They made it! For the fifth time!

Yesterday, April 25, 2012, the Russian teen team led by Arctic adventurers Dmitry and Matvey Shparo (Adventure Club) reached the North Pole by skiing from the Barneo drifting ice base.

I am happy about this event, as one of the North Pole skiing expedition participant is from Yakutia, precisely from the Bulunsky region located in the Polar Circle in North Yakutia, Siberia, Russia.

RussiaToday reports:

They’ve done it again! The fifth teenage expedition to the Noth Pole led by adventurers Dmitry and Matvey Shparo has been successfully completed.

The format of the “Ski to the North Pole” expedition has been constant: seven teenagers, handpicked from thousands of eager would-be polar explorers across Russia, begin their journey at the Barneo drifting ice base.

And after about a week battling through some of the harshest conditions on Earth, the chosen few reach the global summit.

This time, it took the expedition seven days to cover the 110 kilometer distance from the last circle of latitude all the way up to the North Pole.

But the young arctic travelers had to stick around another full day at their final destination because the mission to pick them up – with RT’s crew on board – came late due to severe weather conditions, which prevented themfrom flying.

But one of North Pole conquerors, Danila Romanyuk, says waiting for another 24 hours wasn’t much of a problem.

“We played mafia, sang songs, told jokes, ate and slept… then slept and ate again,” he said.

The pickup team brought delicious pies with them and when the treat was finished, the group was finally ready to pose for the camera and answer some questions.

Well, the pies disappeared within seconds and the group was finally ready to pose for the camera and answer some questions.

“When you ski, the wind stirs up the snow and fully covers your face and then cuts it,” Aleksandr Chernykh, Ski to the North Pole expedition member, said. “The goggles can’t help at all. It was really hard.”

The successful expedition was celebrated by a traditional circle dance and a football match.

The custom of playing football at the world’s summit dates all the way back to the cold war when the crew of a Soviet submarine broke through the polar ice to play the world’s most popular game.

Each year, Dmitry and Matvey Shparo dedicate the expedition to either a cause or a commemorative date.

Their previous sub-zero treks have already been devoted to – among others – Russian teachers and the Sochi Winter Olympics.

This time the journey was made in the name of Ivan Papanin, who spent over two hundred days researching the North Pole, back in 1937.

“This is the copy of a flag which was raised at the North Pole by the expedition of Ivan Papanin 75 years ago and we are commemorating their heroics with our trip,” Dmitry Shparo said.

Hunger for travel, the unknown and effort bordering the unattainable is what separates the teenagers from the expedition from rest of their peers.

At 16 to 18 years old, they have already reached the top of the world and their future life challenges now seem like much easier hurdles to overcome.

Via Dmitry and Matvei Shparo’ Adventure Club

Follow the link to see the video tutorial.

The How To Make An Igloo video tutorial was created by Sooli Entertainment & Transa Backpackers AG.

Photographs via Fubiz.net

Check also Douglas Wilkinson’s classic short film “How to build an igloo” (1949) using only snow and a knife.

The documentary is from Yukon Arctic Ultra on Vimeo.

Wow! The Yukon Arctic Ultra Race looks really cool! Hey, I would love to participate in it and try my guts, but not in Canada. In Siberia, definitely! Especially in my lovely Yakutia!

What is the Yukon Arctic Ultra? Read the race info…

Race course:

The Yukon Arctic Ultra follows the Yukon Quest trail, the trail of the world’s toughest Sled Dog Race.

The marathon finishes just off the Takhini River. The 100 mile racers go from Whitehorse to Braeburn. The 300 mile racers keep on going all the way to Pelly Farm. There they will leave the river to turn around and go back to Pelly Crossing on the farm road. The 430 mile athletes do not return to Pelly Crossing. Instead they continue on the Quest trail to Dawson City.

The trail is marked. However, if there is fresh snow or a lot of wind it is difficult to find the trail. If to enhance ability to understand orientation, a GPS is recommended…

Starting time, date and location:

The Yukon Arctic Ultra 2012 will start on Feb. 4th. The time for the start is 10:30 AM.
Start will be done downtown Whitehorse next to the Yukon river…

Disciplines: Mountain bike, xc-skis or foot.

