| The North Pole
The North Pole (sometimes referred to as the Geographic North Pole) is the northernmost point on the surface of the earth and marks the northern end of the axis on which the earth rotates. The “Geographic North Pole” is not to be confused with the “Magnetic North Pole” which is the point to which all compasses point and which lies approximately 1000 miles to the south west of the Geographic Pole.
The Geographic North Pole lies at the centre of the frozen Arctic Ocean and is not marked in anyway – it looks just like every other piece of ice in the Arctic. In fact it would be impossible to mark as the ice is constantly moving and anything placed on the surface above the pole would quickly drift South (by definition every direction is South from the Geographic North Pole).
The Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean spans 1500 miles across the top of the earth between Canada and Russia and is completely frozen for much of the year.
Although temperatures close to the Pole seldom rise above -10°C, the southern reaches of the Arctic Ocean thaw during the summer months allowing the whole Arctic ice-cap to move and break-up.
As the summer months advance conditions across the whole Arctic Ocean become increasing treacherous as the movement opens up vast ‘rivers’ of unfrozen water (known as “leads”) or drives plates of ice together forming “pressure ridges” 30 feet high. Travel on the Arctic Ocean becomes practically impossible after early May.
Climate
The sun rises and sets only once a year at the North Pole. During the winter months the entire Arctic Ocean is plunged into continuous darkness. The sun returns to the region in early March and hovers just above the horizon for six months before setting again in September.
Even at the height of the summer, the sun viewed from the Pole is never more than 24 degrees above the horizon, as compared with 64 degrees in London. This oblique sunshine does little to warm the polar atmosphere and accounts for the perpetual cold.
Above : The team dog sledging at midday in Baffin Island
Temperatures in the Arctic are at their lowest in the early spring when the sun first returns to the region after the long winter and causes the normally still, cold air to move around, adding wind chill to air temperatures below minus 40°C. As the summer advances temperatures will gradually rise to minus 10°C.
Every expedition in the Arctic region faces a trade-off between leaving later, in slightly warmer temperatures and giving themselves the largest window in which to complete the journey before the ice starts to break-up.
In addition to temperature, conditions on the Arctic Ocean are effected by wind and tide. Tides play a particularly significant role close to land and it is important to avoid departing close to the spring tides when conditions immediately offshore are likely to be particularly difficult.
Terrain
The terrain will vary enormously during the journey and given the unstable nature of the Arctic ice it is impossible to predict from one day to the next what conditions will be encountered.
Close to land ice conditions are generally very rough, large blocks of broken ice floating in the sea and “glued” together by more frozen water. Progress through this terrain with a dog sled is slow and frustrating as the sled crashes from block to block, frequently jamming between two.
Above : Matty leading the team through rough ice
Further offshore the terrain is characterised by large, flat pans interspersed with pressure ridges at intervals of between one and three miles. The pans provide ideal conditions for dog-sledding whilst the pressure ridges are the main obstacle to efficient travel in the Arctic.
At each pressure ridge the dog teams must be halted whilst an advance party identifies a safe route over. Once the route is identified two or three people are required to help each dog team haul their 500lb sled over the huge blocks of broken ice which make-up the ridge. Speed in crossing these ridges is critical to the success of the expedition.
Above : The team crossing a small pressure ridge
Throughout the journey thin ice and open water leads will pose a threat to safety and a further hindrance to progress. When open water or thin ice is encountered the team will have to travel along the lead in order to find a crossing point. In some cases there will be no alternative but to set up camp and wait for the water to freeze. In cold, still conditions, overnight is often long enough for this to occur however it is not unheard of to wait much longer. Peary was stuck at The Big Lead for 6 days.
Above : Peary’s men using a floating ice raft to cross a lead of open water
Finally Arctic expeditions have to cope with “negative drift”. As a result of the constant movement of the Arctic ice it is common to wake in the morning and find that hard fought for miles have been lost overnight as the ice drifts back against the direction of travel. There is no way of avoiding this problem, the team will just have to press on and hope that at some point “positive drift” will offset the loss.
Wildlife
Although the Arctic regions are home to a wide variety of animals, the ice of the Arctic Ocean remains the preserve of the Polar Bear, the only mammal adapted to hunt and survive in this environment. In contrast to most other land mammals the winter months are when Polar Bears thrive as the solid ice pack allows them to range far offshore in search of seals and fish, their primary sources of food.
In the summer months the melting ice forces Polar Bears to come ashore where they are poorly adapted for hunting and struggle to stay properly nourished. By Autumn it is common to find thin, undernourished bears waiting near the coast for the ice to come in so that they can return to the Arctic Ocean and once again hunt in the conditions for which they are uniquely adapted.
Above : Polar bears: curious
Although Polar Bears are extremely aggressive and pose a significant threat to Arctic expeditions the threat is greatly reduced when travelling with dogs. Innuit dogs are normally able to detect the presence of a bear long before it is visible to the human eye and in a large pack will act as an effective deterrent. As a final resort the team will carry a rifle, which when fired in the air, will cause any troublesome bears to run away.
The likelihood of encountering a Polar Bear is greatest during the first 100 miles of the journey where they will be spending the last weeks of the winter, ready to retreat to the coast as the ice breaks up. Further offshore an encounter becomes increasingly unlikely though thinning ice is driving bears further and further onto the Arctic Ocean in search of good hunting conditions and in recent years there have been sightings as far as 88 degrees North (300 miles offshore).
Aside from Polar Bears, seals and whales are the only other mammals which live in the Arctic Ocean. There is however an abundance of land based wildlife within the Arctic Circle. Caribou (large deer) and Musk Oxen both occur in substantial numbers and were an important source of food for early explorers.
The region also supports a variety of smaller land mammals including wolves, foxes, wolverines (large weasels), ermine (Arctic stoat), hares, squirrels and the hapless lemming, favourite meal of just about every other Arctic mammal. All these mammals have been known to stray on to the sea ice and the team can expect to see animal footprints in the first few days of the expedition.
Above : The Lemming – the hamburger of the Arctic
Modern Arctic Exploration
Since Peary’s day, only 160 people have successfully reached the North Pole, and of those, 31 set off from Cape Columbia. Most tend to start from Ward Hunt Island, 35 miles west of Cape Columbia, or at Cape Arktichevsky on Russia’s Severnaya Zemlya islands.
2004 was the first year since 1993 that no-one made the North Pole after starting from land and this has been attributed to global warming which has transformed the Arctic Ocean. The Arctic pack ice, 12 feet thick in Peary’s day, is less than 8 feet thick today, and the ice is thinning at the alarming rate of over one inch a year.
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