August 3rd - The Journey Begins!

First day of traveling! All of us arrived at Julie’s house early at 5am. We packed up the bus and Traci our wonderful principal drove us to Dulles airport. Waiting for bags to be checked was a hassle but, we managed.

Finally, we’ve arrived in Winnipeg after a connecting flight from DC to Montréal. Julie made jokes about how many bags would be missing, but we definitely not expect the amount that was actually gone. We reached the baggage claim belt and felt very optimistic since everyone was finding their bags, only until we realized that all of our MREs, coolers, and group supplies filled in large duffel bags were missing. Julie and Elizabeth put us to the test with searching and taking charge of our lost bags while they left the airport We had to wait it out and hope that they would show up eventually. After much frustration and tiredness, we filed a claim for our lost bags, and requested them to be sent to Churchill where we could hopefully pick them up in 2 days.

After arriving at our cute bungalow AirBnb around 5pm, we dropped off our luggage inside and rushed back into our two cars to go to Costco. There, we met Manitoba Mike (an awesome guy) and split up in teams of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and miscellaneous groups to supply the next 2 1/2 weeks of nutritious and delicious foods. We raced around the store, looking crazy. The amount of stares we got since our carts were mountain piles of almost every food group was comical. After a grueling 1 1/2 hours of ridding the store of all of its products, we headed to the cashier with 5 full carts.

When we got back, half of us stayed to organize all of the stuff we bought, neatly and tightly in about 15 huge buckets. The other half went to go get even MORE food.

When we finally finished (minus the refrigerated goods), we called it quits and ordered take out. A much deserved dinner. Julie’s good friend Jill came to visit and help us get ready for the rest of our trip!

Lastly, after our never-ending day we gave into sleep (except for Julie, Elizabeth, and Jill who stayed up to make bagels from. scratch for us, a much appreciated breakfast).

Thank you for coming along the beginning of our exciting journey!

Writing and photos by Cassandra Kitchen