Posted: Jun 09, 2005 10:28 am EDT
For many decades, the Russian archipelago Franz Josef Land was a restricted area. Therefore, it remained a “wild” place. The goal of the 2005 FJC expedition was to explore the wilderness using only skis and sleds, thereby appreciating the historical achievement of the 1874 discoverers, K. Weyprecht and J. V. Payer.

After hacking through miles of bureaucratic red tape, the team led by Christoph Höbenreich, a geographer and seasoned explorer, Victor Bojarski, Robert Mühlthaler, Dr. Nikita Ovsianikov, and Nanuk the dog set out to explore the archipelago located only 900 km (559 mi) from the North Pole. Here's their debrief, penned by Victor:

Impossible to get permits

"Christoph got the idea to cross Franz Joseph Land (FJL) in 1993, as a member of a 3-year Austrian filming expedition there. Vicaar provided the logistics and when Christoph approached us with his plan, we tried to get access to the place in 1996; for a 1999 expedition at the 125 years Anniversary of Payer's crossing. But it turned out absolutely impossible to get permits for a joint expedition with the participation of foreign members in the area.

Two presidents and a deputy speaker made "exception for Austria"

In 1997 we met again - on the ice. Christoph was heading an Austrian team of skiers which I led on the last degree to the North Pole. We now decided to prepare for 2004 (130 Anniversary of Payer). We used all our gun powder: Christoph obtained a Letter of Support from the Austrian President Dr. Fisher and, more over - he managed to get the President's office to write a letter to the Russian President Dr. Putin!

Yet even with the support of both Presidents - the general staff of the Ministry of Defense of Russia was not budging. It took additional pressure of the deputy speaker of the Russian Parliament, the President of Association of polar explorers of Russia - Dr. Chilingarov - to do the trick. The permit was finally issued as an..."Exception for Austrians to do a memorial Joint Austro-Russian Expedition titled 'On the steps of Julius Payer'."

A plane and two choppers to the starting point

The go came at the very last moment - just a couple of days before our planned start! On April 29, Center Polius delivered the expedition members and their gear at the border guard base on Nagurskaya (Alexandra Land - western part of FJL Archipelago), using the same aircraft (AN-74) they use for the NP Borneo operation .

2 helicopters were summoned from Norilsk, arriving after 4 hours of flight from Sredniy Island (Severnaya Zemlia Archipelago). After we had re-packed our sleds, the helicopter took us to our starting point: Wilchek Island - the southern most island of the Archipelago from where Payer had started his historical journey across FJL in March 1874.

First visitor already the next day

We started the expedition that same day, April 30. The ice conditions were mostly favorable. We moved on fast ice; relatively smooth and covered by well packed snow.

On May 1st we got our first encounter with the real host of these places; a polar bear. None of us, including the dog, noticed the bear coming. We were in camp 2, sitting in our tents preparing dinner.

Nanuk didn't notice until he was chased around

At a polar bear specialist 's recommendation we had left our "bear defense" (wires with sensors and explosives) behind, and the bear was able to walk straight up to our camp. Nanuk didn't start to bark until the bear was already in front of our tent, chasing the dog around.

Nikita and I jumped out, yelling at the bear in pure Russian. The bear ran off - but not far. He stopped at a distance of around 10 meters/30 ft away from us, and did not seem ready to leave. On the contrary - he was sniffing the air and checking us out with great interest.

Home made defense

Our curses didn't move him. Neither did our flare guns. It took a round of rubber bullets for the bear to finally take off. It was a good lesson to us all, including Nanuk. The dog didn't repeat his mistake for the remains of the expedition.

We prepared a "homemade" defense every night after that, using all our skies, ski poles and two pieces of rope. Nanuk slept outside and alerted us when bear approached (it happened regularly).

Payr's lead

Except for one blizzard, the weather was generally good. Around the middle of the route, near cape Tirol we had a day off and changed our schedule of travel to the cooler nights. The temperatures ranged between -10 C to +5-7 C.

From Wilchek Island we skied to the cape Tegetthof - a remarkable place first spotted by the ship "Tagetthof" in 1873. Next we headed north, along the Austrian Channel. An interesting part is that we skirted a big open lead in the middle stream of the Austrian channel: In his diary Payr made notes of the same open water lead - at the very same place - 130 years ago.

Sketchy ice surface, dog rides the sled

There are in fact permanent open leads (polynias) at FJL, caused by streams underneath. It's specific to the ice forming here and you have to be very careful when skiing - most of the time you are not able to tell how thick the ice is merely by is looking at its surface.

Even to me, in spite of my years of experience of travel on sea ice, it was a very uncomfortable feeling. We would ski on ice that looked perfectly good, but was in fact highly unsafe. We were passing areas of "breathing" ice, and the water level was moving up and down in open leads around us while we proceeded nearby.

That's where Robert went through and got his "Russian bath" as he would call it. Passing the iffy areas I would let Nanuk hitch a ride on top of my sled to avoid his falling through the thin ice.

210 km in 19 days on virgin expedition territory

Deteriorating ice conditions were part of the reason we were unable to reach our planned destination of Cape Fligeli on Rudolph Island; the northernmost point of the archipelago. The ice started to break down rapidly around Rudolph Island when we approached. Finally we decided to make a last Camp on May 18, on Torup Island 15 km south of the southern coast of Rudolph Island. We had covered 210 km in 19 days of travel.

April 20, a "Spark Air" helicopter flew out of Longyearbyen to Nagurskaya in a 3,5 hours flight. After refueling it picked us up. On May 23 we left Nagurskaya on a military plane for Murmansk and Moscow. It was a great expedition!

Franz Josef Land is the northernmost land area in Eurasia. It lies in the Arctic Ocean, only 900 km (559 mi) from the North Pole. Franz Josef Land was discovered in 1873 by K. Weyprecht and J. V. Payer while leading an Austrian-Hungarian North Pole expedition. It was named for the former Austrian emperor Franz-Josef I. It has been under Russian control since 1925.

Images courtesy of the expedition.

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