On April 1, 2008, Polar explorer and environmentalist Will Steger will set off with a team of six 22-28-year-old explorers to embark on a 1,400-mile dogsled expedition across Ellesmere Island in Canada. Together, they will document the impact of climate change in the Canadian Arctic, an area on the frontline of effects of global warming.
1/18/2008 :: The 2008 Ellesmere Expedition: Four Nations, One Task will have an international team of emerging leaders from Norway, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. Together, participants aim to inspire their generation to act collectively to solve global warming. Steger selected the team members for their accomplishments in exploration: two National Geographic grantees, two skiing international record holders, the 2007 Iditarod "rookie of the year," a polar historian, and Sam Branson, the son of Virgin mogul Sir Richard Branson.
The team will follow in the footsteps of the polar explorers who traversed the Canadian Arctic in the early 1900s. Using historical routes, journals, and archived photos, the team will document the disintegrating ice shelves, retreating glaciers, and destruction of wildlife habitat as a result of global warming. The modern-day explorers will cross fjords, mountain ranges, and sea ice, and will leave timelapse cameras on northern Ellesmere to capture global warming in images. “My team is composed of some of the brightest young explorers in the world. They continue to inspire my efforts to solve global warming and will serve as excellent role models for their generation,” Steger said. And it is among the youth that Will Steger sees the real power: “I look at the youth today and I see what’s coming to them, and I actually feel sorry for them. But I know that they can make a difference, and I have an investment in my heart in that generation.”
Norwegian expedition team members Sigrid Ekran, 27 and Thorleif Tobias Thorleifsson, 28, will contribute with their expertise by being role models for the youth. Ekran is an accomplished dog musher and subsistence hunter living in the interior of Alaska. Ekran will compete in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race just weeks before the expedition starts, and will be responsible for one of its three dog teams. She will also be responsible for observations of the Ellesmere wildlife as well as sharing her knowledge of the historical uses of dog teams in polar history.
Thorleif Tobias Thorleifsson, known as Toby, is a polar historian with in-depth knowledge of famed Norwegian polar explorer Otto Sverdrup and his early expedition to the Ellesmere Island. Thorleifsson will share his expert knowledge of polar history in the area as well as environmental observations of the disintegrating ice shelves in the area. He is currently working with the University of Minnesota to develop a new educational map of Ellesmere Island. Thorleifsson is also responsible for first aid, and will receive emergency medical training in Minnesota prior to the expedition. Before setting out on the Ellesmere expedition, he will accompany British adventurer Robert Swan to Antarctica.
Trude Paulsson