01 of May 2007 Fedor Konyukhov started from the east coast of Greenland with intention to cross the Ice Cap from Isortoq (east coast) to Ilulissat (west coast) on dog sled. His is accompanied by experienced dog driver and hunter from the west coast Hans Aronsen (in Greenland solo expeditions on the Ice Cap are not permitted). The distance they will have to cover is around 800 km. The idea was to complete the crossing from sea coast to sea coast without helicopter lifts or use of snowmobile. The crossing supposes to take up to 20 days, subject to weather.

Fedor is mushing 9 dogs with the sled fully loaded at 300 kg and Hand is managing 16 dogs that pulling 400 kg sled across the Ice Cap.

As on 05 of May the 2 dog teams climbed up to 1800 meters above sea level and covered 90 km in total. They have to storm one day in the tent, due to force 6 storm on the Ice Cap and hard blizzard.

The crossing the Ice Cap from East to West on dog sled is the first step forward to the major 3 years dog sled expedition across Inuit Native Land in the whole Arctic region: Greenland – Canada – Alaska – Siberia (Chukotka) in order to unite all 4 cultures of Inuit’s. The expedition will have an Inuit dog driver from each country. Something that Knud Rasmussen in 1930-s wanted to achieve but was stopped by the Soviet Government at the US/USSR border and was not allow to cross the Bering Straight and enter Chukotka region.

Nowadays Chukotka is governed by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich who showed some interest in supporting such an expedition.

The main expedition will have 3 legs that should be covered in 3 seasons: Greenland (from Ilulissat) to Canada, Canada to Alaska and Alaska to Chukotka.

More details to come after Isortoq – Ilulissat crossing 2007 is completed.

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