Dog sledding in the Arctic and Antarctic

Every spare day I can find, I spend at least an hour sorting out photographs and slides taken over 60 years. Today I am working on the various trips I have done in Antarctica and the Arctic with dogs and sledges. When I reflect, my trips with dogs are the most memorable of all my expeditions, and this is due to the relationships that are built up between you and the dogs. Here are a few of my shots.
For more on Scott Base, Antarctica huskies, see this link.

Travelling by plane with 50 huskies from Igaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay) to Eureka (79.9889° N, 85.9408° W) on Ellesmere Island. Then we flew in Twin Otters to Ward Hunt Island, our starting point for the North Pole.

                                   My two strong lead dogs at Scott Base, Rangi (l) and Oscar.

In 1985, we did a 1500-mile dog sledge trip from Arctic Red River on the Mackenzie River, Canada, to Point Barrow, Alaska. A lot of the time was spent travelling on the Arctic Ocean. Paul Schurke (left) puts our gear in the tent while I check the condition of the dogs. (right)

         "Let me sleep another hour.' Odin, a Scott Base husky in 1969. (Antarctica)

The last of the Scott Base huskies, I shipped them from Antarctica to Lyttelton, NZ in 1987, and then to the US via Hawaii, to join Will Steger's kennel in Ely Minnesota. Here they are at Christchurch ready to be flown to the US.

 Following behind Chris Knott with his dog team near Scott base, Antarctica. 1970.

 Training for the North Pole on Baffin Island where we tested dogs, equipment and team members down to minus 45 oC.

                        A master of Antarctic dog sledging, Chris Knott. 1969 at Scott Base. 

                               Setting out on a trip from Scott Base with a team of huskies.

 Lead dogs, Mike and Kulak. Stronger than oxen and set good work ethics for the other dogs. Scott Base 1969-70

                                 Settling in for the night as the sun dips. Arctic Ocean 1986.

Brent Boddy was one of our North Pole team members who lived in Iqaluit, Baffin Island. Here is Brent with his dogs, his house behind and his wife and son Nigel. Brent always carried a harpoon with him to test the thickness of the ice. A highly experienced Arctic traveller.

On our trip to point Barrow Alaska, we often skiied out front to coax the dogs along when they got bored. 1985

Read about our 1986 North Pole Expedition.

Loss of Arctic sea-ice.

Having spent considerable time in the Arctic, and on a successful North Pole expedition in 1986  using dogs, I have a deep concern about the effects of climate change in the Arctic. I was delighted to see this article on the BBC website by Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC, about Cryosat spots Arctic sea-ice loss in autumn. An outstanding article by Jonathan Amos.

The Arctic has experienced rapid change in recent years

Continue reading the main story

The dramatic recent decline in Arctic sea-ice cover is illustrated in new data from Europe's Cryosat mission.

The spacecraft, which uses radar to estimate the thickness of marine floes, has observed a deep reduction in the volume of ice during autumn months.

For the years 2010-2012, this is down a third compared with data for 2003-2008.

For winter months, the fall in volume is not so great - down 9% over the same period.

A lot of thicker ice appears to have been lost from a region to the north of Greenland, the Canadian archipelago, and to a lesser extent the northeast of Svalbard.

Continue reading the main story

The Arctic

• The Arctic region contains a vast ice-covered ocean roughly centred on the Earth's geographic North Pole
• The Sun doesn't rise at all on the shortest day of the year within the Arctic Circle
• Humans have inhabited the Arctic region for thousands of years and the current population is four million
• Geologists estimate the Arctic may hold up to 25% of the world's remaining oil and natural gas

• Watch the dramatic retreat of some of the world's largest glaciers

We have become accustomed to the big retreats in sea-ice area that occur in summer. Last year saw the smallest extent yet measured in the satellite era.

But the latest Cryosat report gives an indication of the status of the floes during the months when the seasonal re-freeze occurs with the advance of colder temperatures.

