Diary

Winter 2008

7.1.2008

Instant treks bring young age into my mind. Back to those days, everything was new and exciting. Every trek was planned for months, even years. Last Tuesday I headed for northern Finland after New Year without snow here in Tampere. In my van, there were all my equipment and Seppo Virtanen, who was with me at my Svalbard2005-expedition. We drove whole day and started our trek at 2.30 AM from Finnish expedition Mecca, town called Kilpisjärvi at very north.

First, it seemed that snow conditions would be bad there also, but after we descend mountains, it became better. During those few days at that treeless area, I was able to experience everything I wanted, like freezing and sore muscles.

Mother Nature also gave its share to us. One day we had 12-14 m/s headwind with -12 C. That was something I wanted to experience, too. I was again able to choose one pair of gloves that will stay home when I head to Greenland. Within 4 days, I tested four pairs of gloves and four pairs of hats as well as other that kind of stuff. I think I will need to visit some shops before April comes.

Vuorenmaa has been busy with the food bags. Soon he has finished first package of food for two for one week. After that, we can start to measure food sacks. There will be 13 of them, one sack for each week. We put sacks on the bottom of the sledge with ropes. Other stuff is put on the sacks then.

This week winter finally started also here in southern Finland. I hope we can test our kites next weekend. There will be also negotiations with our sponsors as well as doing some shopping for equipment. Vuorenmaa contacted Kangerlussuaq airport to ask whether we can buy some fuel there. Answer was yes, but we need to have our own oilcans with us. I think will take me one day to arrange enough of those for 45 liter of jetA1.

13.1.2008

Finally, we had some success with cargo. One of the cargo companies gave us an offer for delivering our sledges to Narsarsuaq. Gear would be delivered by flight via Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq and then Narsarsuaq. Expected cost was 15000 euros. Fortunately, our contact person also told that there is an option for sea-cargo. We must have our gear at Copenhagen for 20.3, and then they would be able to reach the ship, that will visit Narsarsuaq on 16.4.

Now also our timetable starts to settle. With current knowledge, we will order our flights for Narsarsuaq-plane on 16.4. Few days for checking and setup of gear, so our start date would be 18.4. 90 days added to that, and we should reach Qanaaq village on 16.7. Next Wednesday there is the weekly plane we would like to catch. I all sound too easy behind the keyboard.

Just before weekend, we spent some time with reporter and his photographer. It soon came clear that this reporter had also visited Greenland some years back. We both shared the same view that Inuit's are really friendly and open-minded people. When we visited Kulusuk at east-Greenland 2003, we were able to meet some becoming seal-fishers (in the figure). They had a funny way to follow everything we did with our preparations, and every now and then, they hit us, just like to prove we were true.

We were supposed to start our kite-trainings with skies, but during Friday, all snow melt away. To do something useful, we measured the size of one-week food. I think we found quite good solution: we put all food into 35 liters tube-type sack. I'll put together 13 such sacks. 6 for each sledge and one extra to main kitchen-sack.

95 days to go.

20.1.2008

When man spends enough time outdoors, he can make lot of observations. At the beginning of 20th century, most of the observations were only occasional notes of areas, where next travelers might visit after 10 years or so. They would then compare those marks to their own ones and make conclusions about that. Nowadays, this is managed via satellite, and one can compare results that are taken within same second. Today's result is a headline tomorrow and results older than that are fossils.

Few days ago I realized, that I have also made significant observations about glacier melting. It was 2005 when we had a skiing expedition at Svalbard. We had just started ascend to Mittag-Lefflerbreen-glacier, away from sea ice of Austfjorden-fjord. After few hours, we reached place called Höglandvatnet, a small glacier lake. Actually, there was no lake at all anymore, but a huge hole with icebergs on it. People said later, that lake just suddenly disappeared.

Last summer we were having a trek at same area and were having a small break, just before arriving to this "disappeared" lake. Nearby glacier made terrible sounds like thunder, and suddenly apiece of ice, about 50mx100m collapsed to the lake and caused water to "blow up". Therefore, the situation is quite the same there as it is at sout-east Greenland where glacier lakes have melted their way through the ice and at the same time accelerated melting of glacier.

I managed to put our cooking system into a shape. Most annoying thing about our equipment was that old and new models of MSR XGK stove do not share same spare parts. So, I was forced to order another stove. We will take two kettles and two coffee pots to the expedition. I will update our equipment page soon about those.

