problem with my shoes. They had water in them which is why I was sliding. After we walked for 20 kilometers which felt forever, Sebastian carried me for a minute. He gave us fruit bars and I shared with Mary. We liked it when Sebastian would stop and take pictures because that would mean we could stop and rest! Finally we made it and we heard the rafters say how terrible it was at lunch. I was trying to convince the rafters how terrible it was walking. After I decided to raft. It was a perfect rafting until we got sidewinds. We had to get out and push the raft. Good thing I had Kuria’s boot’s on. I fell in the freezing cold water up to my stomach. We had to pull for 2 kilometers while me and my sister were laughing the whole time (she almost made me pee in my pants). When I saw my mom, I couldn’t be any happier. We walked and set up tent. Me and others cooked pasta soup. Mary was so kind and nice to clean the dishes for us. We had a hard sleep because of the wind.

The Pax Arctica team over a crack on the Ward Hunt ice shelf

July 9th2008—Soper River
We woke up it was beautiful, sunny and not as windy as the other days, but we had some bad news: MOSQUITOES! We had not so many mosquitoes when we were paddling but it was still hard. We stopped and waited on the side while the walkers had to catch up and we played the hand game. We saw the walkers and they came on the boat. At lunch we walked to see the blue rock that is only found in Chile and Argentina and the Arctic.
We also saw mica and graphite and I took some small samples of it. We all got back in the raft and I slept until we got to our final destination. We had to carry all our stuff to camp. Then we went to bed.

July 10th 2008—Kimmirut
This morning we woke up with more mosquitoes than yesterday (imagine that!) I had to run with the cereal in my hands while eating to keep the mosquitoes away. Lucky for the Hardy family, they had mosquito nets. We started paddling with big rapids. We tried to outrun the mosquitoes. While we were paddling we saw two baby seagulls. They were so cute. We finally lost the mosquitoes but had head winds. We paddled into a bay and waited. Matty called on the radio phone for Looly and taught us a new game while we waited. The boat finally came and we were the first group to clean the rafts. We got back and deflated the rafts after cleaning them. Sebastian and Luc got into the truck while we walked to Kimmirut. We were starving so Flaam and I were dreaming about the perfect meal and room without mosquitoes. We ate lunch at Pascale’s house. We went to our homestay and the sad part was the meorial. We met a very nice lady who had three kids and a husband. She was from Iqaluit. We had dinner at Pascale’s. They had really cute puppy’s (we also saw a two week old black puppy). We asked mommy if we could take the white one: she said “no”! Then we went to bed.

PS When I was taking a shower, just as I put shampoo on, the shower stopped. It got into my eyes and hurt. I had to run all the way to Beth’s homestay in my towel and ask if I could take a shower! It was embarrassing!

July 11th 2008—Iqaluit
We had an early six O’clock breakfast at Pascale’s. I finally started using my camera that day. We went to the airport. While waiting for the plane, we saw Matty in the airline’s magazine. I took pictures as the plane landed. Too bad the rude pilot was there. We had a nice flight. Then we went back to Matty’s. We packed for the next flight. At lunch, after the first flight left, we went to the bed and breakfast. We stopped at the market and got some food. We ate it at Rhona’s house. My mom was trying on a fur coat and looked like a polar bear! We watched a TV called Instant Star. It was kind of bad. Then I took a nap for four hours when I thought it was 7AM it was 7PM. I kind of got startled. We had a nice enjoyable dinner. We went to the movies but left after an hour. Then we went to bed.


July 12th 2008—Resolute
We got up at the bed and breakfast and had a great breakfast. It was so good (almost the best breakfast ever!) My mom helped Rhona with her fur design so we could help her with an auction in Aspen. She packed while we played fooseball. We called the cab. We went to the airport and took the plane to Resolute. It was a nice enjoyable flight. The plane didn’t turn once. We arrived in Resolute. We didn't know we were carrying the food. All the food boxes were broken. We had dinner and got a tour and finally went to bed.