"We've only been in orbit with Cryosat for two complete winters, and so it is not possible at the moment to discern any long term trends," explained mission scientist Dr Katharine Giles, from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at University College London, UK.

"But as the mission moves forward we will get more and more information and that will help us describe better the patterns that are emerging."

Cryosat was launched by the European Space Agency (Esa) in early 2010.

It is what is known as an altimetry mission, using advanced radar to measure the difference in height between the top of the marine ice and the top of the water in the cracks, or leads, that separate the floes.

From this number, scientists can with a relatively simple calculation work out the thickness of the ice.

Multiplying by the area gives an overall volume, and it is the volume that is likely to provide the most reliable assessment of the changes now underway in the Arctic.

Continue reading the main story

How to measure sea-ice thickness with a satellite altimeter

• Cryosat's radar has the resolution to see the Arctic's floes and leads
• Some 7/8 of the ice tends to sit below the waterline - the draft
• The aim is to measure the freeboard - the ice part above the waterline
• Knowing this 1/8th figure allows Cryosat to work out sea-ice thickness
• The thickness multiplied by the area of ice cover produces a volume

The data gathered so far by Cryosat were compared with information compiled by the US space agency's (Nasa) Icesat spacecraft in the mid-2000s.

For autumn (October/November), the analysis found the Icesat years from 2003 to 2008 to have recorded an average volume of 11,900 cubic km.

But from 2010 to 2012, this average had dropped to 7,600 cu km - a decline of 4,300 cu km - as observed by Cryosat.

For winter (February/March), the 2003 to 2008 period saw an average of 16,300 cu km, dropping to 14,800 cu km between 2010 and 2012 - a difference of 1,500 cu km.

The smaller relative decline in winter volume highlights an interesting "negative feedback".

Seymour Laxon pioneered the techniques that made Cryosat observations possible

"Thin ice grows more quickly than thick ice in the winter. Ice acts as an insulator - the thinner the ice, the more heat can be lost to the atmosphere and the faster the water beneath the ice can freeze," Dr Giles told BBC News.

"But even with an increased ice growth during the winter, we can see from the Cryosat data that it's still not fully compensating for the deep summer melt."

Cryosat's altimetry observations agree well with independent measures of sea-ice thickness derived from aircraft surveys and under-ice moorings.

They also look very similar to the simulations coming out of Piomas (Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System), an influential computer model that has been used to estimate Arctic sea-ice volume and which has been the basis for several predictions about when summer sea ice might disappear completely.

"The decline predicted by Piomas is slightly less in the autumn and slightly more in winter, but broadly speaking there's good agreement," said Dr Giles.

A paper describing the latest Cryosat results has been published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Its lead author was UCL's Seymour Laxon, the renowned polar scientist who tragically died following an accident on New Year's Day.

Prof Laxon solved the problem of separating ice from water in the satellite altimeter signal.

This has allowed scientists to retrieve information about the Arctic Ocean region's gravity field, its surface circulation, and the thickness of its sea-ice cover.

More recently, his techniques have begun to reveal how the changing ice cover might affect the interaction between the Arctic Ocean and the atmosphere."Seymour's work provided evidence with which to propose and eventually launch the Cryosat mission, which is now - as his last paper describes - providing the first observations of the annual cycle of sea-ice growth and decay throughout the Arctic Ocean," Dr Giles said.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter:@BBCAmos

Eyewitness Voices: North Pole Expedition Team on Climate Change Impacts ...

In 1986 I was a member of an 8-person expedition to the North Pole using 49 dogs and sledges and we became the first confirmed unsupported expedition to reach the geographic North Pole.

Last year we met in Minnesota to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the event, and also to draw the world's attention to climate change.

