June 7, 87 13.29:73 22.54'W
Day 37. We have finally left 'camp depot'. It was a comfortable piece of ice, but it was time to move on. For one thing, our camp was beginning to smell a lot like 'people' and even though we are about 300 miles from land, we are still concerned about curious polar bears.
It's easy to think of polar bears as being similar to other species of bears, but they're not. Sure, they're bears, but polar bears are classified as marine mammals because they have become so well adapted to this environment of ice and water and the amount of time they spend in the water traveling between ice floes.
However, they are not adapted to swim long distances, which is why polar bears are drowning with alarming frequency off the north coast of Alaska.
Polar bear drownings used to be a really rare event, but now, scientists are noting record numbers of drownings, and they chalk it up to the lack of sea ice and to global warming.
If we were to have seen a polar bear today (which we didn't) it most likely would have been in the water. We catamaraned the sled-canoes five times over leads ranging in size from 15 feet to 100 yards wide. The bigger ones acquired names like Mississippi, Amazon and Nile as they stretched out of view.
It was really good to be traveling again. Despite our heavy-again loads, we feel strong. Luckily, the ice has cooperated a bit and was fairly flat. We did run into problems a few times where ice pans are drifting apart. Normally, when we are navigating through small pans, we look for areas of pressure and cross where the two pans have collided. Between those spots today were large gaps of water.
A note about the picture - we keep track of our daily position by writing in marker on the tent wall.
Word of the Day: troubadour - the Arctic versions.
June 6, 87 03.32:73 12.51'W
Day 37. The rations in our depot gave us a smorgasbord of new flavors for our taste buds. Though the amount of food per day, per person (30 oz) is the same, we have changed the menu slightly. We have dried and aged Italian salami, aged parmesan cheese, dried Finnish rye bread, and chocolate with hazelnuts and raisins, just to name a few of the items.
The actual acquiring of these items was quite a feat. A Twin Otter plane with equipped with extra fuel left Resolute Bay and flew to Eureka, a small science outpost on Ellesmere Island. There, they refueled and removed the side door to aid in dropping our supplies. Two hours later our food and fuel are being pushed out of the opening 150 meters from our tent, so close in fact that we can see a person in the opening. Our supplies tumble to the deck one or two seconds later and we whoop and holler with excitement.
We want to extend our a gigantic 'thank you' to Kenn Borek Air for their professionalism, friendliness and thoroughness. They went above and beyond the call of duty to get our needed supplies to us. Thanks also to Daniel who was always there to give us updates and other relevant information.
We have spent most of the day sorting through our newly acquired culinary riches. After these chores, sorting, dividing and packing canoe/sleds with our new provisions, we lounged in the tent resting for our push to the pole. We had been up much of the night talking with Kenn Borek's headquarters to relay current weather information.
After naps, we used up some time playing a couple games of chess on a newly drawn-up board. Outcome of the tournament: Larsen one, Dupre one. Grudge match coming soon.
We have now been parked on this comfortable piece of ice (drifting north) for three days and, amazingly enough, we are looking forward to the hard work and challenges ahead.
We have also been using this time to talk to press about our experiences to date, and more importantly, how global warming is affecting the Arctic, polar bears, and ultimately the world.
If you haven't had a chance to visit www.oneworldexpedition.com, you should check it out. Once there you can learn more about what expedition manager John Huston has been up to. Also there you'll find links to our equipment sponsors and companies like Granite Gear, Clif, Jytte and Timberland, all of whom have strong commitments to protecting our environment.
Word of the day: philistine - we are two men, living in a small tent, eating meals while laying down; our etiquette and tact are slowly declining and someone forgot to pack the 'Miss Manners' book to refresh us.
June 5, 87 00.17N:73 47.29'W
Day 36. We are still camped at 87 and waiting to for our depot. Just for the record, we aren't enjoying our extra day of rest. At least that's the official line we're towing today.
In lieu of more exciting news to report, we thought we'd give you more insight into our daily routines. Here's the play by play:
5:45-6:00 pm alarm goes off. Lonnie wakes up (remember we're traveling at night). 6:15 pm Lonnie dressed and packs sleeping bag, lights stove, begins to melt snow. 6:30 pm Eric up, packs sleeping bag, gets dressed 7:00 pm Hot drinks served by Lonnie 7:15 pm Breakfast served by Lonnie 7:25 pm Eric does dishes 7:30-40 pm Eric out of tent, puts on Granite Gear gaiters, unplugs solar panel, begins science work. Lonnie packs up stove, puts boots on, throws all gear out of tent. 7:45-8 pm Arrange gear in sled, take down tent, morning constitutional. 8-8:15 pm Begin day's travels north.
We'll fill you in on our evening routines sometime in the near future.
Kieran from Greenpeace asked us to deploy our banner (see picture) as a satellite was going to be taking our picture of our camp from outer space. Pretty amazing.
We did manage to come up with a new limerick for today:
Here we are in our Hilleberg tent. With one pole that is awkwardly bent. It happened last year tripping on some gear And now we're in a district of lower rent.
Did you know that global warming's first victims are the polar bears? Already, Hudson Bay's polar bear population has declined by 15% and the remainder have have averaged a 15% weight loss. Polar bears are also drowning off the coast of Alaska as they try to reach land from the receding ice. Make sure to sign the polar bear petition today!
Word of the day: decrepit - defined as made weak by age or use. Insert your favorite explorer's name here.
June 4, 87 00.17N:73 47.29'W
Day 35. We seem to be camped near a wildlife oasis. Today, what appeared to be a lone snow goose flew directly over our camp. A snow goose! So, we've done a bit of quick math and figured that we have had feathered visitors at all but 86 degrees.
