We are a two-person team, and we're intending each to travel with a team of eight dogs. We anticipate that
the journey will take us between six and eight weeks.
Our training period will start in early January 2009. We will spend January and most of February working
with our dog teams before driving with the dogs by road along the Dempster Highway to Inuvik, and then on to Herschel
Island by bush plane. We're intending to start the actual expedition in the last week of February, when the ocean ice - which has
been increasingly thin and insecure in recent years - should be safe.
Historically, the Mounties' patrols employed one or two men to break trail ahead of the dog teams on foot,
wearing snowshoes. With a nod to the modern age, we will use locals on snow machines who will travel a day or two ahead of
us. By having the trail marked in this way, and by diligent use of GPS, we hope to avoid mimicking the journey of the original
Lost Patrol too closely.
We will also arrange for a number of food drops along the route. A hundred years ago, the patrols would
have shot game for food when they could. However, it is now illegal to kill game for dog food, so we will need to carry all
our supplies.
