Howard Fairbank Canada to the North Pole: The Pace ramps up....!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Pace ramps up....!

The last two days have been quite hectic and I can feel the momentum is building now...

There has been a slight, last minute change of Expedition plan:

The pilot flying us into our start point, has asked us to move the start point to a very small island about 8 miles south west of our original Ward Hunt Island starting point. This is because of the difficulties of landing at Ward Hunt with the 1 March, poor sun angle. We have agreed to this, but the extra distance now adds another day's marching to our expedition. Life is full of surprises and changes!

Friday was another meals day. This time putting together 55 Dinner packs and then making 220 gourmet, stack sandwiches. The specially selected ingredients came from Ottawa and we then had to measure out and package daily rations. Here is a one night, four person, dinner pack:

It consists of pemmican, packets of chicken / beef noodles, a mix of grated mature cheddar and either pine nuts or creamed coconut cubes, a sachet of powdered milk, a lump of crystallised maple sugar, another sachet of Muscle Milk (Body builder supplement), and a cube of butter. These are the ingredients to make firstly our 'pre-dinner', milk cocktail drink, then the main course, a cheesy, pemmican dominated, noodles dish. This is then followed by desert which is a Muscle Milk drink.

The treat for breakfast is the stacked sandwich shown below:

As I said, we spent Friday hand making each individual sandwich and then carefully wrapping it in cling wrap, before storing them outside in the natural cold room, to freeze. The ingredients are sucre, a Russian toast bread, which then has a thick peanut butter layer, 'drizzled' with macademia nut butter paste, and then topped with a thick slice of pure butter. This makes each sandwich about 700 k calories. It was quite a process making 220 of these sandwiches! The rest of breakfast is more pemmican and 'normal' coffee and powdered milk.

Yesterday, we did our longest sled pull to date....just over six hours with full sleds, packs and towing the ski's to exactly simulate the first days of the expedition. We took on some hilly terrain to make it even more real, and I felt pretty good at the end of it all.

Given all my solo pursuits and need to feel free, I do find staying in line staring at the sled in front of me quite difficult, so often break free of the group and break my own trail. Understanding that this might not be considered full team behaviour, yesterday I brought this up with the team, and this resulted in a very positive win-win discussion. I am very aware of the possibility of any niggling issues now, becoming huge issues on the expedition, so have been trying to facilitate very open discussions around potential issues. I am really happy to say this openness has been welcomed and even encouraged, resulting in each of us having a much better understanding and respect of the others. Yesterday's discussions were particularly productive in this area, and at this stage I couldn't feel happier about being part of a team as the team I am setting out with. I can feel the unit becoming stronger and more co-ordinated each day, and at the same time I can see my need for 'a bit' of freedom and individualism being accepted and accommodated in the daily routines.

Tomorrow we are planning to have dry suit swimming training, but other than this the time before our flight on Wednesday to Resolute will be all about packing the food, gear and organising the logistics of getting it all to the airport on time.

Here is a picture of people ice fishing on Great Slave Lake. We came across them yesterday while on our six hour training march. A great catch of fish as they hauled out the nets from under the 60 cm thick ice.

Probably my next Posting will be from Resolute! Much further North and much colder!

Talk to you from there!

1 comment:

margieFebruary 24, 2010 at 2:03 AM
Howard, am following yet another of your mind blowing "adventures" and hoping that all goes wonderfully well, and it is not too long before we can catch up with you in sydney again to celebrate your ecxiting achievement! lots of love, Margie xx
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The Expedition Goals

1. The Team of Four is to traverse the Arctic Ocean from the traditional, last land point in Canada, Ward Hunt Island, to the Geographic North Pole (90 degrees North) some 762 kilometeres away, as the 'tern' flies!

2. The Team will be self sufficient, save for one flown in, food re-supply, at around 22 days into the roughly 50 day expedition.

3. The team will each haul their own sleds, expecting to take between 48 and 55 days, to cover the tortuous course, dodging natural obstacles, on the ocean ice, to the Pole.

4. The Expedition is planned to start 1 March 2010, from Ward Hunt Island, Nunavut, Canada. Notoriously unpredictable weather conditions may affect this start date.

