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Polar Explorers Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen send daily dispatches during their unprecedented four-month journey to the North Pole and back. The expedition team will pull and paddle specially modified canoes across nearly 1,000 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean. Their objective is to complete the first ever summer expedition to the North Pole and to highlight the growing issues surrounding global warming.
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Life on the Ice


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Last Day in Grand Marais

Apr 27, 2006
sunny 50 degrees F
We leave Minnesota in a few hours. Good bye spring and summer, hello ice. However, the latest satellite image from our departure point off the north coast of Ellesemere Island shows spring coming to the Arctic as well.

Last year, we abandoned our attempt to make the first summer crossing of the Arctic Ocean due to unfavorable ice conditions and ocean currents. But as you know, we are again teaming up with Greenpeace and returning to thin ice with a new mission: to protect what could become global warming's first victim-the polar bear.

Greenpeace is at the forefront of taking action to rescue the polar bear from extinction, including a groundbreaking lawsuit filed with other environmental groups to list the species under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming. If successful, it would be the first time a mammal has been listed as endangered and given protections as a result of global warming.

Greenpeace climate experts have teamed up with scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who have equipped the explorers with tools to document melt water pools, snow depth and ice thickness. Since no one has undertaken an expedition like this in the Arctic in summer, the explorers will provide scientists with measurements that have never been taken before. Scientists are calling the data that the explorers will gather the 'Holy Grail' of sea ice studies.

The Arctic Ocean and the polar bear have a dramatic story to tell. Hopefully our journey on the Arctic Ocean will help better illustrate the need for immediate action.

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