Battered by a plane and cold, Arctic explorers give up

In the end, Ann Bancroft, 51, and Liv Arnesen, 53, covered about 18 miles on their trek. The plane, trying to land, damaged one of their sleds and Arnesen's snowshoe.

By Pam Louwagie, Star Tribune

Last update: March 13, 2007 - 12:24 AM

From the first day they started dragging 200-pound sleds across the jagged Arctic ice to raise awareness about global warming, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen ran into trouble.

A small airplane bringing other explorers to the expedition starting point, Canada's Ward Hunt Island, veered from the traditional landing course and hit one of their sleds.

It punctured a hole in a sled and ripped the binding off Arnesen's snowshoe. A day later, with one duct-tape patch and one rerigged shoe binding, the renowned explorers forged ahead.

But the foot gear repair wasn't making do. Arnesen's toes started getting bruised, blistered and frostbitten.

Then it got colder at night than even they had anticipated, possibly as low as -103 degrees outside their tent and -58 inside. In cold like that, they couldn't do much to warm up Arnesen's battered toes.

"We've had a tough time, because of the cold, because of our gear," Bancroft said in an audio message posted Saturday on the Internet. "And so we're struggling."

Monday, expedition coordinators announced that the two explorers had determined it was too dangerous to keep going. Bancroft, of Scandia, Minn., and Arnesen, of Oslo, Norway, had skied back to the island over the weekend and were being flown Monday to civilization.

It was the second time in two years that Bancroft, 51, and Arnesen, 53, had tried unsuccessfully to trek the Arctic Ocean together.

"Sometimes in life it's the little things that add up to the big stuff," the two said in a written statement announcing their decision to come home.

It was a disappointing outcome to the explorers and to the schoolchildren around the world following them on the Internet. But there are lessons to be learned in it, too, said Deb Bahl-Moore, a fourth-grade teacher at Lake Harriet Community School's upper campus in Minneapolis, where the explorers visited before leaving on the trek.

"The teachable moments are like ... accidents happen," she said. "And you have to be prepared for whatever you need to do." Because the two will continue teaching on the website, she said, the expedition is not a failure.

Bancroft and Arnesen were in transit and unreachable Monday.

The explorers' trip in 2005 was cut short after French- and Russian-based air companies couldn't resolve a dispute over which air service would operate the Borneo Ice Station airfield near the North Pole that spring.

This time, they planned to travel more than 530 miles, skiing and swimming in waterproof suits across open water, to the North Pole and beyond, catching a French research vessel drifting in the Arctic pack ice.

The two had traveled about 18 miles by the time they had returned to Ward Hunt Island. They expected slow-going at the beginning, when supply sleds were packed full and daylight was short.

Expedition coordinator Anne Atwood said she spoke to Bancroft by phone over the weekend from headquarters in Minneapolis. The explorer's speech was slowed by the cold, Atwood said. "It was hard to get every word out."

The combination of weather, damaged gear and frostbite made it too dangerous, she said. "It's too cold to be caring for a wound."

Communicating was difficult, too, Atwood said. The extreme temperatures drained battery power. Batteries and electronics needed to be warmed "for a very long time" before they would work, the explorers' website said. They conserved energy even in their tent, the site said, because every breath and movement would create moisture and then freeze, making camping uncomfortable.

The plight of the expedition drew some stinging comments from global warming skeptics on the expedition's website.

Bancroft and Arnesen said in their statement Monday: "We realize that it is ironic that frostbite and the cold temperatures contributed to our return. But, please know that global warming is real, and with it can come extreme unpredictable changes in temperature."

The two will continue to post global warming information on their site, including plans for weekly interactive seminars with scientists, the statement said.

"Right now we are focused on returning home to our countries," they wrote, "but in the weeks and months ahead we'll be sharing our plans for our next adventures."

Pam Louwagie • 612-673-7102 • plouwagie@startribune.com

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