Here is what the Will Steger Foundation website had to say about what each of us has observed in terms of climate change in our respective professions.
"We were impressed by the wealth of knowledge team members shared and their own eyewitness stories: Canadians Richard Weber and Brent Boddy talked about a loss of thick, old, multi-year ice, shortened dogsledding seasons and the loss of the summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean; wildlife biologist, Geoff Carroll provided his insight into impacts to Alaska's large land mammals he studies, like caribou and musk ox; New Zealand team member Bob McKerrow, who now works for the International Red Cross in Sri Lanka, talked about communities in the Bay of Bengal being squeezed out by rising water levels; and Bob Mantell talked about the impact of the BP oil spill on communities in New Orleans, where he lives. Paul Schurke joined Will with a call to action to address climate change; and Ann Bancroft acknowledged the impact the expedition had on her career and thanked the team and all of Minnesota for the gifts afforded her and the entire team."
 Visit   the Will Steger Foundation for more information.

Whales, Polar Bears and Muskox

Geoff Carroll: Biologist in Barrow

Biologist Geoff Carroll touches one of the grey whales trapped in the ice near Barrow in 1988. Carroll was part of "Operation Breakthrough," as it was known at the time. Photo courtesy Bill Hess



He has survived two airplane crashes in bush Alaska. He has fought off an angry polar bear with only a jammed-shotgun-turned-baseball-bat. He has driven the most unruly team of dogs to the North Pole and he has looked into the eye of a whale, touched its head, and lived to tell the tale.

What sounds like a script for the "Most Interesting Man in the World" is actually reality for Geoff Carroll, Area Wildlife Biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G). Geoff runs Fish and Game's one-person office in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in America.

I count Geoff as a valued friend who I met at Point Barrow in 1985 after a 1500 mile dog-sled trip down the Mackenzie River in NWT Canada, across the Arctic Ocean into Alaska US, to Point Barrow.

Canoeing on the Boundary Waters north of Ely, Minnesota with Geoff Carroll (right) Jeff Blumenfeld (left) and my son Ablai McKerrow centre. Earlier Geoff's son Quin and Ablai canoed with their two Dads down a small part of the Mississippi. All 8 members of our successful North Pole Expedition celebrated our 25th in Ely in May 2011.Photo: Bob McKerrow

In 1988 Marie and Geoff Carroll stayed with us in New Zealand and we had a great time as two families.

I will let Candice Bressler tell the rest of the story.


Originally from a ranch near Sheridan, Wyoming, Geoff took a little vacation to Alaska in his early 20s and – like a lot of visitors – Alaska seeped into his blood, and he never really left. He attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks and graduated with a bachelor of science in wildlife management. His passion was whales, so he traveled to Barrow and started an annual bowhead whale census. He enjoyed the ice work so much that he was a member of a National Geographic sponsored 56-day dog sled expedition to the North Pole. Eventually, he moved to Barrow permanently.

In 1988 – one year prior to coming on-board with ADF&G – Geoff was working for the North Slope Borough’s (NSB) Department of Wildlife Management. Despite not having his character cast a role in the 2012 blockbuster film “Big Miracle,” Geoff played a valuable and essential role in Operation Breakthrough, the international struggle to free three California grey whales trapped in the ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow.

Geoff first heard about the whales from a local whaler, Roy Ahmaogak, who was out scouting on the sea ice. After hearing the report, a small group, including Geoff, decided to travel by snowmachine on the 30-40 minute journey to the only breathing hole left open in the progressing sea ice. “It was a remarkable situation, like nothing we had seen before. We took a few pictures and thought, since we might not see this again, it might be good to get a video of this,” said Geoff. The group, in amazement, headed back to town and asked the local television station if they could borrow a video camera. The station was hesitant to loan out the camera, instead sending a cameraman and Geoff’s wife Marie, who ran the NSB Information Office, out with the locals. They took footage and did a quick impromptu interview which eventually made its way to Channel 2 in Anchorage. “Somehow it got into the national news and exploded from there. We were surprised when it went international. We had no anticipation of that,” Geoff explained.

