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.

A lot of the training is behavior picked up from other dogs. It's difficult to teach dogs things that they haven't observed other dogs doing. With dogs that show leadership abilities, you kind of progressively move them up in a line.

When preparing them for an expedition, you run them as much as possible; it's not just a weekend thing. It builds up their endurance.

When you make a team out of random dogs, you take the team and put them in a situation that the team wouldn't normally be used to. You try to get them used to the elements that they'll be in.

Right now, it's hot for us and the dogs. There are days without shirts now. The reflection off snow in all day sun makes it hot. Without the wind, it gets pretty steamy up here. Everything's melting fast. There's lots of water. Yesterday, I got stuck in a puddle of muddy water; it was like quicksand.

The dogs, especially the black ones, are having a hard time. These dogs don't sweat like people do. They eat a lot of snow and roll around in it a lot. We're running later in the evening now.

I do one or two of these types of expeditions a year. An expedition like this requires so much planning. The time you spend on the trail is minuscule compared to what you do before and after. Two a year is a pretty decent feat.

In some ways, this is just another expedition; this is what I do for a living. This is the first one I've been able to do with dogs, mostly I do expeditions with kites. It's really been fun -- running my own dog team. That's probably the thing I've enjoyed the most.

At home, you'd never spend eight to nine hours a day for 60 days with the dogs.

Of course I believe in fighting global warming and to travel with Will Steger was an interesting career move.

The other really fun thing was being on an international team. Usually, on these trips, it's always been that one country has had more people represented. It's really fun to have the international ties. Because everyone's so young, there's a little bit more energy, and it's definitely more fun with this type of team.

After we get home, I'll probably just look forward to getting home to friends and sharing stories. It takes time to connect with the rest of the world. You think the rest of the world has stood still in this time and your life kind of has; yet all your friends have continued living life. Movies have gone in and out of theaters; a lot has happened.