July 13th 2008—Resolute
We had to wake up early and reorganize all the food. We also had to reorganize our suitcases. Our great news of the day was that we were going to see beluga whales. I got so excited. After lunch we went to the archeological site. There we sw cool stuff. We learned about whale bones and Thule people. It was cold. We went back to pack some more. We had dinner and went ot the airport. It was really cool to see the belugas though I wish I could have seen them closer. I had never seen a beluga whale before (not even in a zoo). I was so happy. Also I saw a dead one. We took the ATV’s and the girl got stuck up to her waist in the water. We got back late and went to bed.

July 15th 2008—Resolute
Dear journal, we woke up in the morning normally and learned a new game. The game was Spoons. The game was played so that every one got four cards, pretend we had five people, that would mean you would need four spoons. You put the spoons on in the middle of the table the ends facing each players. Then you take the deck and you pass the cards. It was so much fun! After we played spoons for four hours, we went to see polar bears. I was so excited! I couldn’t wait because just two days ago they saw a mommy and her two cubs. Sadly, a male killed one cub so he could “mate” with the mommy (that didn’t make sense to me). It was on a little island where we were going. When we arrived, we went down to see the Franklin expedition. Before we got to the graves, we saw 100 year old cans that possibly killed three quarters of the men on the expedition because of the led that they used to seal the cans. When we got to the graves , we took pictures and explored. Then we gathered around to hear the story. The story was how Franklin’s wife forced him to go to the magnetic North Pole. Franklin was pushed to it and went. They were doing just fine until they got lead poisoning they got from the food cans that the company gave them. How scientist found that out was they dug up the graves and did tests! (Me being stupid I asked: “are the dead bodies still in there?” Duhh! Noooooo!) I think just a little bit of the bodies were there. After the story, we explored some more. We started heading in the direction of the plane, and went farther. We came to the dead polar bear. It was so disgusting and sad! It was frozen and stunk! It was much larger than I expected. Sebastian tried to take a tooth and claw with his knife but it was frozen. The teeth had little black dots all over. When I first saw it, it looked like something ate it! It was quite thin. After, we kept going and came to some graves. We headed back to the plane. We had dinner and went to bed!

High above the high Arctic. Somewhere above Ellesmere Island on our way back to Resolute

July 16th 2008—Resolute
We woke up late. Then played musical chairs. I was in charge of the music). My mommy came in and introduced us to a new game. It was called blind field. It was such a fun game. It was played so that you put all the junk on the floor. We have a partner and one is blindfolded, and the other stays behind the finish line. The person on the other side guides you across all of the junk. Ainhoa and I were the only ones to get across and on. After, a baby came. (Beth’s friend was a babysitter so her friend brought the baby. The we went ot the Mars project. It was very interesting. It was about these people who are doing testings a little outside of Resolute. One really weird thing that I heard was that people forgot how to make rockets to go to Mars. It has been so long since people went to the moon that the technology kind of got forgotten! After the slide show we went to the airport to see if we could get out. They said “yes”! But at 6PM for one plane and 8PM for the next. It was 4PM. We went back to pack! After packing we ate dinner and the 6PM left for Eureka. We watched TV. We went at 8Pm. When we arrived, we were going to Ward Hunt Island, but unfortunately the weather was not so good so instead we went to Otto Fjord. It was sooooo beautiful. When we arrived all our tents were set up from the first group. When we met up and had a smack it was 2AM. It was Flaam’s birthday! Before we went to bed, we sang happy birthday!! We said see you later and went to bed.

