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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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the good, the bad and the great

May 15, 2006
sunny, 9 F, 9 nautical miles
The good: our day started out under clear blue skies. It was, hopefully, a positive omen. We set out skiing for over two hours through a heavily drifted area of old pressure.

The bad: we crossed an area sometime during our late morning (roughly latitude 84:15, created by the end of the continental shelf) consisting of a series of lake-sized leads. One even rivaled Lake Superior. The going here was arduous at best and we were forced west to find any connecting pans. We did it all over rubble, big gaps, small cracks, ice walls and ice ledges. It was physically exhausting, spirit-draining work.

The Great: Then, like a phoenix from the ashes, we emerged into a large expanse of relatively flat ice. For the first time, we could see quite far in every direction. We also noticed that we could no longer see Ellesmere Island!

It was a record day for us in two areas: we traveled for 9 hours and we made 9 nautical miles

Word of the day: bonanza - a sudden increase of wealth or luck - our newly acquired flat traveling conditions.

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