This morning we has a spectacular hike to the mouth of the 14th of July Glacier. This glacier is dramatic with brilliant blue ice spikes calving in the front of the glacier into the water. Icebergs are floating around in the bay. Upon landing at the beach, Mark Drinkwater from ESA gave an elaborate talk […]
Our Dutch Captains of Industry have arrived in Longyearbyen for our expedition to West Svalbard. Luckily the weather cleared towards the evening. Wind dropped and the sun came out after a day of sleet, rain and storm. Around 10:30 we recommended everyone to lay in bed as we headed straight Into the wind, waves formed […]
Yesterday we participated in the March for Science in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. A small community of Arctic scientists from UNIS gather outside the Norwegian Polar Institute building for what is believed the most northern march on the planet. We hung our North Pole March for Science banner on the building and joined the crowd of about […]
Nobody should argue the sense of science. Science is to celebrate our brilliant minds everywhere in the world. Those who seek to understand the complexities of our planet, those who have inquisitive minds and are driven by a curiosity for knowledge. Scientists can help us move forward into solving our climate crisis that we ourselves have […]
Last night we got a call we are going to be evacuated from the North Pole today. Barneo (Russian Basecamp) has a crack across the runway which makes it difficult for the Anatov 74 airplane to land. A helicopter will come and pick us up and bring us to Barneo and from there we take […]
When Peary allegedly arrived at the North Pole in 1909 his comment was: “At last the pole is mine”. He had lost all this toes during his polar exploits and made many enemies among other explorers with his self absorbed and ruthless behavior. He then continued to ski back to Canada where he returned in […]
We are camping 8.8 nautical miles (16.3km) from the North Pole tonight. Most expeditions would dash for the pole just to grab it, to make sure all your efforts are paid for when you punch in the 90 degrees of latitude in your GPS. You end up skiing 20 to 30 miles in one go […]
There is huge uncertainty among scientists when the Arctic sea is going to be ice free in the September low minimum. Some models predict this century while others may suggest it will be closer to next century. There are some predictions that it may even be this summer since we already know that 2017 will […]
In the last few days we have been getting messages from Mark Drinkwater from ESA to veer to a radical easterly direction instead of going straight North to the pole. Apparently spring has arrived in the Arctic somewhere in the 7 million square km and the ice is starting to break up as it transport […]
People have asked what our camp life is like and what we do once we crawl in the tent. Our tenting routine is quiet laborious but also very disciplined because by the end of the day we are not only tired but extremely cold, so we need to get warm in a hurry. We all […]
