From Russia to Canada via North Pole

10.02.2011,

Press-conference announcing the forthcoming start of the Polar Ring expedition (February – June, 2011) was held on 8 February.

Vladimir Chukov, the expedition project leader

A press-conference to announce the next stage of the Polar Ring expedition was held on 8 February. This years-long project comprises four stages; the first was completed in 2002, and the last one is scheduled for 2014. The route of the research and sporting expedition follows the continental coastline circling the Arctic ocean; the team will go in wheeled amphibian all-terrain vehicles specially designed for the Arctic. The plan for February – June, 2011 is to make the first-ever voyage from Russian coast to Canada going via the geographical North Pole.

Vladimir Chukov, full member of the Russian Geographical Society and the project leader, spoke at the press-conference. Canada is represented by the experienced traveller Sergei Feniov, who also spoke with the journalists.

Vladimir Chukov told the media about the project’s logistics. On 17 February the expeditionary equipment will be loaded aboard the An-74 aircraft, which is scheduled to take off from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport on the next day. Upon arrival to the Sredny Island of the Russian Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, the team will start assembling the hardware; the process should be completed in 5-6 days.

The first part of the journey to the North Pole should take about two months. Skiing expeditions to the pole usually go along a meridian; this makes the route about 1,000 kilometres long. But this expedition is unusual; it will not go from the Sredny Island to the North Pole directly along the meridian but will move a bit eastwards to drive on the more firm, years-old drifting ice floes coming from the Laptev Sea. This kind of ice is perfect for Arctic all-terrains – the main vehicle of the expedition.

Another point on the Polar Ring expedition’s route is the Barneo polar station, which is set up every year in the vicinity of the North Pole, to the north of the Spitsbergen archipelago. The team will make a 4-5 days stopover there: to service the all-terrains, get more fuel and the necessary hardware replacements. Then the expedition will move on towards the Canadian Arctic archipelago; the plan is to reach it in May, in the vicinity of Ward Hunt Island. From there the travellers will go along the archipelago’s bays and straits (which should still be frozen). The finishing point of this section of the route is the Canadian village of Resolute (the Earth’s North Magnetic Pole), 1,000 kilometres from the shoreline. The project’s third stage should be completed in June, 2011. The trans-polar expedition team will cover 8,000 kilometres including more than 3,000 across the drifting ice floes in the Arctic Ocean.

Vladimir Chukov also told the media people about the research component of the Polar Ring project. The team will collect samples of water, snow and ice for the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and gather information about the polar bear population for the Wrangel Island nature reserve. Also in the programme is testing expeditionary hardware and equipment, in particular testing the Russian GLONASS navigation system in the Arctic conditions.

The trans-polar expedition team will go in two all-terrain vehicles, four people in each. They’ll go as follows. Many mistakenly believe that four people just get into an Arctic all-terrain and drive on to the North Pole. But in reality it’s only possible if the ice is sufficiently strong, with very few cracks. In perfect conditions an Arctic all-terrain with ultralow-pressure tires goes at 30 kilometres per hour. But perfect conditions don’t happen very often. Normally, you travel in the Arctic in a quite different way. Just the driver remains in the all-terrain; two other crew members walk next to the vehicle on the left and on the right, while the fourth person walks in front of it. You’ve got to move fast; each crew member carries a heavy crowbar to lever the vehicle out in case it gets into a crack, and to crush ice hummocks which get in the way. Each all-terrain tows several trailers behind it; such a train can be up to 15 metres long. All in all, a veritable Arctic caravan.

Exactly halfway along the route, the Polar Ring team will meat participants of the World Capsule international initiative. The team members will sink a special capsule to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, containing an electronic data storage medium with information for our descendants, future people of the Earth. The capsule will have a special system which will allow researchers to discover it and bring it back to the surface many years later.