Within days, Barrow was transformed from a sleepy secluded village to the bustling backdrop of a dramatic media zoo. In town, visiting journalists and public relations campaigners were scrambling for their next story. Out on the ice, the whales were fighting to survive, taking turns surfacing to breathe as the ice got thicker and the nights grew colder. The whales’ friends on the surface were nothing less than a captive audience. For a whale biologist like Geoff, it was a windfall. Around the world, there are some toothed whales in captivity, but it was a rare instance to have baleen whales to study and interact with for three weeks in one’s back yard. “The opportunity to work with a species of animals you don’t often get to work with up close and personal was really an interesting time for us as biologists,” Geoff described.

As the world scurried to make sense of these events and to try to put into motion a series of creative albeit hapless solutions, Geoff along with other local residents worked with the whales every single day. The one initial breathing hole was getting smaller and smaller each hour. “[Fellow biologist] Craig George came up with the idea to use a chainsaw to make the hole larger for the whales. It was pretty grim watching the hole get smaller and smaller. The only thing that was keeping the hole open was the whales coming up every five minutes and stirring up the water,” Geoff said. It then occurred to them that maybe they could cut another hole. “The whales were really reluctant to leaving their original hole; they saw it as their lifeline.”

Marie Carroll prepares to leave the whales and return home to Barrow by snowmachine. Geoff hands her a shotgun as bear protection. Photo courtesy Bill Hess.





Fortunately, two gentlemen from Minnesota were sitting in their living room watching the story unfold on television, and they saw the plight of the whales. They worked for a company called Kasco Marine which manufactured water circulators. Uninvited and unannounced, they jumped in an airplane and brought their water circulators up to the top of the world. “We noticed the whales were attracted to those circulators. The whales would orient on those things, and they were also attracted to lights.” Geoff and crew began using the circulators and portable lights to train the whales to move from hole to hole. “It was quite a process to teach the whales to move from one hole to the next, but after a few days, the whales learned that it was safe. That was the big victory for us.”

For a whale biologist turned whale-trainer, it seemed like almost non-stop that he was out with the whales. Most of the training took place at night when the media circus had scattered. “I know we would sleep every once in a while, but there was so little sleep that it’s all a blur.” Geoff and his Iñupiaq wife, Marie, also had a brand new baby at home, too. “One night, the 60 Minutes crew showed up at our house at 3:00 o’clock in the morning, and my wife had to go out and read them the riot act and chase them off.” Geoff continues, “The operation was a family effort for us. While a bunch of us were out there cutting holes in the ice and moving the whales along, Marie and the NSB mayor were on the Russian icebreaker trying to keep them from running over the whales.” Geoff was in high demand, by both the media and the whales. He preferred interacting with the whales. “You could get just as close [to the whales] as you wanted. Spending so much time with them, it was like having a pet dog around. You start to feel affection and compassion for them.”

While the U.S. government was trying major herculean efforts like airlifting a hover-barge and negotiating with the Soviets for icebreaker help, Geoff and a handful of other locals were out there getting their hands dirty – and cold. Working together in negative double-digit temperatures with chainsaws and simple tools, they came up with a really clever and effective technique to cut holes about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long for a total of four miles of sprawling holes. The water circulator machines helped keep old holes clear while new holes could be cut. “Eventually the whales were just zipping up and down the line of holes. They were pretty happy with it.” For Geoff, this was the most climatic moment of those exhausting weeks on the ice. “Sure, there was a happy ending in the movie, but in reality, the whales’ fate was up in the air. Nobody ever really knew what happened to them.”

Geoff still loves whales, and he still enjoys ice work. But a lot has changed since 1988. “If anything, it’s a stark reminder of how the climate has changed up here. [The whale rescue] started in the second week of October in 1988, and folks were driving trucks across the ice, and the large ice ridge had already formed. But in recent years it’s largely been open water in that same area until close to Christmas.” In the face of climate change’s complexities, Geoff still has some major challenges at hand.

