Introduction
1C warmer than we had seen at the base of the ridge, suggesting that the large
gap in the ridge shown in the charts does not exist. We had also observed
sediment-laden ice ("dirty ice") throughout the long northward track, from
the ice edge in the Chukchi Sea to the North Pole, indicating that sediment
incorporated in the ice on the shallow continental shelves is transported hun-
dreds of kilometers across the Arctic.
Meanwhile, on the 17th we had had ice reconnaissance by a long-range
Canadian aircraft, and on the 19th, while the ships remained on station on
the ridge, we flew a 215-nautical-mile helicopter reconnaissance flight over
the intended track. These showed very heavy ice at the location of our intended
crossing point of the Lomonosov Ridge to the east, so we decided to continue
northward on the section we were on and then return along an alternative
route that would recross the ridge farther south. From there we would attempt
to get onto the eastern flank of the Alpha Ridge to do seismic work and addi-
tional piston coring before continuing both these and our many other planned
programs on the long voyage back to Alaska.
However, this was not to be, for shortly after starting northward down the
steep ridge flank, early Sunday morning on the 21st of August, and about 50
nautical miles from the Pole, the Polar Sea lost one of its four blades on the
starboard propeller. Divers also sighted some damage to the blades on the center-
line and port shafts. These casualties required that the expedition take the
shortest route out of the ice, which was toward Svalbard. Our intended sec-
tion northward took us in that direction, and since we had already surveyed
that route by helicopter and knew it to be feasible, we decided to continue on our
course. That same afternoon a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 aircraft from Kodiak
dropped spare parts for our satellite receiver. At 0230 Monday morning, Alaska
standard time, we reached our next science station at 90N, the first North Amer-
ican surface ships to do so, and the first surface ships ever to do it directly over the
long unexplored route from the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Our station at
the Pole took 28 hours, as we fully deployed every sampling program. Not
only could we compare conditions with those found three years earlier by
Swedish and German investigators, but we could add a great many new meas-
urements (for example, the concentration and distribution of a great variety of
The last few hours before we arrived at the Pole, we had seen a large ship on
the horizon. The ship, which proved to be the Russian nuclear icebreaker Yamal,
had stopped in the ice about 20 nautical miles from the Pole to produce a chil-
dren's television program. The Yamal planned to sail south along our intended
track the next day, coincident with the shortest route out of the ice and the one
that we needed to take because of the loss of one of Polar Sea's propeller blades.
At 0800 on the 23rd we got underway toward Yamal 's position, 20 nautical
miles to the southeast. Before noon an extraordinary rendezvous took place as the
icebreakers of the three largest Arctic nations--Russia, Canada and the United
5
Previous Page
