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People & Culture

New Land Expedition: Summing up the adventure

  • Jun 25, 2013
  • 313 words
  • 2 minutes
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Otto Sverdrup was a humble, competent man, which is why he never became famous. This, according to the group of northern explorers who recently returned from their successful imitation of Sverdrup’s second Fram expedition to Ellesmere Island, Nunavut.

The New Land Expedition 2013 went smoothly, but these team members have already started working to ensure their efforts aren’t forgotten. No sooner had the four team members stepped off the plane than they dispatched to their various corners of the world to kick off their series of speaking engagements.

For the next few months, Hugh Dale-Harris (Canada), Kyle O’Donoghue (South Africa), John Huston (USA) and Tobias Thorleifsson (Norway) will engage students in stories, pictures and video about their trip, while also spreading their message of climate awareness.

As they kick off the next part of their adventure, here are a few summary points about their trip, from each of the expedition members.

Total days on ice: 65
Total nautical miles skijored: 511
Total polar bear sightings: 2

Toby:

Total cups of coffee drank: 147
Favorite section of the trip: Trold Fjord
Total pounds lost over course of trip: 23

John:

Total cups of coffee drank: 4, all decaf
Total nicknames given to Elle the husky: unlimited
Maximum number of 630 calorie chocolate bars eaten in one day: 5

Kyle:

Number of hours spent looking through the camera viewfinder: 45
Amount of digital memory used: 1 Terabyte
Number of books read on Kindle: 5

Hugh:

Number of times crooned “Little Larry” to Larry the husky at the start of each travel day: 20 or more
Number of times rolled tent neatly: 45
Number of sleds pulled in second half of expedition: 3

Read more blog posts from the New Land Expedition 2013 and learn more about the team’s speaking engagements on the team’s blog.

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