As ADF&G’s Area Wildlife Biologist, Geoff looks after all the land mammals on 56,000 square miles of the North Slope. To put size in perspective, his territory is an area larger than the entire state of New York. It’s a challenging environment, but rewarding nonetheless. “Our caribou work is absolutely world-class. We do a better job of managing caribou in northern Alaska than any place in the world.” Geoff is quick to equate this success to a team effort. “Ever since I started working for Region 5, we’ve just had this fantastic group of people, really good, knowledgeable area biologists and other staff. The Region 5 staff is like an extended family. For some reason, we’ve always been able to get along really well. One of the greatest joys of working for Fish and Game is working with a totally competent outfit – a totally competent bunch of people.”

The Region 5 "family." From left, Geoff Carroll, Karen Mitchell, Jim Dau (behind Karen), Steve Machida, Tony Gorn, Patrick Jones (center of back row), Charlotte Westing (with baby), Lincoln Parrett, Meghan Nedwick (back row), Travis Booms next to her, Phil Perry in front of Travis, Peter Bente far right, Rob DeLong in front. Photo by Karen Mitchell. Not pictured, Letty Hughes and Sarah Ferguson.


It is clear this whale-training team player has also moved mountains as a staff mentor. When pondering his greatest contribution to ADF&G, he responded, “I took on a student intern named Lincoln Parrett that grew up in Kaktovik and Barrow. He now does a very good job as our Arctic Caribou research biologist and has taken on most of the load for caribou work.” Perhaps one of Geoff’s greatest traits is recognizing potential and coaching it from the get-go – much like he did with his whales, much like he did with his up-and-coming intern.

Tracking Caribou is an important part of Geoff's work. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Geoff modestly explains, “It’s been a good run.” But for the man who – for ninety five percent of the last 20 years – has commuted to the office by skis, bicycle, or skijoring, and has dogsledded to all the villages in Unit 26A (he gets a lot better reception when he shows up by dogsled than by airplane), it’s definitely been more than a ‘good run.’ When he’s not wrangling muskoxen or helping to manage arctic caribou and moose herds, Geoff is a total generalist for his region: selling hunting licenses, staffing the office, and doing public and educational outreach. He is truly a jack of all trades, and just very likely – one of the most interesting men in the world.

Axing the Walrus at forty below

Minus 40 degrees Celsius. High above, the aurora borealis snakes a green trail across the sky. Fifty huskies curl tighter to keep out the cold… No its not a setting from Jack London but something I wrote for the New Zealand Times on March 2. 1986.
A most splendid form of travel. Photo: Bob McKerrow

An old Inuit man with a rifle slung across his back greets me warmly as he eyes the dogs and looks at the chunks of walrus surrounding me. It seems odd that he arrived on a snowmobile..
He motions towards the walrus with a broad sweep of his hand, and babbles away in Inuit. I don’t understand a word, except he makes a shape in the air of a seal or a walrus.
After a while it seems he wants to give us two seals for the dogs. I gladly accept.

The Steger international polar expedition arrived at Baffin Island, in mid-January 1986, with 50 dogs, five sledges and four months’ worth of food.
We are aiming to be the first to reach the North \Pole without outside help. All previously confirmed successful expeditions to reach the pole have relied on air support for resupply at regular intervals.
Baffin island is our base for the next six weeks, acclimatizing, training and testing sledges and other equipment.
Our daily routine seems to be uncompromising as the whether  Wake up is at 6am, breakfast at 7am, team meeting at 7.30 am.
Then its on with the daily workload.

Brent Boddy and I have been working with the dogs. They are chained into long lines in front of his house which overlooks the frozen rim of Frobisher Bay. Brent has lived on Baffin Island for ten years with his wife Nala, a local Inuit, and two children.


