Time Stands Still on Ice, but Not at Home

May 23, 2008 — -- Explorer Will Steger and six adventurers in their 20s have been traveling across the Canadian Arctic for the past seven weeks, following in the footsteps of other polar explorers. As they journey across the ice, the team's goal is to chronicle the effects of climate change on the area. Eric McNair-Landry, 23, is traveling on the trip with his sister, Sarah. This is his story.

We just came down a hill in a river bank. It's a couple of more days before we head into Eureka, where we'll end our trip. Right now we're looking for old wood. I guess old isn't the word for it; ancient is more like it. We're heading to a place where a forest used to grow 6 to 10 million years ago. Now, we're lucky to see small shrubs out here.

The most challenging part of the trip was definitely the rough ice and not knowing it would be there and how rough it would be. It was just as far as the eye could see. It was somewhat demoralizing to wallow in the maze of ice.

I've been in some rough ice, but nothing like this. My sister, Sarah, has been in this before, but she says it's nothing compared to the ice at the North Pole.

I've traveled with my sister on many expeditions before. Our skills complement each other quite well. She's got as much skill or more than I do. It's also great because you know each other's mood swings. You know how to get on each other's nerves, but you know when to call it quits. It's been great. I keep traveling with her for that reason.

Some of the dogs are mine and Sarah's dogs, dogs that we've kind of raised since they were puppies. We've grown up with dogs since the age of 4, and we've been training and running dogs since Sarah was 9 and I was 11. When traveling, we think of this as kind of our extended backyard out here, and it's a method of travel that we've grown up with.

For this expedition, we didn't have as much time training as we would have liked to. Normally, we train them from the moment of birth. It's important to keep them very well socialized so they don't end up skittish like wolves. At 6 months old, you start running them with the team. At they point they don't really pull, they're just learning.