Greetings from Grande Prairie.  Assistant Chef de Mission, Holly Odegard, and I arrived here at about 2:30PM today, Wednesday.

The sun was shining brightly, and the ramp workers were in t-shirts.  The temperature was in the low to mid-40's, and there were many puddles on the ground.

I have been told that the snow conditions at the alpine skiing venue (Nitehawk Ski Hill) and the cross country skiing/biathlon venue (Wapiti Nordic) are still pretty good.  We'll try to check them out tomorrow.

Today we picked up our loaner cars from the Host Society, and worked on our final air travel arrangements, including sending all of our passport information to Air North.  Thank you to all of you who got this information to us early!

Tomorrow morning at 9:00AM is the first meeting of the Chefs des Missions with the organizers (Host Society) and AWG International Committee.  That really kicks off the "official" start to the activities here.  All the Chefs and Assistant Chefs arrived today, including: Alberta North, NWT, Nunavut, Nunavik, Yamal, Saami, Greenland and Yukon.

Later tomorrow we will be (I hope) picking up the cell phones for our Mission Staff, setting up our Team Alaska mission office, and checking out the venues and accommodations.

We'll be ready Friday night at 9:20PM when the first charter flight arrives from Fairbanks.  Everything looks great so far!