IPY had glacier theme-day on 13.12. You can complete test about glaciers at http://216.70.123.96/images/uploads/sheetsenglish.pdf"

27.1.2008

We had lot of different discussions and meetings during the week. However, years has shown that one should not talk too much about unfinished issues. So no talks yet about those.

One thing I have to reveal. We got a decent offer from one of the cargo firms in loop. To deliver two boxes of equipment, about 300 kg, from Tampere to Kangerlussuaq would be around 1200 €. We still wait confirm to this.

In equipment side, we had some concrete, too. I got our first carbon fibre/nano epox versions of our sledges, to which I will add clothing this week. I will also modify our Ozone Access2 kites for sledge pulling. I will do other stuff my self, but Satu Ritari promised me to sew sledge links. We will have two links to both sides, to be sure.

Friday, I visited Urheiluareena, where I got new shields for our Alico boots. Those were made just for use, and I tested them when using kites. They were very warm. Next Spring we won't be freezing! We went thorough our equipment lists with Vuorenmaa and it seems our sledges will be around 180 kg each.

We added 11-minute video to website. That gives quite good picture of conditions. No doubt, our beards will be longer next July.

3.2.2008

There is finally snow. It was very pleasant to go skiing for the first time. There were no ready-made tracks yet. To ski in a deep snow without tracks is very different sport from normal skiing, and gives strain to muscles we will use in Greenland. In addition, great views, of course.

Arrangements are in hectic phase. Everyday we solve lot of different things. Some we are able to finish and some are still depending on small detail.

Finnish Broadcasting Company will follow out arrangements at final phase and their camera operator Ari Rannisto will come with us to Greenland. The film will be broadcasted in programme called "Ajankohtainen Kakkonen". Showtime still unknown.

Sewing machine has been on heavy use. I have made prototypes of sledge covers and enhanced again our Ozone harnesses. Vuorenmaa has continued his work with cooking and drying meat. His apartment is like slaughterhouse. At least smell is the same. Luckily he has started adopting to Greenland by lowing the temperature to 15 Celsius, so it makes his situation better in that sense.

Even though we are only "real" Finnish expedition this spring, there will be another, fictive trip to Greenland. It is a play made by Klaus and Lea Klemola. They have made a theatrical performance about Finnish-Greenland expedition towards north most village man has ever lived, Etahia. We met this week. Klaus told that they spent one month at Quanaaq to prepare for the play. He promised to give me details about different services they have used while living in the village. This is valuable information for us.

10.2.2008

Last week many things were solved. One insurance company offered us SAR insurance for 5000 €s and we were forced to accept it as such, since there were no other offers either. SAR is mandatory part of arrangement. It covers search expenses until 1000000 DKK.

We also received our radio permit for Plb emergency transmitter.

We still have about one month to get our gear sorted out before we must send stuff to cargo. I sewed all the covers for our newborn "Hit Ultima Thule"-sledge (in the picture). The adhesive material for composite structure of sledge is called Hybtonite nano-epoxy. The company that developed nano-epoxy is called Amrov and is one of the sponsors of our trip.

We made a sponsor deal with firm called Insta Group. After meetings next week with them I'll tell you more about them. Another sponsor, Felix-Abba delivered a good amount of food straight to my home door.

On Saturday we had "Arctic happening" at home of Sami Nytorp. In addition, of Petes, there were web-masters of this trip Jami Kangasoja and Vesa Luomala. They will be on charge for updating our site now and during the expedition. Sami and his wife Pilvi was there and Jussi Hilden and Seppo Virtanen. Seppo also sponsored us with 5800 DKK letter. This letter was very much welcomed, and we will appreciate any additional ones. So if you feel like sponsoring us, just send us email and we can work it out :-).

During the evening, we watched many different videos from Finnish expeditions. First there were video about Finnish Greenland expedition at 1966 from Ilullissat to Kangerlussuaq. Then we checked Finnish Huurre-expedition 1984. By the way, it was the second skiing expedition to North Pole in total and first one from Canada. Finally yet importantly was video from our own expedition to Svalbard 2005, which some of the members of that team had not seen before.

Vuorenmaa did exception today and did not ski 100 kilometers, but concentrated on updating our page where gears are. It seems we have 185 kg stuff for both of us.

17.2.2008

I hate crevasses. And Vuorenmaa hates them too. The most disliked from all of the revasses are the ones covered by snow. Glaciers are full of them and you never know which one is made for you.