Via Yukon Arctic Ultra

Currently, Canada’s Yukon Arctic Ultra is the world’s coldest & toughest race, but it won’t be as such, if the race would be conducted in Russia’s Siberian region of Yakutia. A good idea to work on since now

Explore (www.rgs.org/explore) is the annual expedition and fieldwork planning seminar held each November at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

To mark the launch of Explore 2011, some of the great explorers give you inspiration. Find out from the experts why exploration still matters and how you can get started…

Shared on the GeographyOutdoors YouTube channel. The video was edited by Winnie Chang.

BattleHarbour about its video:

What an amazing sight to see! “Small” chunk of the massive Petermann Ice Island. This “berg” is approximately 3 miles long and 2.8 miles wide. Wow, that’s nearly 5 times the size of Battle Island!

Special thanks go out to Port Hope Simpson resident & crab fisherman, Eldred Burden, for capturing this magnificent ice structure. Truly breathtaking!

This part of the Berg has already passed Battle Harbour, but we are still awaiting the arrival of the larger chunk!

A massive ice island that broke off a glacier in Greenland 11 months ago has been winding its way through Arctic waters ever since. Satellites have now spotted it off the coast of Labrador, Canada, MSNBC.com reports,

The ice island was formed when a 97-square-mile chunk of ice broke off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier on Aug. 5, 2010. It was the largest iceberg to form in the Arctic in 50 years.

Petermann Glacier is one of the two largest remaining glaciers in Greenland that terminate in floating shelves. The glacier connects the great Greenland ice sheet directly with the ocean. When the chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan broke off, the Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 43-mile-long floating ice shelf, according to researchers at the University of Delaware.

The Canadian Ice Service has since been tracking the ice island, dubbed PII-A, via satellite and radio beacon.

NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an image of the ice chunk in the Labrador Sea on June 25.

The island has been slowly breaking up and melting on its more than 1,800-mile journey so far. News agencies reported that the ice island now covered roughly 24 square miles in area and weighed between 3.5 and 4 billion tons.

But even with its diminishing size, it could eventually pose a hazard to offshore oil platforms and shipping lanes off Newfoundland.

Environment Canada dropped a beacon on PII-A on Sept., 17, 2010, to help track the island.

Resource: MSNBC.com.

The second season of the Uummannaq Music project (www.uummannaqmusic.com) curated and done by Galya Morrel and Joel Spiegelman in Uummannaq, Greenland, has been finished.

It’s really hard to describe what they have completed this year. So many activities! Too many! That was the reason why the post was delayed.

Praise god, Galya created the video presentation of the Uummannaq Music project for The International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) Conference in Akureyri, Iceland

Galya Morell & Joel Spiegelman’s project “Uummaannaq Music”
The most unusual Music Festival at the Ice School for Orphaned Eskimo Children in Uummaannaq, Greenland, 590 kilometers north of the Artic Circle
Blog, RSS, Facebook, YouTube.

Uummannaq Music is included in Cold United’s list of Cold-Related People & Projects.

CinemaPole Studio is the Russian TV film production company, that makes documentaries about the Arctic. It has already created many TV shows tightly related with the history of the Arctic exploration.

One of its fascinating program is The Arctic. The Russian Project. Hereby, you might see all three episodes of that show. Enjoy!

CinemaPole Studio Website: CinemaPole.ru.
CinemaPole Studio on YouTube: CinemaPoleSTUDIO.

On February 2, 2011, Simone Moro, Denis Urubko and Cory Richards became the first, who climbed one of Pakistan’s 8,000 meter peaks in winter! Cory Richards is now the only American to summit any 8,000 meter peak in winter. The journey nearly killed them. Cory carried a small camera and filmed the ordeal constantly.

Documentary Info

Cinematography: Cory richards
Directed and edited: Anson Fogel
Written: Kelly Cordes
Produced: Julie Kennedy, David Burden, Forge Motion Pictures
In association with: The North Face, The Access Fund, Petzl

Jason De Carteret shared the video announcing Thomson Reuters Eikon’s South Pole Challenge, December 2011.

For further details, and to enter, please visit:

http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/financial/eikon/#/south_pole
http://apps.facebook.com/southpolechallenge/

Glimpse Of Norway is a journey into the wilderness of the amazing Scandinavian country called Norway. After thousands of hours of effort making this production, its creator, Terje Sorgjerd, gives you a new perspective to the magnificent landscapes of Norway.

If you like Terje Sorgjerd’s video, you can watch more of his stuff on his Vimeo account. Find his updates on Facebook and Twitter.