A young Inuit girl playing string games. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Though European, Brent has picked up many of the cultural traits of the Inuit: his sense of timelessness, his acute eye for movement on the snowy horizon and a stopped gait as he shuffles across the snow in his caribou jacket, polar beer trousers and seal mukluks. (boots)
This morning Brent repaired many of the dog chains and I axed small pieces of meat and fat off a frozen walrus carcass. These small pieces are then taken inside the house and thawed and later feed to the dogs.
Brent spent a lot of time hunting seal and walrus this summer for the expedition.
As I work away axing the walrus, my mustache freezes solid to my bearded chin. I am unable to open my mouth, but the ice shields the wind from my face. At 9.15 am a fiery red sun rises. We have four hours of daylight at this latitude. But once we start for the north pole from latitude 83 degrees north latitude, there will be no daylight at all.

I keep chopping the walrus as ice forms on my mittens. Everything is so difficult at 40 below. Sweat freezes immediately and forms a jacket of ice.
Seeing walruses playing in summer, was more pleasureable than chopping them up to feed to the dogs. Photo: Bob McKerrow


At noon we assemble at our hut for fitness training. Three are going on a 10 km ski run. Another prefers to run across the flat snowy waste by himself while Brett and I decide to do some hill running with ski poles to strengthen our arms.
At 1.30 pm we arrive back with an amour of frosty rime; a quick cup of tea and then back to expedition work. Dinner at 7.30 pm and then back to sledge lashing for the evening. Within two days our sledges will be finished so we plan to go on an extended trip over the sea ice to thoroughly check all systems.


Constructing igloos was an important part of our survival training.


Igloo building is going to be an important part of this training as an igloo can withstand the power of Arctic blizzards and is much more comfortable than a tent.

The local Inuit are intrigued by the expedition. Why do you want to go to the North pole ? is the most common question. They are quick to pint out there is no food there.

During our training trips on Baffin Island we would get the dogs to pull sldeges up hillsides while we pushed, in order to increase our fitness. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Local women have made us seal skin boots, polar beer trousers, Beaver Mitts. A nearby village have lent a team of dogs. The north West Territories government has provided us free accommodation plus a supply of seal, walrus and arctic char.

So why do we want to attempt to reach the North Pole by the most difficult and traditional means ? Perhaps the Inuit poem sums up how some of us feel.

Only the air spirits know
What I will find
Beyond the mountains
Yet I urge my sledge team on and on and on
I suppose it is basically just curiosity and a fascination of the unknown.

POLAR EXPLORERS TO TREK 500 MILES BY DOG SLED

A few people have asked me about our 1986 North pole expedition. Here is an article from the New York Times.

POLAR EXPLORERS TO TREK 500 MILES BY DOG SLED
By CHRISTOPHER WREN, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: February 25, 1986

One of five teams of dogs that started out for the North Pole. Photo: Bob McKerrow

In early March 1986 when the dormant winter sun first glimmers on the horizon, 58 hardy travelers will set out from the northernmost point in North America for the North Pole.

The grueling 500-mile trek from Ward Hunt Island in subzero cold will take seven men, one woman and 50 sled dogs through a maze of ice ridges and across channels of open water that appear and vanish as the ocean currents shift the polar ice.

In a throwback to the early years of Arctic exploration, the expedition is making the trip without outside support along the way, except for emergency two-way radio contact.

The American explorer Adm. Robert E. Peary reported that he discovered the North Pole on April 6, 1909. His claim was challenged by a rival, Frederick A. Cook, who said he reached the North Pole nearly a year earlier on April 21, 1908. Inconsistencies cloud both accounts, though Admiral Peary's is more generally accepted.

The North Pole has now been visited by airplane, snowmobile and even submarine. While the newest explorers would be the first confirmed travelers to arrive at the Pole on their own without mechanical means, the trek is as much a test of science as it is a test of their courage.

Each of the explorers will live for two months on a daily diet of 7,000 calories, three times the intake of a regular adult. The diet is deliberately high in fat as part of an experiment on the health effects of cholesterol.

