As far away from the warm and dry landscape of central Victoria as you can get - Icecap Journeys is a series of adventures to icy and extreme landscapes in parts of our globe rarely visited by people. The stories of these adventures are told here as they unfold.

All eyes to the North Pole...

It's been a few years in the making but finally the big step of committing to a north pole expedition has been taken. " The expedition has been put off a couple of times so it's a great feeling to be able to focus on getting fully expedition fit and getting the gear sorted for what will be the hardest and most dangerous icecap expedition of all." said team member Linda Beilharz

The expedition will start in the last week in February, 2010 after the team has done several weeks of training together in northern Canada. They will be flown to the Northern tip of Canada as soon as the arctic winter lifts enough for a plane to land. Temperatures are expected to be between -30 and -50 degrees. They will then haul sleds for 60 days over about 870 kms of sea ice. Days will lengthen and temperatures will rise slowly and they need to get to the North Pole before the ice thins too much. It will be a race against time as they negotiate ice ridges, leads of water and challenging weather and snow conditions to reach the North Pole before the season finishes.

If successful Linda will become the first Australian woman to have skied from the edge of the land to the North Pole, and the first to have done the same trip to the north and south poles. With the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen highlighting the latest information about global warming, including the thinning of sea ice and warming of the arctic ocean its occurred to Linda recently that she may also be the last Aussie woman to do the trip - "that's not how its supposed to be" she said. "A first should open up opportunities for others - but we don't know how long the sea ice will be there".

The expedition will raise awareness of environmental issues and will encourage people to learn about climate change, resilience and team work. These themes have formed the basis of what Linda talks about in schools in relation to previous expeditions across the Antarctic, Greenland and Patagonia.

Linda's husband Rob Rigato will join her for this expedition, building on his experience in Greenland and the training they did together 2 years ago on sea ice in Frobisher Bay. Sarah McNair-Landry, from NorthWinds Polar Guiding company in Canada will lead the expedition.

The expedition will follow the precedent of previous expeditions in being carbon neutral - utilising interest in the expedition to educate about and model greenhouse gas emission reduction and offsetting.   

More information about the North Pole expedition can be found here.

To follow the expedition

• to receive an email letting you know when a dispatch has arrived go to the  Updates page and enter your details via the alerts tab. Dispatches will be sent every couple of days.
• schools interested in following the trip and using expedition resources for student learning are invited to look at Journeys for Learning for lesson guides, notes, diary extracts, reflections, photos and other material.

• follow through twitter: icecapjourneys

Thankyou

...  to Bendigo Community Telco for providing the communication kit, City of Greater Bendigo for funding video production, FAHCSIA for funding a dynamic website, DEECD for funding the lesson guide production, School Focused Youth Services for funding visits to 7 Bendigo schools and alpineSAR for managing communication during the expedition.

Thank you to Julie, Bev, Michael and many others who voluntarily gave many hours to setting up the opportunities to link into the expedition

Thank you to the many Bendigo businesses and Keith Sutherland for generously contributing to a fundraising auction.

Find out more about the team

Linda

Rob

Sarah