As hard as it is to believe, the temperature today was even colder than yesterday. So cold in fact that the whale was frozen solid and the soft red soil had turned into sandstone (1). Not even the earthworms escaped the cold (2).

    Our five volunteers from UPEI were waiting for us at the whale graveyard with sharpened knives (3). The two pathology professors were particularly enthusiastic and were the first to jump into the pit to begin uncovering the vertebrae and ribs (4).

    We had to use a combination of knives, picks, crowbars, shovels, and the excavator to carefully peel the blue skin and tough visceral tissues away from the bones (5+6). It was a delicate job that revealed pristine looking bones (7+8).

    By mid-day we had completed our assessment of the whale. While some bones were broken during the original burial, the overall carcass appears to be in good shape. There is a lot of extremely foul smelling tissue to be removed, and a lot of work ahead to clean and repair the broken bones --- but it can be done (9).

    We ended our day by placing 2x4 boards to mark the location of the skeleton and carefully reburying the whale (10). We then mapped the orientation of the body so that we can excavate the entire carcass in the spring (11) and drew a measuring tape more than 80 feet along the backbone to visualize just how long she is (12+13).

    Our tentative plan is to return for two weeks in spring to uncover the entire animal and extract the skeleton. The Conservation Officer and the faculty and staff of UPEI have offered to help us. I cannot say enough about how generous and helpful all of the people we have met have been (14).

    It is going to be a massive job, but one that we are looking forward to undertaking.