''This pole trip is probably the ultimate in self-reliance,'' said Will Steger, the leader of the Steger International North Pole Expedition. Mr. Steger, a 41-year-old former science teacher who lives in a log cabin near Ely, Minn., has logged 12,000 miles of Arctic travel. He said the trip to the North Pole left little margin for error.

''The average person who'd go up there probably wouldn't last a day,'' Mr. Steger said at his base camp on Baffin Island in Canada's Eastern Arctic. ''The eight of us doing it are specialists. We've looked at the obstacles and we've developed systems to overcome those obstacles safely.''

The five Americans, two Canadians and one New Zealander have a 60-day ''window'' to reach the North Pole before the ice starts breaking up, meaning that they have to average about 15 miles a day. While the distance is 500 miles on the map, detours could double it. For that reason, Mr. Steger said, ''I wouldn't want it any warmer than 40 below.''

The expedition spent two months training on Baffin Island before setting off to the North Pole. Photo: Bob McKerrow


Three Major Obstacles

Mr. Steger foresees three obstacles. The first are the ''pressure ridges'' formed of ice thrust upward as plates of pack ice collide and buckle. He expects to confront ridges as high as 30 to 40 feet. His team must hack trails over them that five dog teams hauling two tons of supplies can follow. ''We look at this in a way as a road construction project,'' Mr. Steger said.

Another obstacle will be ''leads,'' or patches, of open water formed in ''shear zones'' where ocean currents crack and separate the ice. The leads can range from a few feet to several miles wide. The expedition is carrying a small boat to scout a way around the water, but may have to wait overnight for it to freeze. There is another risk that unstable ice could break up under the travelers, even while they sleep.

The last difficulty is finding the northernmost point on earth, which lies beneath a layer of moving ice. A point marked as the North Pole one day could be 10 miles away the next, putting an exhausted team in danger of missing its objective. The magnetic North Pole on which compasses rely lies south, and limited visibility or a storm would obscure a sextant reading from the sun.

Paul Schurke (l) and Bob McKerrow (r) taking a noon sunshot with a sextant on the training trip. Photo: Bob McKerrow


A reporter who traveled with the team for two days on a rehearsal run across the ice of Baffin Island's Frobisher Bay confronted more basic problems. In extreme cold the simplest tasks, from boiling water to erecting a tent, become clumsy, even painful. The enemy is not so much the cold as the bitter wind, which deadens exposed flesh like an overdose of Novocain.

The previous year, five of the expedition did a 1500 km training trip from the MacKenzie River delta in Canada to Point Barrow Alaska. Taken on that trip. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Carelessness Can Be Disastrous
Carelessness can prove disastrous. On one training trip, matches used to light the stoves that cook food and melt ice for drinking water were mislaid briefly.

''Moving along on a day when it's 40 or 50 below, your attention funnels down to a fingertip or an earlobe that's been bitten by the wind,'' said Paul Schurke, another Minnesotan who is a coleader of the expedition with Mr. Steger. ''We're working on taking an inventory of each other throughout the day, tuning in to each other's level of alertness.''

Even in rough pack ice only a few feet high, sleds career, snag and tip, making them hazardous to ride. The dog handlers run or ski alongside to keep the weight to a minimum. ''If you're not alert or agile, it's easy to get your leg pulverized under the sled,'' Mr. Steger warned.

But such travel can also be exhilarating because of the dogs, which, once harnessed to a sled, pull so relentlessly in the white Arctic silence that a metal anchor must be thrown overboard to bring them to a halt. Left to themselves the dogs will trot for hours without coaxing. At night they sleep contentedly in the snowdrifts.

''The worst punishment you could do to our dogs is to leave them behind,'' Mr. Steger said. ''They live to pull. They live to travel on expeditions.'' The howls emitted by several dogs who were left behind on the practice trip proved his point.