5. The Expedition finishes at the North Pole, which MUST be reached before 28 April 2010. This is the day when the temporary, ice based, Russian logistics base, 'Barneo', closes and the expedition will be relying on them for airlift back to civilisation. This base closure is due to the fact that, with the onslaught of summer, the ocean ice conditions deteriorate to the point where sustaining a base is no longer possible.

The Expedition Route

The expedition will follow a very traditional North Pole conquest route: From Ward Hunt Island, Nunavut Canada to The Pole, 90 Degrees North.

(The other traditional route was from Russia / Siberia, which was considered slightly longer, but with easier terrain. With the onset of global warming, this route is no longer considered on option, as there is too much water at the start.)

Ward Hunt Island is a small island, off the NW corner of Ellesmere Island, which are both part of the Canadian Arctic Islands (More specifically the Queen Elizabeth Islands part of the broader group.) It's Northern cape is one of the northernmost elements of land in Canada, hence its starting point for the expedition. It is located at: 83°05′55″N and 074°10′00″

In total the expedition will cover just under 7 degrees of latitude, and a 'straight line' distance of some 760 kilometres.

Due to the dynamic nature of the arctic, open ocean leads, wind, and ocean currents will have an impact on the actual route travelled. It is not unknown, for southern drift to carry an ice floe, with an expedition tent and its sleeping inhabitants, back to the latitude they started at the previous day! The wind and the currents are variable, and tidal flows add to the largely unpredictable drift, however we are expecting to have a net southerly and easterly drift over the total trip. Historically, an expedition on this route, could traverse up to 20% more than the straight line distance.

The path will attempt to roughly follow the 74 degree longitude line, while including a westerly offset to counter the expected net easterly drift.

The Expedition Team

Team Leader: Richard Weber

(50, Ottawa, Canada. One of the world's top Polar Explorers. 6 traverses, including the 'probably never t0 be repeated' 1995, 108 day expedition from Canada to NP and back, unsupported.)

Team Member 2: Tessum Weber

(20, Ottawa, Canada, Richard's son, and an experienced cold environment adventurer.)

Team Member 3: David Jones

(45 Geneva, Switzerland, Experienced mountain climber, including Everest summiter.)

Team Member 4: Howard Fairbank

(52, South African, A Wanderer: Solo Sailor, Trans- continental Cycling and Sea Kayaking adventurer.)

The Next Pre-Expedition Training

Our team, Pre-expedition training, will continue through most of February, with the team meeting 11 February in Yellowknife.

11 February to 24th February 2010, we will be based in Yellowknife, with training being once again focused on excurions around Great Slave Lake. These will vary from multi day, sleeping out sessions, to day only trips. Much of the focus will be on testing new equipment, and checking whether adjustments made to some of the equipment we used in December have had the desired result. (One of these pieces of equipment will be the dry suits, which will involve open water training again.)

Much time will also be spent sorting out the food and designing sled packing solutions and daily routines. (There will be a separate blog post on the food, calorie philosophy, and daily rations.) Around all of this, the critical human side will be at work with significant team building, role establishment, and final re-inforcement of the expedition goals and values.

On the 24th of February we plan to fly further north to Resolute, (Resolute Bay), on Cornwallis Island 75N, 95W. This is another traditional stopover point for expeditions attempting to do this same Canada to Noth Pole route. It is also one of the coldest inhabited places in the world, with an average yearly temperature of −16.4 °C (2.5 °F) Resolute's average HIGH for the year is −13.3 °C (8.1 °F) while the average LOW for the year is −19.5 °C (−3.1 °F). At Resolute, we will use the more northerly location and it's colder conditions to further aclimatise, and do final testing of team / personal systems and equipment. No doubt much of this time wil be used subconciously for individual mind focusing and other mental preparation.

On the 1st March, we are then scheduled to fly the last stage to Ward Hunt Island, for the start of the expedition. This is a small plane charter flight and is notorious for being affected by adverse weather conditions.

Canada to the North Pole

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Pace ramps up....!

1 comment:

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The Expedition Goals

The Expedition Route

The Expedition Team

The Next Pre-Expedition Training

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