Treading on Thin Ice

Unprecedented Greenpeace-backed arctic trek will highlight global warming

By Marcus Mrowka, GWU

Summer is just around the corner. But while students head to beaches across the country to hit the waves and get some sun, two Minnesota explorers, 44-year old Lonnie Dupre and 33-year old Eric Larsen, will be embarking on the first ever unsupported mission crossing the Arctic Ocean. The trek, sponsored by Greenpeace, is aimed at highlighting the growing perils of global warming.

The 1,200 mile journey launched on May 11 from Cape Arcitchesky, Siberia, will last four months, crossing the North Pole and ending on Ellesmere Island, Canada. The team will battle freezing temperatures, unstable ice, and at some points will have to trudge through a slushy substance up to their knees. All this as they carry over three hundred pounds of food and other supplies they will need to get them through their journey and drag specially designed kayaks behind them.

“The idea for this expedition came when I was circumnavigating Greenland between 1997 and 2001 with another explorer, John Hoelscher,” said Dupree. “We came to a place where the map showed that two glaciers should be jutting out a mile to sea. Not only were the glaciers no longer there, they had receded about a mile inland.”

Greenpeace is sponsoring the trip as part of Project Thin Ice, an international campaign to help call attention to the impact global warming is having across the world. The campaign puts special emphasis on the U.S., where they say the fossil fuel industry and their paid climate skeptics continue to dominae the policy agenda. While the landmark global environmental pact the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in February of this year, it did not have the support of the U.S.

“We hope that every mile these explorers travel will empower people around the world to take action and pressure the United States into adopting vigorous practices to combat this crisis,” said Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace Climate Campaigner.

According to a report released by over 250 scientists of the Arctic Council last year, the extent of climate change in this region is unprecedented, affecting communities around the world and possibly making endangered wildlife such as the polar bear extinct by the end of the century. Greenpeace says the world must act now, before it is too late.

“Global warming is happening now, not in some distant future,” Duchin said.

As the two explorers make their trek across the Arctic, Greenpeace will have their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, in the region conducting experiments, working with scientists and visiting communities to gather facts and figures on the impact global warming is having in the Arctic region. Greenpeace will also be working on developments in renewable energy and climate litigation.

While Dupre and Larson began training and mapping out their journey over two years ago, neither man is a stranger to the harsh terrain they will encounter this summer.

Dupre has an Arctic career spanning 17 years, traveling over 13,500 miles throughout the arctic regions of Russia, Lapland, Alaska, Canada and Greenland. In the past he led five other Arctic expeditions and participated in six more. Over a decade ago, he led a 3,059 mile, 185 day trek across the Canadian Arctic. It was the first west-to-east crossing of the Northwest Passage via dog sled and ski.

Larsen is an equally adept explorer. In 2002, he completed a 700-mile dog sled expedition in the Canadian Sub arctic and has explored throughout northern Minnesota, Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. He developed a curriculum for the Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center, where he also serves as science coordinator.

“I, like so many others, am just an average person. But, I have come to realize that average people can do great things,” says Larson on the Project Thin Ice site. “Our world is a fragile place, and it needs to be protected for all the average people, polar explorers, activists and everyone else still to come.”

All of their past experiences will be put to the test in this mission. The two will encounter a number of obstacles along the way. The polar ice cap will be melting, rendering the ice unstable and dangerous, and the Arctic is blanketed by thick fog for much of the time in summer, limiting sight to as little as 100 yards. To make matters worse, temperatures of 10 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit combined with high humidity and damp conditions creates a breeding ground for hypothermia.

The two men will be living on a diet of nearly 6,000 calories each per day, but because of the strenuous activity involved in the journey, both men can be expected to lose nearly 20 pounds as they paddle, ski, gaff hook, man haul, and slog their way across one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.

Greenpeace expects the two explorers to arrive on the other side of the Arctic in early September, as students leave the beaches and hit the books for another academic year. They will have spent four months with no other human contact in conditions that make a New England blizzard seem like a flurry. Greenpeace hopes this mission might make some of those beachgoers think hard about the impact global warming and climate change are having for us now and for years to come.

Illustration: Matt Bors

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