Mr. Steger bred some of the the expedition's dogs in Minnesota. ''I took the size of the Eskimo and the spirit of the Alaskan dogs and mixed in a little wolf for endurance, intelligence and spirit,'' he said.
Another 35 dogs have been leased from two Arctic communities. The Eskimo dogs, at about 80 pounds, are a little heavier, shaggier and wilder than the American dogs. All those making the long trip are male - to minimize distractions.

Mr. Schurke, who has worked with dogs for eight years, called the relationship between man and dog synergistic. ''You draw a lot of energy from your dogs beyond the pulling power on your sled,'' he said. Dogs to Be Airlifted Out

Each dog team will haul a 16-foot wooden sled with 800 pounds of provisions and gear, most of it food. Once a sled-load of food is consumed, the sled will be left behind. The Peary expedition killed and ate its spare dogs, but Mr. Steger said he would not consider doing that. So, in the only departure from the self-reliance of the expedition, a plane will fly in after three weeks to carry out half of the dogs.

Dogs in the Arctic are usually fed frozen seal and other game, but on this expedition they will eat a special diet of dry meat rations developed for military dogs performing under great stress.

The humans will also be on a special diet of 7,000 calories a day, prepared in two bland meals a day of butter and peanut butter, cheese, fatty meat pemmican, noodles and oatmeal.

''Seven thousand calories is marginal, just enough to get you through,'' said Mr. Steger, who consumed 10,000 calories a day on a solo trip through the Western Arctic last year. ''We have no outside source of heat, so we're depending on our body heat to keep us warm.''

Fat accounts for 70 percent of the diet, and Mr. Schurke said the serum cholesterol level of team members was being monitored as an experiment. He and Mr. Steger have been on high-fat diets before, and when they underwent medical tests at the University of Minnesota before leaving on this trip, Mr. Schurke said, their cholesterol levels were found below the minimum for their age groups, suggesting that they had burned the excess cholesterol.


World class skier Richard Weber cooking pemmican in the tent. Photo: Bob McKerrow


Bob McKerrow, the New Zealander, pointed out that other medical tests had focused on the negative aspects of fat and cholesterol. ''I believe that we'll be better off with a high-fat diet,'' he said. ''Sugar carbohydrates are very fast release, but we want the slow-release effect that can keep us going for 24 hours.''


Bob McKerrow checking emergency radio equipment on a training expedition. Note his seal skin boots ( Mukluks) made by Inuit women at Frobisher Bay. Photo: Bob McKerrow


The team is leaving salt and sugar behind. ''Extra salt means drinking extra water. Extra water means extra fuel, and we can't carry it,'' Mr. Schurke said. The disciplined Mr. Steger also ruled out candy bars, over the protests of some members, arguing that the prospect of such a treat ahead might distract team members and contribute to an accident.

The sleeping bags, parkas and long underwear of the dogsledders are insulated with synthetic fibers developed by Du Pont, which is an expedition sponsor. But team members are sticking with beaver-skin mittens and floppy sealskin or caribou-hide mukluks. ''My alertness resides in my fingers,'' said Mr. Schurke said. ''If my fingers are warm, my head is where it should be.'' First Woman to Pole

Ann Bancroft, a 30-year-old physical education teacher from Minnesota, could become the first woman to reach the North Pole unaided, but the prospect, she said, ''is not something I dwell on a lot.'' On the recent trip she kept up with the men in moving her dogs and sled through the rough ice. ''I think if I pace myself and go steady, I can chop all today,'' she said.

The team members play down the notion that they may become the first people to prove that they got to the North Pole. Some scholars question whether Admiral Peary could have covered more than 30 miles a day in his final dash as he claimed, or whether he found the North Pole using limited navigational readings. Others have wondered why Dr. Cook referred to islands and other landmarks that do not exist.

Mr. Steger, who has studied the journals of the early Arctic explorers, avoided speculation about who reached the North Pole first. ''The main thing is that we do the trip unsupported,'' he said. ''This controversy will never be solved.''

The expedition at the North Pole, 1 May 1986.