Arctic Explorer Opens Up on Earth Day

April 22, 2008 — -- Explorer Will Steger and six young adventurers in their 20s have been traveling across the Canadian Arctic for the past four weeks, following in the footsteps of other legendary polar explorers. As they journey across the ice, the team's goal is to chronicle the effects of climate change on the area.

The team is just days away from visiting an ice shelf that detached from the Canadian Arctic a few years ago; some experts point to the break as clear evidence of climate change.

Steger spoke to ABCNEWS.com via satellite phone from his tent Monday morning.

ABCNEWS.com: Why did you decide to do this?

Steger: First of all, I wanted an eyewitness to the changes. I wanted to take our audience on the Internet and show them firsthand what's happening. When you're living in the city, you're in a controlled atmosphere. Up here traveling for so many years, I've really seen the changes.

One of the reasons I'm working with the younger generation is this is really their problem. If we're going to make major changes it's going to come from the youth. …

The bottom line is to get action to what we're doing here.

ABCNEWS.com: How has the trip been going overall?

Steger: Pretty good. We've had rougher ice and travel conditions than we thought we'd have. We've seen a lot of polar bears — more than we've ever seen. Almost every night for a while.

We've had pretty good weather. We haven't seen much below 30 below. We've traveled 23 days. Usually you have storms and fog that force you to stop. … A resupply came in on the 18th, on schedule.

ABCNEWS.com: Where are you right now?

Steger: Latitude 78 degrees 10 minutes, about 800 miles from the [North] Pole. The Ayles ice shelf — that's our first destination to visit that, and we should be there in about three days, I hope.

ABCNEWS.com: Why have you been seeing so many polar bears?

Steger: The polar bears — this was really rough ice. When you get the really rough ice broken up, their main diet are the ring seals. … So they're looking for the sea pups.

This is a critical time for the bears. We did see a lot of mothers with cubs. It's a very important time of the year, mainly because of the rough sea ice and the deep ice. Once we hit smooth conditions on the ice, we didn't see more polar bears.