Of course, we were in a raging blizzard at 86, so maybe there was a special avian visitor and we simply didn't see it.
We crawled out of the tent and found a bright sunny day. Lucky for us as well, someone had decided to open an Arctic spa. We took full advantage and 'showered' and shaved. Once finished, we barely recognized each other, having both taken years off our thin faces.
We also took short baths outside. A crisp north breeze kept the cleansing to a minimum, however.
The rest of the day was spent making some small adjustments to our equipment in preparation for the additional supplies (and weight) and the push to the pole.
We also took advantage of the bright light to make a video survey of ice chunks as well as some cool underwater shots of leads.
All in all it was a pretty uneventful day, but we aren't complaining in the least.
Word of the day: titivate - after cleaning up and reading a bit of the dictionary, this is hopefully what we are.
June 3, 87 00.17N:73 47.29'W
Day 34. Houston we have 87, but actually we say Huston, for John Huston our expedition manager. Of course, they're pronounced the same, but for the sake of being accurate we thought we'd spell it out for you.
Special 'props' go out to Huston for coordinating our resupply, managing the www.oneworldexpedition.com web site, writing and sending out enews (as well as Ann Possis - thanks Ann), answering emails, taking our phone calls at all hours and giving us encouragement. Thanks superstar!
The weather has warmed enough (just above freezing) for us to be uncomfortably warm during the day's travels. Now, we usually take off our Wintergreen jackets after a 10-minute warm up, then it's just long one layer of long underwear. The warmer temperatures are beginning to make some of the deeper snowed-in areas fairly soft as well.
We have still been encountering drifted and pressured areas which have slowed us down a bit. However, we have also come across some of the flattest pans we have seen so far.
We are at the northern limit to where we can receive our resupply. Therefore, we traveled with the GPS within close reach for most of the afternoon to check our position. After traveling across a flat pan for nearly an hour we knew we were close. A quick check revealed just how close 86 59 09'. Unfortunately, we were on the southern side of a large lead.
While we were getting the sled-canoes ready to catamaran and paddle across, a seal poked its head out of the water. A seal!? Swimming at most likely what was exactly 87 degrees north latitude. We watched in awe for a few minutes while it tilted its head back, slid underneath the surface and resurfaced nearby.
What must it think of us? We can only offer our biased conjecture in the time it takes to paddle across the lead.
Now, we are camped safely on the high side of 87. Tomorrow is officially a full rest day which we will use to our full advantage. However, we will also be stationed here until our new supplies arrive. When, you ask? We're not sure exactly. A lot depends on the weather. Luckily, we do have 6 days worth of rations remaining.
Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," opens this weekend. It is getting rave reviews. This is from a review in The New York Times: "I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling."
If you have a chance, please go see it.
Word of the day: skulk - we're loitering steathily at 87.
June 2, 86 53.45N:73 58.39'W
Day 33. The solar radiation heats up our tent to nearly room temperature as we sleep. Sometimes it gets too hot and we have to lay outside our bags - a scary and smelly phenomenon.
We paddled across three leads today and managed to do some filming of the process. We have taken about 7 hours of video so far with more to come. We are hoping to provide some visual documentation of global warming's assault on the Arctic Ocean and its iconic figure, the polar bear.
Our metabolisms are running in overdrive now and we gobble up every last crumb of our daily rations. We have even gone so far as to count our evening crackers to make sure we both get equal share. On the downside, our stomachs are still adjusting to the additional calories.
We thought of another limerick. Hopefully, this one rings a bit more lyrical in all the critics' ears out there.
There once was a pair of long underwear, Whose stench was way beyond compare. On the verge of turning green, In an unpleasant dirty sheen. To the more refined, they smelled of a cheese so rare.
A study in Nature today revealed that, 55 million years ago, the average temperature of the Arctic was 74 degrees F. These findings are proof that too much carbon dioxide - more than four times current levels - can cause global warming, said another co-author, Henk Brinkhuis of Utrecht University.
A special thanks to Kieran Mulvaney, our point man at Greenpeace, for all his hard work. Also thanks for all the positive notes from other Greenpeace folks - you're with us in spirit.
Word of the day: miasma - the source... Our long underwear
June 1, 86 45.56N:73 36.19'W
Day 32. Raindrops keep falling on our heads. Raindrops keep falling on our heads and coating our glasses as well as the entire right side of our bodies with ice.
Despite the inclement weather we made great northerly and westerly progress. The ice has once again shown us a new side and we are starting to encounter more large cracks with less brash ice in them. In fact, we had to catamaran the boats five times today.
Paddling across one of the larger leads seemed a lot like being on a lake canoeing back home in Minnesota - except for all the snow and ice, of course.
Part of our research for NSIDC is to measure the freeboard (height above waterline) of the ice at a lead during the day. The process is easy - we just use a ski pole that has a thin meter tape stuck to it. Hopefully, this information can be used to better determine how much the Arctic sea ice is thinning.
As of Day 31, we are 244.2 statute (normal miles) or 212 nautical miles from Cape Discovery (our starting point), and we are 235.8 statute/204.6 nautical miles from the Pole. Pretty exciting if you ask us.
News of the weird: Lonnie's boots have picked up the distinct odor of sour milk. We've done the smell comparison and only Lonnie's boots seem to produce this olfactory mystery.
News of the aging: Eric celebrated his 35th birthday today. There are a few gray hairs (2-5 ONLY) now. No big celebration except for the notable exception of an extra, you guessed it, Clif bar.
Word of the day: redolent - Lon's boots the reminiscence of good milk gone bad.
