FROM THE NORTH POLE TO THE UNITED NATIONS Sebastian Copeland and Keith Heger Start Trek to Change the Future of the Arctic

Today, the Arctic environment is more threatened than threatening, even as the team endures -50 below temperatures on 300+ mile journey.

FROM THE NORTH POLE TO THE UNITED NATIONS
Sebastian Copeland and Keith Heger Start Trek to Change the Future of the Arctic

300+ Mile Journey Will Gather Data for UN Forum

Resolute Bay, Nunavut – March 29th, 2009

Arctic adventurer, explorer, and activist Sebastian Copeland was glad to get off the ground on Tuesday; bad weather had kept him and his partner, Keith Heger,

overnight at the remote arctic outpost of Eureka. As weather cleared, they were able to board the plane to take them to an unlikely rendezvous on the ice.

“Another team was intersecting with us so we could resupply their expedition at the same time we embarked on ours,” Copeland explained. “So we were able to unite on the ice for a short time.” But now Copeland and Heger are on their own for the rest of the 300+ mile journey over the ice. The destination

? The North Pole – before it’s too late to call in air support to get them back off of the ice.

“We’ll be moving as quickly as possible,” Keith Heger, a veteran Polar guide for PolarExplorers, says. “But ice and weather conditions can’t always be predicted. And, of course, there are other factors as well.” Those “other factors” may include polar bears, something that the team they met had already encountered in the form of large pawprints across their trail.

But the arctic environment these days is more threatened than threatening, and that’s what Copeland hopes to focus on.Copeland is embarking on this trip (his fifth to a Polar region in the last four years) to raise awareness of the alarming rate of ice melt due to Global Warming. Scientists predict that in less than five years, the Arctic sea will be ice free in the summer months. In 1909, the average depth of ice at the North Pole was 12 feet while today it averages just 5.5 feet. Just twenty years ago, 80% of the Arctic sea ice was 10 years old or more. Today, just 3% of the ice is a decade old.

Copeland’s adventure is the continuation of the Pax Arctica mission started last summer with the Young Ambassadors of the Arctic. Copeland, Luc Hardy and Global Green partnered to raise awareness on the need to establish a charter of protection for the Arctic as the sea ice melt is opening the region to the exploitation of its natural resources. “One oil platforms has a 33%-55% chance of a major spill in the Arctic environment; that is just one platform!” Copeland says. “In the Arctic, they are virtually impossible to clean up. The pack ice spreads the spill to thousands of square miles, spelling assured death to its surrounding wildlife, and adding one more challenge to the endangered Polar Bears. New maritime sea-lanes emerging in the Arctic are also challenging its biodiversity.”

This mission will lead to a forum at the UN in November chaired by Sebastian Copeland aimed at establishing an international charter of protection for the Arctic similar to the treaty of Madrid for Antarctica which declared it “land of science, land of peace”.

On the journey, Copeland and Heger will be skiing and pulling 200 to 250 pound of equipment and supplies in specially designed sledges for 8 to 12 hours a day — the equivalent of running a marathon every day for over 40 days. Frigid mean temperatures range from -50C to -5C. Ten knots of wind at -50C can drop the overall temperatures to -70C.

Additional challenges the men will face include frostbite; open leads of water; swimming with specially designed suits when leads are too large to cross; Polar Bears; hypothermia; and exhaustion. Sebastian and Keith are expected to lose around 15 pounds in spite of a 7000-calorie rich diet. Sebastian has subjected himself to eight months of rigorous training involving core and strength, hiking with a 100-pound vest, and yoga.

A daily blog of the expedition will be posted on MySpace at myspace.com/sebastiancopeland. The outfitting company Polar Explorer will be running logistics. The team is anticipated to exit out of Longyearbyen in Svalbard around April 28th, through the support of the Arctic floating station Barneo.

About Sebastian Copeland
Sebastian Copeland is a renowned photographer and environmental advocate. He is also an author and lecturer to audiences around the world, including at the UN, the World Affairs Council, the Google and the Apple headquarters, and the DLD in Munich among others. His books have been translated to international markets. Antarctica: The Global Warning won him multiple awards including the prestigious 2007 IPA Professional Photographer of the Year. Copeland is on the Board of directors of Global Green USA. Copeland will produce a personal documentary of this expedition, as well as document photographically this exotic and endangered landscape. This will be his fourth trip to the Arctic in preparation of his follow-up book on the area due in Fall 2010.

Sebastian Copeland – photo@seabassprod.com
www.sebastiancopeland.com
www.antarcticabook.com

ABOUT POLAR EXPLORERS – polarexplorers.com
Named one of the “Best Outfitters on Earth” by National Geographic Adventure Magazine and recommended in the “Rough Guide to Ultimate Adventure”, PolarExplorers is the premier polar guiding company successfully guiding many amateur and experienced adventurers to the North and South

Poles, across the Greenland ice cap, and on other Arctic adventures.