Beyond the North Pole

May 10, 2007

Courtesy of  Far North Science
By Doug O'Harra

Two Belgium explorers on a mission to measure snow depths across the Arctic Ocean have launched a grueling 500-mile trek across the ragged, crevassed ice between the North Pole and Greenland

Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer reached the North Pole on April 24, after traveling on foot from the remote north coast of Siberia almost 578 miles in 54 days. Now they enter the unknown.

Almost no one ventures into this area. In an age when tourists visit the pole itself, and adventurers regularly visit the ice cap north of Alaska and far northern Canada, the shattered floes leading toward the all-but uninhabited corner of Greenland remains Ultima Thule. Untouched and unmeasured.

As the team reported in a May 1 dispatch:

The story on this side of the Pole is different. This is truly the road less travelled. Few have ever attempted this approach to Greenland over the Arctic Ocean. On this 'Greenland side' the skiing conditions are far more difficult.

"Before the Pole, there was more chance of encountering hard and relatively flatter ice" explained Alain. "But now there is more than a knee-deep layer of snow on the ice, which forces us to remove our skis and to proceed on foot, as the surface of this snow is frozen into a hard crust and so irregular that it is impossible to use skis".

Since leaving Severnaya Zemlya off Siberia at the end of February, the two men had averaged almost 11 miles per day on the first leg of The Arctic Arc. In the end, if they reach their goal of the southern tip of Greenland in June, they will have journeyed an unprecedented 2,700 miles.

Crossing a lead
The Arctic Arc

After loading with new supplies, their sledges weighed more than 140 pounds each. Conditions turned grim as they entered a badland almost too rugged to cross.

"It was horrible", Dixie told his base camp via satellite phone earlier this week, reported in the latest dispatch posted online "The sea ice was often so broken apart and shattered that both Alain and myself had to climb huge ice blocks to see which way was best to follow. We often also had to work together in order to get the sledges across. And, when a couple of squared decimetres of flat surface finally came up, we would sink into the snow up to our knees."

"The fact that we have encountered such broken up ice so close to the Pole is incomprehensible," Alain added. "On the other side of the Pole, on our way up, it was the same story.

"Normally, this close to the Pole, the sea ice should be less scattered and less cracked. So why do we have such a terrain then? Probably due to a succession of heavy storms having taken place here several weeks or months ago. I do not see any other explanation."

Alain is all the more surprised that, normally, there are no big storms in the Arctic at this time of year.

The Belgium trip to the pole is among several Far North expeditions underway this spring connected to the International Polar Foundation, many focused on gathering insight into how global warming and shifting climate has begun to change life for people, animals and ice in the Arctic.

People will be skiing, walking, traveling by dog team, visiting villages, gauging how the cryosphere has changed. Most of these trips provide extensive on-line portals into their daily challenges, with features aimed at school children, satellite phone dispatches and photographs, and occasional live feeds.

As the Belgians resupplied at the North Pole, the eight explorers on SnowSTAR 2007: Barrenlands Traverse across the tundra of Alaska and far northern Canada reached the end of their journey at Baker Lake. The website retains dozens of dispatches and activities aimed at school kids, plus photos of Far North scenes, caribou and northern communities.