Today was the final phase of our food packing project. Once again, the idea is to make life on the ice straightforward, and to ensure that our energy inputs remain on target.

The individual meal bags we have been packaging all week were first divided according to tent (2 men per tent). Then, each tent's rations were divided into weekly batches. Lastly, each week-batch was packaged, sealed, and marked with a code denoting tent and week.

By the end of the day, after long hours and days when occasionally there was no light at the end of the tunnel, we could finally say: `Food mission accomplished!´  The only job remaining was to pack the weekly food parcels in pre-designated locations on the pulkha sledges.

Once the trek gets underway, the weekly food parcels will be opened on the appropriate dates. The contents will then be repacked into special food cases that have been custom made for the Expedition. The cases have 3 compartments: one for breakfast bags, one for ski-lunches and one for evening meal bags. At this stage the contents of the case, packed with a full week's rations, don't look very appetizing: all you can see is bags and bags. But when a meal bag is opened, and the contents poured into a pan with hot water, it's a different kettle of fish, as they say. In addition, each 2-man tent team carries a selection of spices to add some culinary variety, if and when the need arises.

Occasionally along the ski route, we shall no doubt encounter really tough pack-ice. We must tug the sledges up and down over huge ice `boulders´. In such demanding conditions, it will be useful to lighten the load on the pulkha. To achieve this, the special food cases mentioned above can be turned into backpacks using straps, also custom made for the Expedition. Using these straps we can get the packs on and off our backs, even in difficult pack-ice. You'd be surprised how much easier the going can be made by transferring 20 kg in weight (equivalent to 2 week's food) from sledge to backpack!

In previous diary entries we mentioned missing items: jerky, and a certain equipment package stuck in Canadian Customs. The jerky is still annoyingly lost-in-space! The equipment package is still in Customs. Strangely enough, every official we plead with has a different version of why the package is stuck, or even where it's stuck! So today we brought in the heavy guns: the all powerful Finnish Embassy. By the end of the day there was reason to hope that the package might even arrive in Resolute before we depart…

On the other hand, the weather here is so foul that no aircraft have flown for the past three days.

All is well with the Expedition.