April 28, 2005

Message from Mitsuro Ohba

We safely returned home on April 20 from the 2nd stage of Global EdVenture in Arctic Canada. We could not traverse all the routes we had planned, but we were able to carry out the objective of the journey which is to convey what we saw and felt with various themes, such as natural environment, global warming phenomena, ethnic culture, etc. To do so we had question-and-answer sessions with pilot school students via Iridium satellite phone on a weekly basis. Pilot schools participated worldwide from Japan, Russia, Norway, and Canada, and I believe we were able to heighten the awareness on the global environmental issues. In particular, students at King George School raised many questions and demonstrated the high level of interest in environmental education. Pilot schools in Japan had a spring break and could not have much opportunity to talk with us, so I intend to continue the phone discussion or to visit the schools to talk directly with the students.

The Russian member Mr. Stepan Gvozdev photographed wonderful pictures, which were then placed along with interesting information on the website by Mr. Akihisa Iwata at Tokyo office. The Norwegian member Mr. Håvard Haugan also shot videos under extreme cold weather. I intend to use these materials for educational purposes by making available on various public events or through the media such as TV.

The expedition team encountered many problems and could not go the full distance of the planned route. The temperature in March at high latitude 83 north dropped near -50 degrees Celsius, the sledding was extremely bad, and the deep snow caused us troubles. The mountains in Ellesmere Island were too steep to go with the heavy sleds, and the glaciers were blocking our way. We were forced to give up our march through Ellesmere.

We flew by a chartered flight to Eureka where we had deposited fuel and food in advance. There we made preparation for the 2nd start. With renewed energy we resumed our expedition, but on the way one of us had a medical problem and we as a team flew on an emergency flight to Resolute Bay for his treatment. Thankfully his medical condition was not serious. Looking back, we had walked only 315km out of the 1700km route between Ward Hunt Island and Resolute Bay. The rest of the distance which is 1385km was traveled by air. This was a drastic change to the original plan. As a result we could not transmit as much local information as we wanted on the way. Due to the severe natural conditions and medical problem we flew twice and it became difficult financially also to continue the expedition. So I thought it was the best to stop the expedition now at Resolute Bay and try again the next time.

Twenty years ago when I solo-trekked Canada's Arctic region, I experienced severe cold weather and almost everyday there were blizzards. But during this expedition there were almost no blizzards, and many days it was calm, spring-like weather. I strongly felt the steady progress of global warming. From the view point of the expedition, the lack of wind meant we could not travel as we planned. We had prepared to travel by ski sailing utilizing wind power. It was a big miscalculation which resulted in not being able to cover much distance.

I will utilize this experience to the next expedition, and I am thinking to come back to Arctic Canada as a part of Global EdVenture to complete the route through the region. I would like to thank you for your heartwarming guidance and support. Please continue to support us Global EdVenture. Thank you very much.

Mitsuro Ohba
Leader
Global EdVenture