Arctic expedition presses on after airspace violation in Yellowknife

After making headlines in Yellowknife for flying in on a Russian charter plane, the team behind an expedition through the Arctic is carrying on with itsplanto drive to Resolute, Nunavut.

Andrew Comrie-Picard, a Canadian member of the Transglobal Car expedition, says the grounding of their charter plane at the Yellowknife airport at the beginning of Marchcame as a surprise to the "apolitical" group, and one Russian-born member has since gone home to Geneva, Switzerland.

"We've got Icelandics and Russians and Ukrainians and Germans, and I'm Canadian so we're kind of nationality-blind, to be honest," Comrie-Picard said.

"It kind of blindsided us a bit, but we're also very practical people. So we just opened up to the authorities and said, 'What do you need?' and figured out what to do next."

Fifteen of the 16 who remain in Yellowknife are taking modified Ford F-150s and an amphibious vehicle he describes as a giant Argo northeast through the N.W.T. and Nunavut, with stops at Contwoyto Lake, Cambridge Bay and Resolute, where they will be doing open-water training.

The 16th teammate will stay in Yellowknife to feed them data about the evolving ice situation.

It's a month-long pre-run, he said, for the full expedition that will take place next year.

"What we're really trying to do is [an] around-the-world expedition a vertical circumnavigation of the globe," he explained.

"It's never been done before."

Once the real expedition gets underway, they'll travel from the southern tip of South America up to the North Pole, then down through Greenland, Europe, Asia and Africa. They'll then go across Antarctica and return to their starting point in South America. It'll take them a year and a half.

Balloons for wheels

The team will set forth in specialized vehicles. One is a modified Ford F-150 with 44-inch flotation tires basically giant balloons.

Those balloons help spread out the weight of the truck so it has no impact on the tundra, Comrie-Picard explained though since the truck isn't lifted, you'd have to look closely to even know what's different about it.

"We actually keep it pretty low to the ground," he noted. "Especially in Iceland, and also in Antarctica, you get a lot of cross-slopes where the vehicle is driving on an angle, and you don't want to make it tippy."

The team is also driving amphibious vehicles called Yemelyas. Comrie-Picard describes them as really big Argos. They run on six flotation tires with incredibly low pressure as low as 1.5 PSI (pounds per square inch), he said.

The test run will let them ensure the vehicles can traverse Arctic terrain, and is expected to have little to no impact on the surface of the ground.

"That's one of the things we want to make sure of, and make sure that our tracks basically get blown away in the wind," Comrie-Picard said.

Offers of help

Comrie-Picard's team were some of the first visitors to the N.W.T. since the territory lifted its ban on leisure travel.

He said his team has been welcomed into the community.

"Soon enough, my phone started ringing off the hook with people who want to help and want to contribute," he said.

"People have just been universally nice."