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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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Nine Hard-Won Miles

Jun 17, 2006
overcast, partly sunny, 31.5 F, 9 nautical miles
Day 48. All of our previous experience with sea ice, our attempt last year off the coast of Russia, all of our knowledge accumulated over the past month and a half, all of the information gleaned from previous expeditions did little, if anything, to prepare us for the ice today.

A brisk wind cooled the surface snow enough where we could both use skis; however, the second skier had more snow stick to the bottom of his skis than the lead - the opposite of yesterday.

Too soon, we were in a confusion of broken ice. Leads were everywhere. Normally, we would look for pressured corners, but they were now split apart. We've mentioned this situation before, but today was different. It was impossible to judge where there was water and where there wasn't. Because of the flatness of the ice, the edges of the pans disguised the character of each lead.

Too many times we would interpret a lead crossable to the left, but once closer, the gap was too wide to span with skis, or filled with impassable brash ice. Then, we'd backtrack to the right. Several times, we traveled three or four pans into a dead end and had to backtrack that same agonizing distance.

We stretched the limits of safety. Both of us had near misses with ice breaking underneath our full weight. Only luck and last minute lunges kept us dry. Any other skis than our trusty Asnes skis would have broken in two by now. We bridge nearly four foot gaps with them.

When our spirits were at their lowest, when we didn't think we could go through any more, when even getting to 89 degrees seemed impossible, the ice changed. It got better. Flatter. The sun came out. It was a break we will not soon forget.

So many times we fall. We slip and get frustrated. Or just plain tired. Sometimes one of us is close enough to lend a hand. Many times we are all alone. 'Why even get up,' we often think. But we do get up, we take one step and then another, then one more. Minute by minute, hour by hour, we whittle away at all this impossibility to move forward. That simple fact gives us hope. These, we are just beginning to realize, are not just lessons for polar explorers.

Just so you know, your efforts are not going unnoticed, the federal government received over 200,000 comments in support of listing the bear under the Endangered Species Act. Wow! Thanks to all of you who made an extra effort to help save the polar bear.

We're too tired to write another poem. Our mood would better fit a Russian tome. But now it's to sleep. Where new energy will seep. But not before our dreams take us away to roam.

Today's picture: Our solar power plant. There is enough light (even during a complete blizzard) to charge all of our electronic equipment. And the best part, no greenhouse gas emissions.

Word of the day: equanimity - what we try to have.

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