Global Edventure 3rd Leg Canadian Arctic Report

Global Edventure 3rd Leg Canadian Arctic has ended at 82:13N, 68:02W, leaving 200km to Ward-Hunt Island, with the spring break up that came a few weeks earlier than expected. From now on, we intend to do our best to talk with the people of all over the world about the facts of the Arctic we have witnessed in this adventure. I strongly wish everyone would regard the reality of the today's Arctic, and decide what we choose for the future.

Mitsuro Ohba
At 82:13N, 68:02W
10:24 June 2nd 2008

Our Footsteps are as follows:

The purpose of Global Edventure 3rd Leg Canadian Arctic was to walk 1,570Km from Resolute to Ward-Hunt Island of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, and experience, analyze and report the Canada's Arctic environment in comparison with 3 years ago. We wanted to see with our own eyes what is really happening in this corner of the world now, and how it is affecting the wildlife, people who live there in this changing environment.

March 6th, in 40 below temperature, Mitsuro Ohba and Tetsuji Nagatani departed Resolute - a village of Inuit located at 74:43N, 94:55W. March 26th, on the course, having reached to the limit of his strength, and suffering from fatigue and frost bite Nagatani was forced to pull out. Thereafter, Ohba has been traveling alone, stopping only at Grise Fiord - Norther-most community of Canada located at N76:25, W82:49(April 15), and on Eureka Weather Station located at N79:59, W85:49(May 9).

Noriko Miyashita and Izuru Toki were at the base camps, and while they were supporting the expedition team in daily work of collecting information, resupplying , communications, Miyashita earnestly visited communities of Inuit people and documented their life and culture through our Web-site journal, and Toki went out to the frozen wilderness and photographed its sheer beauty of the vast landscape and wildlife.

At the same time, we communicated by satellite phone more than 30 times in total with school children in Japan, Dubai, Costa Rica and Germany, and discussed about the reality of Canada's Arctic. Ohba also spent time with people of Grise Firod, talking about his journey, changing environment of their local community. There was an occasion when the school children of Girse Fiord and those of Mituzawa Elementary school in Japan conversed each other over the phone, exchanging questions.

On May 29th, Ohba tried to reach the pass on the way to Ward-Hunt Island through a glacier lake. But the creeks were flooding with melting ice of glaciers and ice caps, overflowing on the top of the ice of the lake. Both sides of his route were sheer cliffs. It was not possible to go farther with his sled. At the base camp, analyzing the satellite pictures confirmed rapid thawing of the land day by day as the spring was coming fast.
May 31st, after considering all the information about the route, we concluded that it would not be realistic to continue walking with sled all the way to Ward-Hunt Island. Ohba had been hurrying his way to race with the spring, but it came earlier than we had hoped.

Expedition part of Global Edventure in Canadian Arctic has come to an end. Our journey, however, to send messages to people about the Arctic will continue. Through symposiums and lectures, etc., Ohba will be talking about what he has seen and experienced with his own body, Nagatani will be informing any findings of his study on snow, Miyashita will be reporting the life and culture of the Inuit people, and Toki will be showing the images of the land and its living creatures in this harsh environment.
We will appreciate your continuous support for this on-going journey.

Last but not least, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those who have been supporting this project such as Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan Ministry of Environment, Embassy of Canada in Japan, Canadian Tourism Bureau and other governmental organizations, all the private sponsors who's generous contributions were essential, all the individual people who also helped us financially, all the children and teachers of the pilot schools and also all of you who gave us encouraging messages through our web-site.
We feel truly fortunate to have 'walked' Canada's Arctic together with you all. Thank you again

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from all the members of Global Edventure - Journey in Canadian Arctic:
Leader: Mitsuro Ohba
Team member: Tetsuji Nagatani, Izuru Toki, Noriko Miyashita,
Secretariat: Kousuke Horiuchi, Mamoru Kobayashi