Latest meeting with crevasses was Friday, when we attended theatres play about Greenland. Set designers had made a lot of work to create a crevasse to the stage. In a play crevasse represented a different things from broken heart to unstable expedition ground. Anyway, it brought to my mind spring 2003, when we crossed crevasses in very tired state. I still feel scared when think about that.

After one month our gear are delivered further. 300 kg of cargo will leave the country mid-March and last 60 kg we will bring with us mid-April. Our sewing sessions have been quite hectic to finalize our newborn sledges. We will try to make one short trek with all our gear within next two weeks.

This week we got our new Sasta Gore-Tex jacket and pants, as well as our Madshus Glittertind skis. Those we will try in an event in city centre of Tampere at 19.2. We will ski over the main square of Tampere with them. This expedition has its finish at shopping centre called "Siberia"!

We made a sponsorship agreement with Insta Group Oy, which is growing company at global markets for defense and security technologies (Insta DefSec Oy) and industrial automation (Insta Automation Oy). The company has existed already 40 years as a family business and the values of company are very much the same as our themes for the expedition. Everything made as promised!

Now I will have to go back to continue sewing!

24.2.2008

Quite a tough week behind. Monday we spent the whole day with equipment, because everything had to be ready before planned crossing of Tampere central square. Finally, the important day came. All the arrangements were ready and we pushed with my pick-up to the south side of the square. Even though we quickly jumped out of the car and started skiing, it was like all the local people had turned to Japanese tourists. Everyone had their mobile phone cameras pulled out to shoot pictures of us. After few traffic lights, we were at the center of square to give interviews. Finally, we arrived to "Siberia" (local shopping centre). Shooting by Aamulehti can be seen here

Wednesday we met people at Insta Group Oy. There were approximately 300 people at presentation and as expected, presentation planned to be 15 minutes was finally 30 minutes long. When one lives Greenland 24 hours a day there is no room for another things, even in events arranged by someone else.

Thursday was quite surprising day in a sense that we did not call to each other even once, which we have done daily since beginning of autumn. Moreover, every time each phone calls lasts one hour. I also forgot to inform our support group properly about our square crossing event. I have to be more focused on informing them in the future.

Friday we me Klaus Klemola, wo had spent last January at Qaanaaq with his sister Lea. There was so much to talk about, when everybody at the table had experiences about Greenland. We sat almost three hours at meeting and Klaus promised to handle some things for us there in Qaanaaq. He still has some contacts there and is in contact with them weekly. This is a great help for us.

Cargo will be on it's way after three weeks, so I think we still have hectic times ahead.

2.3.2008

Some assignments just turn into unpleasant ones. Especially if given assignment just does not seem to end. Vuorenmaa finalized this week our food drying task he started at autumn. Now all 180 day-portions are in neat small plastic packages. Each day-portion is packaged into "tubes", like the one in the picture. To each "tube" we put one week's food. And these "tubes" we have 13 alltogether. I have been sewing all different things, so I'm quite fed up with that. Maybe I should have a kilometer measurer in my sewing machine. But I'm happy with the division of our work, both can do their share independently.

Monday we had long session with Ari Rannisto. He is our camera operator that will shoot our departure. The film is published at Finnish television in program called "Ajankohtainen Kakkonen" at 29.4.

Our cargo will depart from Tampere at 13.3. DSV Air & Sea Oy takes care of our equipment and delivers it to Narsaarsuaq via Copenhagen. It is still unclear if the ship will ever be able to go there, but since we cannot do anything about it we will not think about it too much. It was said that air cargo is around 15000 and sea cargo 1200 . We will see.

Medicine package is finalized. Framework was the one used in Svalbard 2005. Great help with this was managing doctor Eero Oura, who also promised to our doctor on duty during expedition. Eero has crossed Greenland himself with Vesa Luomala. This knowledge will help us if we meet severe conditions while on ice. About their trip, see (only in Finnish): http://www.expedition.fi/view.php?menuId=88

Today we had a great relief, because we were able to use our kites properly for the first time this winter. It gave us some good confidence after few trials. It was a good way to end our full workweek with expedition things.

9.3.2008

Sewing sessions continued hectic last week. In addition, there was planned "Lake Näsi"-expedition coming.

First part of week we did jobs still undone. Jari Kaaja tuned our Lead-acid gel battery for getting solar power is into better shape. Now it is lighter than before and more easy to use. I ordered new Iridium 9505A satellite phone to keep connections all the time. We will also take Iridium 9500.