July 17th 2008—Otto Fjord
Dear journal, we woke up late except for my family tent. We woke up late because someone threw up (Ewwwwww!!) Then we heard today was the day we were hiking to the huge glacier which looked like a five minute walk. (it was so dumb). We started walking; it was not so bad until the glacier started moving away! (I thought) I was totally exhausted by the time we stopped for lunch. My knees were throbbing from pain. By the time we got to it it was late. It took us six hours to walk there, plus there was this river you had to cross to get to the glacier and had to go knee deep in the water. I had my hiking boots on and didn’t want to get wet, so I said I want to go down there and Matty said it was head high so I decided to stay back and not get wet. But a little bit of land went down and I fell in! You don’t know how mad I was at Matty. I was so mad because Matty told me to go the wrong way. My hiking shoes were soaping wet. I took the foot thing out ,and I was so mad I forgot it. I was leaving because I was so mad that nobody came to help. When I left my inside foot thing, I can never wear them. Plus they were extremely expensive. On the way back from the glacier, Matty was really nice. Beth caught up and made up a funny song, and we sang it at the top of our lungs. We had a blast!! Then Kuria was carrying another young ambassador on his shoulders and met up with us. By the time we got home it was soooo late. We ate and went to bed!!
PS I bet Flam had the worst birthday!

July 18th 2008—Otto Fjord
Dear journal, we woke up really late! We had breakfast at 1:00PM. Then Matty said “let’s go on a hike”. We all said “NOOOOOOO”!! She said: “Oh, it’s only over there!” All the kids except for Kuria said no! Then he made Flaam and Ainhoa. Beth and me stayed behind. We were glad because it started raining really hard and we couldn’t see the group so they went far. When they arrived we had lunch (at 6PM)! After, Flaam, Ainhoa, Beth and I went pukatuking (also stands for: ice-hopping). It was so AWESOME!! It was like my favorite thing ever! We did it until 2AM. Then we had a snack and went to bed.
PS Something I hated about that day was when we went in a boat to see the icebergs so we could touch them. I was so excited until we got out and saw one flip so the other side was showing, and as it flipped, all the ice spread out so far and a lot and I got scared because I almost died because of Sebastian ! (twice)

July 19th 2008—Otto Fjord
Dear journal, we woke up to a blizzard. We couldn’t get out of our tents. So Matty brought us breakfast in bed. It felt like the Hilton. Then when it cleared up we went pukatuking—we went to the ice islands. It was amazing! Then we went back and the military plane came and they were at Ward Hunt. They said the weather there was beautiful. We thought the pilots were lying about the weather! After we called our pilots, Flam got really sick. She was puking. We all went to bed early because everyone was not 100%.

July 20th 2008—Otto Fjord
Today was not a great day! It was raining all day. So we went and played in Nicole’s tent the whole day until the plane came. My mommy and I didn’t want to get left behind. So we packed up faster than you could say “stop”. Sebastian was being rude to us. Plus my mommy wasn’t feeling well. The first group left. They came back and took us. My mommy was soooo sick. She was so cold her guts hurt. She had to stay in the plane for a while when we landed. Then we raced her into the tent. After we had to go to bed.

July 21st 2008—Ward Hunt Island
Dear journal, my mommy woke us up early, so we could go to the plane. We carried the luggage after my mommy made a wonderful breakfast. I found out that Kuria and Flaam weren’t going to go home. I felt bad because they all felt like that. Ainhoa had to stay and climb the mountain with her dad. Because her sister was going to Spain and I don’t know where her mom was, but I knew she wasn’t at home. Plus Ainhoa got really homesick. We said our goodbyes but it was the hardest goodbye ever. Then we were off. When we arrived in Resolute after a long day of traveling, we had to go to bed because our flight was at 5AM.

July 22nd 2008—Resolute
Dear journal, my mommy told us at 5AM that the winds were 100 mph. We were leaving tomorrow. We played with Gaby and Shyan. They are three and four. We went outside after they left and you could lay in the wind. After we had to go to bed.

July 23rd 2008—Going home
Dear journal, today we left. On the six hour flight, I was thinking how lucky and grateful I was to go on this trip. I had an experience of a lifetime. It was the best thing I ever done. I really appreciate that Sebastian let me come. It was tough, but I just would like to say thanks! I met really nice people. I learned more about global warming and experiencing it in a whole new way. And I just want to say thank you for the experience of a lifetime!
Love.
Ashley
PS LET’S CHANGE THE WORLD!!