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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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Chess and Chocolate

Jun 14, 2006
overcast, whiteout, 33.5 F, 0 nautical miles
Day 45. We took a full day's rest instead of our normal half day due to the tough slogging we had between 87 and 88 degrees north. It gave the Norwegian and French (you have to guess) contingencies of the team time to re-energize sore muscles and heal any strains.

The older and more distinguished of the two 'has-beens' has been experiencing serious back pain from a strain during the first week and a half of the expedition.

We've have been trying to stay on top of the problem with anti-inflammatory drugs, stretching, tweaking the pull harness and adjusting weight in the canoe-sleds.

We want to thank Dr. John Wood for helping us put the expedition's medical kit together, along with advice for handling this situation. Also would like to extend our appreciation to Kathy Horak for showing some relevant yoga stretches for lower back. Last but not least, thanks to Kim and Shem for whipping up some fabulous dehydrated salsa that helps us choke down our dried egg/potato/bean breakfasts.

We also received an important polar bear update from Melanie at Greenpeace that the U.S. Senate has passed legislation to enforce the Polar Bear Treaty that Russia and the United States reached almost six years ago. The bill now moves to the House. On a related note, you still have until the end of this week to tell the federal government to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Be sure you take action if you haven't already. Thanks!

Most of the morning was spent transcribing the snow depth and density and ice thickness data we've collected over the past month. This in turn will be sent to Kert Davies at Greenpeace who will further transcribe the information, whereupon it will reach its penultimate destination, Walt Meier at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). The data will be presented by Dr. Meier and Dr. Ted Scambos in August. Hopefully, this information will prove critical to understanding the current state of Arctic sea ice.

We would also like to thank Jennifer Bohlander and Ted Scambos at NSIDC who have been graciously monitoring and processing MODIS satellite photo data on the rare occasion that clear skies have been available.

There was some talk of a brief snowshoe outing in the afternoon, but it never materialized. Instead, we splurged and ate an extra candy bar with lunch. Our intentions were noble, we swear!

We also decided to do our own science project. This morning our ski poles had melted into the snow and fallen over. We wanted to know how different objects affected the melting of ice, so we placed a snowshoe, some orange rope and a bungee out on the snow. After three hours, they had already melted down an inch.

This experiment is a good example of how more water can accelerate the melting of the Arctic ice pack.

The only other big event of the day was the much-touted chess match. A huge crowd of drying socks and gear gathered in giddy anticipation. In the end, the grudge match was won by Eric, so we played another game which Lonnie won. So we're back to hyping another big game.

A note about today's picture: Eric is weighing snow to determine its density.

Word of the day: efficacious - hopefully our efforts to get to the North Pole.

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