Steger to draw attention to melting Arctic

A rigorous four-month dog sled trip across Baffin Island’s mountains and glaciers awaits Nunavut dog-teamers Theo Ikummaq, Lukie Airut and Simon Qamaniq.

This Sunday, they’re set to fly in with two dog teams to Iqaluit, where they’ll link up with expedition leader, Will Steger, who’s travelled by dog team to the North Pole and crossed Antarctica by foot, and Ed Viesturs, who is the only American to have climbed the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 metres.

As they cross Baffin Island, their common goal is to document climate change.

Steger said he’s wanted to make the journey since 2004, when he travelled by dog team from Yellowknife to Pond Inlet.

“That was the beginning of it. I wanted to check out first-hand what was happening to the climate, and particularly what the people had to say,” Steger said in an interview earlier this week. “Everyone in the United States was then in denial, but there it was pretty obvious.”

Steger, 62, has himself witnessed the changes to the polar environment. He said many of the routes he’s travelled during numerous treks to the Arctic and Antarctic since 1963 have simply disappeared.

“The Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctic, 300 miles across, we crossed that in 1989. It was 100 feet thick, and now that’s just open ocean,” Steger said.

The “Global Warming 101 Expedition” plans to leave Iqaluit on Friday, Feb. 23, after its members spend a week readying equipment and talking with interested school and community groups about their trek.

On their way to Pangnirtung, they will follow the McKeand River over the Hall Peninsula and cross Cumberland Sound.

Steger and his teammates will then spend at least one week in Pangnirtung to document local observations on climate change. Their interviews will be part of a video documentary on climate change, which will be produced from footage gathered in Baffin.

Steger said the documentary’s emphasis will be on elders’ stories of the climate in the past and their concerns for the future environment.

“We have to bring the message down south,” Steger said. “I just feel that the Arctic does not have much of a voice yet.

“We want to bring a louder voice and start moving policy. In order to move policy, you have to create awareness, and I think this will be a good vehicle with this.”

From Pangnirtung the dog teams will travel to Qikiqtarjuaq and Clyde River. Then they will head west to attempt the first dog team crossing of the Barnes Ice Cap. Afterwards, they will go across Foxe Basin to Igloolik. Along the way, the expedition plans to update its web site, www.globalwarming101.com.