Far North Science

Crossing a lead
The Arctic Arc

Two Belgium explorers on a mission to measure snow depths across the Arctic Ocean ice pack trudged up to the North Pole on April 24, after traveling on foot from the remote north coast of Siberia almost 578 miles in 54 days, according to a dispatch on the expedition website.

After their final exhausting 13-hour ordeal pulling their sleds through drifts, Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer reached the Earth’s boreal crown at 6:30 p.m. GMT ( 10:30 a.m. in Alaska.)

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. They now face a 500-mile slog to the coast of Greenland for a second leg.

In the end, if they reach their goal of the southern tip of Greenland in June, they will have traveled on foot an unprecedented 2,700 miles.

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A sign warning trail users of a small
glacier in a Fairbanks yard.
Photo by Ned Rozell.

This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.

On late winter nights in the Goldstream Valley north of Fairbanks this past winter, a woman named Hilary went for walks on the snow-covered trail outside her house. During a time of year when silence dominates, she heard something strange–the sound of running water.

Water was percolating up through the ice of nearby Goldstream Creek, and flowing in fan-like channels over the ice. Not long after it hit the surface, the water froze. Ice accumulated over the days until it created a small glacier that crept to within a few feet of a woodpile on Hilary’s porch. At about the same time, water began seeping into the first story of her house.

“I’m someone who appreciates nature, but there’s a certain line where what’s beautiful and awesome becomes a threat,” Hilary said.

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