Kari "Poppis" Suomela visited my warehouse and we went through our equipment. After few hours of investigation there were still no serious deficiencies found. Poppis has just released book about North Pole expedition in English. Few pictures of that book and some other stories can be found here

Friday we landed to ice of Lake Näsi with all our equipment. Seppo Virtanen was also there. We had 30 kilos as such and 100 kg extra as cement bags. Weather was 0 degrees Celsius, which meant that it was not too easy to ski. Therefore, after few hours of skiing we were ready to put up our tents.

Saturday morning it was still quite warm. We started to use Ozone Access 8 m2 kites right from beginning. Starting to move at 0 Celsius snow is never easy with sledge, but after one gets going it is ok. Our new harnesses, where sledge pulling, kiting and backpack features are integrated worked well. First, I pulled also Seppo with my kite, but wind was too light and we were forced to quit that. Saturday we moved altogether 15 kilometers. Pekka Tyllild and Jussi Hilden brought us polar bear regards at evening.

Sunday we pulled sledges back to starting point. Both were happy that journey pointed out kiting is ok with big loads, also at harder conditions.

Equipment is delivered on 13.3 and there is much to do. Monday morning starts with building cargo boxes.

16.3.2008

On Monday I started in the workshop of J.L Caseshop where Vilho Leppäharju and I made two 800 litre plywood boxes for the freight. I spent the rest of the day driving around Pirkanmaa collecting final pieces of equipment. One of them was in the freight terminal of Kaukokiito. The Hilleberg Keron 3gt tent came at the last minute to make it to the freight. Acquiring the tent turned out to be difficult, because I only started the process on December. As it happened there were no tents coming in to Finland in the beginning of the year. And there were none to be found in Sweden either. So after several emails and a lot of hassle Jarmo Karvinen from Greendoor manage to get us one from the US. As soon as we got the tent Vuorenmaa and I put it up and tested the insides. We felt comfortable with the tent which is nice considering that it will be our home for a long time.

Monday through Wednesday Vuorenmaa and I spent a lot of time in my warehouse packing all the equipment to be freighted. Finally on Wednesday evening around 10 pm we were ready and everything was packed in to the two boxes, except for 12 kilos of butter and 9 kilos of cheese. We actually had to sit on the boxes to get the lids shut. The boxes were picked up on Thursday morning when a truck from DSV came and collected the 1,6 m3 and 340 kilos of freight.

It was a relief to see something concrete done. I almost waved goodbye to our dear gargo, we had worked on it for so long and now it was on it's way.

The next thing to worry is wheather it will make it to Greenland. The ice situation can be so bad that sometimes the ships simply cannot reach Greenland. And without our equipment we have no business in Greenland either. To our relief we discovered that the ship carrying our equipment is Mary Arctica the latest addition to the fleet of Arctic Lines. She has 1A* grading and is basically an icebreaker of sorts.

The rest of the week we just laid back and took our minds off of Greenland.

24.3.2008

Now that it's 23 days until we start our journey we kind of wish we were already on our way. According to our original plans we would be in Narsarsuaq in the beginning of April, but due to the freighting schedules we had to postpone our take off. So it's now set on the 16th of April at 6.30 am from the Tampere-Pirkkala Airport.

We have spent the week mostly doing our regular jobs apart from one expedition related task.

And that task was to order the plain tickets. We thought we had the tickets all sorted out through one of our contacts, but we found out that wasn't the case. In fact nothing was done for the tickets. So we started surfing the web anxiously and ordered the tickets to Greenland straightaway. Eventhough the return tickets weren't such a high priority at the moment we maxed out our credit cards to get those as well.

Northern Greenland may not be the number one tourist attraction but many of the flights in late July were fully booked. So even if our flight schedule to Greenland is such that after only four hours from departure we land in South Greenland (on the 16th of April at 10.30 am local time) we will take our sweet time getting back home. We had planned that after the crossing we would walk to the village of Quanaaq on the 16th of July and then spend a week sorting out what needs to be sorted and recuperate from the trek. Then head south on the 23rd of July. But we discovered while purchasing the tickets that we can only get as far as the Uppernavik island where we will spend three days, then take another flight to Ilulissat. After one night we are hoping to get from there to home in one stretch but it's possible we have to spend one more night in Copenhagen before arriving back home on the 28th of July.

