Believe me if I say I have been freezing today! My heels and toes have been terribly cold, but since I am used to this freezing, it does not scare me. All it takes to warm up is to start jumping, walking or doing camp work. The problem is when you are sitting at the back of a sled pulled by two reindeer like we are, it goes very fast and you just can´t get off when you need to!

”This is the first time I have traveled in this area on this route” , Tonya the Eveny reindeer herder told me. When I asked him, what he felt about doing this Expedition, he finished off with these true words; “For us who are nomads and roam the area freely, this is nothing extra ordinary to travel 600 kms in these low temperatures.”

Yesterday I went into downtown Yakutsk with Yuri to do some interviews with the local women and in their fashionable dress in this extreme cold. It was the coldest day since I arrived, -45 Celsius, and I hadn´t put on enough thick trousers or good gloves. After 15 minutes I was shivering and cold. I suddenly realized, this is certainly no game or joke, this will be very serious business.

The temperature is not too extreme for January in Yakutsk, just over -40 degrees Celsius. Today I was standing at probably the coldest fish market in the world and asked one of the vendors, who had come all the way from Tiksi to sell his catch, how on earth he kept warm ever day while standing outdoors during the harshest part of winter.