An Era Ending
Eric Larsen is an explorer, guide, and environmental educator. He has spent the past 25 years traveling through and to some of the Earth's most extreme environments. In the process, Larsen has completed more polar expeditions than any other American. He presented his Last North Expedition to attendees at an outdoor adventure conference.
A decade prior, Eric Larsen and a companion reached the North Pole, completing an unsupported 480-mile land-to-pole expedition trekking from Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere. The journey could easily be called one of the most difficult to envision and execute as the pack ice in the Arctic is diminishing rapidly from changing polar climatic conditions. The trek may be one of the last of its kind due to the thinning pack ice.
Last North Expedition map, May 2014 (credit: Eric Larsen Explore)
Larsen's presentation, Colder, is a dramatic retelling of this expedition with added stories from two decades of extreme travel by the Colorado-based explorer. From first-hand accounts, he shared how a once vast frozen wilderness areas is being altered by global heating. In the past when asked why attempt a remote expedition, adventurers would quip, because it's there. Larsen's reason stands in stark contrast and may be more simple: because it might not be there any longer. WHB