Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer
traversed the Arctic
Two Belgium explorers finally reached Greenland, completing one of the most difficult polar journeys of recent decades and documenting the disintegrating ice cap of the Far North.
From the Arctic Arc site:
“Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer have just accomplished a major first in the history of the world.
The journey across the Arctic from Siberia to Greenland had never been done until now. The conditions under which this adventure was undertaken — never able to rest and braving the obvious harsh conditions in the Arctic — make this athletic feat all the more extraordinary and places it amongst the most prominent achievements in the history of the poles.”
The two men skied and trudged from Siberia to the North Pole, then veered south and finally pitched their tent in Greenland snow on June 14. They spent 106 days on the drifting floes, and traveled more than 1,000 miles through fractured ice, jagged pressure ridges and fissured pans.
After leaving Severnaya Zemlya off Siberia at the end of February, the two men averaged almost 11 miles per day on the first leg of The Arctic Arc. The original goal was to reach southern tip of Greenland before the end of June, an unprecedented Arctic journey of 2,700 miles.
The two men reached the North Pole on April 25, after traveling almost 578 miles in 54 days. Two days later, they began the second leg — a 500-mile traverse toward Greenland.
Searching for a way through
But it became an epic polar struggle, where progress was measured one panting footstep at a time. At first, Hubert and Dansercoer were slowed down by difficult, icy terrain that turned the trek into a climbing expedition.
“The blocks we are encountering can measure anything up to three or four metres (10-13ft) high!” Hubert said in a May 24 dispatch by satellite phone.
The technical team consulted satellite maps and steered them on a new route. Then the ice melt suddenly began to speed up, faster than they expected, with conditions continuing to surprise the explorers. By early June, the two men finally reached more stable ice.
The Belgium traverse over 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.
Eight different endeavors link to the IPF’s Polar Expeditions website, including a French schooner drifting (on purpose) in the pack ice and a 2008 mission to measure ice thickness by flying over the pole in a zeppelin.