"Climate change is making the impossible, possible": Team on the brink of rowing to the Magnetic North Pole

By Richard Webster
Read his first report from the expedition here.
“Climate change is making the impossible, possible,” says Jock Wishart, Row to the Pole leader and veteran Arctic explorer.  Over the last 20 years of Arctic adventures Jock has noticed changes in the North.  In the depths of winter the previously solid ice covered ocean that he once skied care-free has become thinner and more dangerous.  On a rowing machine after a skiing expedition in Resolute, he was memorably asked, “What next Jock, row to the North Pole?” This throw-away comment got him thinking, would this even be possible?
World ice experts thought the ice in recent years was fractured enough, but at the very north, near the 1996 Magnetic Pole, only a brief window of a few weeks would be available. Jock realized that he’d need both an exceptional crew and boat. The six brave crew selected share a vast body of experience, having completed other expeditions like climbing Everest and rowing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans! This expedition needed more than your average ocean going boat though. The Old Pulteney Ice Boat needed to be Arctic proof. To learn more about the ice boat’s unique features check out this video:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2dKk_A7F7U[/youtube]
Summer sea ice has been declining for the past 30 years according to the National Snow, Sea and Ice Data Centre. A recent report commissioned by the Arctic Council says this trend is forging a “New Arctic Reality”:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-HdkZgjWo[/youtube]
Even with a long term decline in summer sea ice extent and record low sea ice in July of this year, rowing in the Arctic isn’t plain sailing.  After 25 days at the oars they are still venturing into the unknown.
It’s now day 26 of the expedition. Follow the team as they get ready to make their final push to the pole.