30.3.2008

The Poles web published an article listing the upcoming expeditions in the arctic regions and they are also following our expedition during the spring and summer. All and all the pickings are quite slim this spring. Hannah Mckeand headed out to the North Pole early march but she was evacuated only after a few days due to an accident. Earlier in the winter Dmitry and Boris Shparo skied to the North Pole via Russia and managed to get there before the sun started to shine again. And last but not least is the solo expedition of Ben Saunders from Canada to the North Pole.

Besides us there are only two other longer expeditions planned in the arctic regions. The Tiso Greenland expedition is already on it's way across Greenland and back, 2000 kilometres in total distance. The Notice expedition starts right after us aiming to do roughly the same route as us in two months using kites. In addition there are trekkers on the basic routes of Greenland and Svalbard.

We had a meeting with Jami Kangasoja and Mika Rustari from the web team on Friday. Vesa Luomala is currently in Levi.Jami has been doing the updates on all of our expeditions and knows the drill, but still it didn't hurt to go through the procedure in various situations the expedition might encounter. Vesa Luomala will take the first shift with the updates and will actually be working in India at that time. So we will write our diary entries in Greenland and send them via email to Vesa who will then update the web pages residing in the server in Helsinki. We haven't even tried to calculate the time differences and the delays in the updates with this scenario.

The route on this expedition takes us to those parts of Greenland where there are polar bears. We are not expecting to meet them in the Quanaaq region during July but a gun is a still a must. We knew this already a couple of years ago so we acquired a powerful revolver. The Ruger Redhawk Alaskan .454 Casull is designed for protection against the Canadian bears and we have been testing it with numb wrists every now and then. We had some doubts about its effectiveness and made an experiment to put our minds at ease. We put 13 wet phonebooks (about 45 cm) into a box and fired the revolver hoping to find what's left of the bullet. In front of the box there was a hole of about 1 cm in diameter and in the back it was 4-5 cm. No bullet was discovered even after we dig some ground under the box. We redid the test with similar ammo with a rifle and the bullet went through again but with much more modest exit hole.

It's often agonizing to wait for the expedition to start and this one is no exception. 17 days till lift off.

6.4.2008

Microteam ltd is now one of our sponsors. Our contact Pertti Arjanne is also traveler himself. In addition to sailing and kite skiing, he has been in Svalbard many times, where he is going again after few weeks.

Arctic areas are currently empty, since Ben Saunders has been picked up from ice. Reason for that was broken ski binding, and he did not have proper fixing tools with him.

It seems that we are only partially in shape for our expedition. Physical side is quite ok, mental side is the one that has been tested lately. Arranging things for 3 and half months is quite stressful. On the other hand, during that time I do not have to care anything but skiing, which is quite rewarding. I have had some problems with my back lately. Massage and chiropractor have helped a bit.

Last week I told about our new gun. Soon after that, Greenland authorities told me it is absolutely forbidden to take one into Greenland. If things get too complicated, we might travel without one.

10 days to go.

13.4.2008

We are finally about to depart. 16.4 06.35 we will start from Tampere. After 7 hours, we should be at Narsarsuaq. Our camera operator Ari Rannisto be there with us first week and returns to Finland after that.

Last week has passed quickly. Vuorenmaa has configured our Panasonic Toughbook CF-19 computer so that everything would work smoothly during expedition. I made new compass tool to enable us keeping better directions in whiteout. I will tell later how it works.

Danish Polar Center, which admits permits for Greenland expedition has worked quite slow this time. We finally had our permission at Friday. That means we cannot get permit to bring gun with us since it would require DPC permission. I needed to make lots of emails and phone calls to get even the basic permission.

Friday we took a day off and headed to Nanoq museum at Pietarsaari. We met Pentti Kronqvist, museum manager, who has made several expeditions to arctic. We discussed and watched videos about Qanaaq to late night. One cannot get closer to Greenland than being at Nanoq. Vuorenmaa and I met Pentti first time when we planned our latest expedition to Greenland 2002. He always has calming effect on us, so it is a good start again.

We try to start skiing either Friday or Saturday. Next update will most likely be around there. Due to time differences, each update we send will be one day late when they reach website, so please be patient. At last, I will quote myself from last trip, just before expedition start: "Now that our expedition is about to begin, I would like to give thanks to everybody who has followed our preparations. Have a nice spring. We will go to check what Finland was like during last ice age. Was there water on Ancylus-lake or not?"