Thus it was Saturday at 05.30 in the morning that Rune Gjeldens and Torry Larsen set foot on the North American continent, at Cape Discovery on Ellsmere Island, to be exact (83°04'41"N & 77°00'19"W). Having crossed the Arctic Ocean in 109 days in total independence - let us remind those that do not know it already (and they are more numerous than one might think) that the Arctic is an ocean covered by pack ice whereas the Antarctic is a genuine continent. To summarise the expedition's last moments: Rune and Torry had been forcing the pace since Friday morning - after already progressing 24-hours non stop and going without sleep for the Tuesday/Wednesday night. Having come within view of the Canadian shores at the level of Cape Discovery, they found their path blocked by a 200-metre wide stretch of open water. Beyond it lay deliverance, the explosion of the dream, and an end to all the nightmares… They spent hours trying to cross it but without their sledges it was difficult. Even impossible, the communiqué said, because of the enormous amount of floating and unstable blocks of ice that were surrounding this unfrozen area of sea. You can imagine the adventurers' frustration! They found themselves just 200 metres from their goal, with no fuel, no rations, no water, and with only two cigarettes remaining.

It was then that the aeroplane that was coming to look for them appeared in the sky: after it had landed - on terra firma rather than on the pack ice - a somewhat surrealist exchange of words began, according to the communiqué, between the people who had come to collect the survivors, and the latter themselves, who did not know what to do to get to the group.
Finally, the plane took off again to set down on the pack ice, some 200 metres away, and to rescue the men who had just covered a total distance of 1,914 km in 109 days in unimaginable conditions.

A final detail perhaps to bring the retransmissions of this polar expedition to a close: I went to Paris last week for the purpose of meeting the people from the Cercles Polaires Expéditions, - Nicolas Maingasson and Christian de Marliave, among others, who not only organise tourist travel to the North Pole from Siberia for the tour operators that sell the product, but also take care of the logistics of the polar expeditions that choose Siberia as their starting point for crossing the Arctic - it was they that managed the entire Norwegian expedition, for example, and the French one as well. Nicolas and Christian - who were at the North Pole when the Frenchmen and the Norwegians arrived there - explained to me that, when they had wanted to approach the tent of Rune and Torry to greet them, simply to say hello, the latter had declined all contact with the group and asked them to go away, as the autonomy of the project obliged them to.
Further proof - and we have already spoken about it - that these two fellows from the Norwegian North are more than probably fabulous lads, complete and authentic.
WELL DONE, LADS ! HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ACHIEVEMENT...

2 June

The unfolding of the final stages of this expedition was distinctly less problematical than what happened with the French. In effect, Rune and Torry found themselves, on this 02 June 2000, just 50 kilometres from their goal, and in the flash on the homepage we announced, that same day at 07.00 in the morning, that they had caught their first glimpse of the mountains of Resolute Bay. A sight they had been waiting for since 12 February! One can imagine what was going on in their minds at that moment…..
There was however one final piece of suspense, which could have jeopardised, not the success of this great crossing, but its notion of autonomy. And it is well known how punctilious the world of polar explorers can be when it is a matter of awarding a team the added ingredient of "without resupply".
To explain: That morning, they had about 50 km to cover, but in their bags they had food for only 12 hours. The terrain was increasingly difficult (chaotic blocks of ice, hummocks, open water) and Torry, in his morning communiqué, reckoned that setting foot on Ellesmere Island would take at least a further 24 hours of walking (or skiing). Which would leave them a dozen hours of rugged work without being able to partake of a single calorie. Other news, later in the evening probably.
02 June 21.00: no other news since just now.
02 juin 9pm : pas d'autres nouvelles depuis tout à l'heure.

 22 May

Rune and Torry are going through hell on earth. The big news of the second part of this expedition since our last report of 12 May is that the two Norwegians decided, on 13 May, to abandon their sledges. And to put everything they needed into their rucksacks.
So they left on the Arctic ice their best ground mattresses, for example (luckily they had a spare one, but far less comfortable than the other), and their thermos flasks. From now on they would use their urine bottles for carrying the drink they would be needing during the day!!!

Which means that for ten or so days, Rune and Torry have been advancing on the pack ice with their rucksacks weighing about 45 kilos each. This new way of progressing was naturally causing them a fair amount of problems: their bodies had become so thin, they said, that there was no longer an ounce of fat on them and they were obliged to cut strips from their ground mattresses to place them between the straps of the rucksacks and their backs. The load was so heavy that once they were harnessed up in the morning, they did not unload their rucksacks for the entire day.

Needless to say, their morale was at its lowest. And the situation was going to get worse. On the one hand, as we have just seen, there was the pain caused by carrying such heavy loads: Rune's right thigh had been paralysed since 19 May, doubtless because of the straps that were blocking the blood circulation. Torry, for his part, could hardly use his hands, which were also suffering from intermittent paralysis. "The rucksack", Torry explained, "is probably pressing on some nerve or something similar at the side of my shoulders, and I have no use of my hands for most of the day…" Furthermore, there are the conditions of progress in wet, deep snow, piled up by the wind, on which it is practically impossible to ski. That, on top of the drift of the pack ice (negative, naturally) which sometimes causes them to lose a whole day's walk.
Then, in front of them, they are confronted more and more frequently by chaotic heaps of ice blocks, inside which moreover the two men no longer dare to go: vulnerable as they are, they are too afraid of breaking a limb. The icing on the cake was the breaking of a ski on 20 May. That obliged Torry to make use of his last spare ski.
Despite that, and notwithstanding the whiteout that settled on the pack ice on the 21st, they explained yesterday that their morale was a little better. They were in effect approaching 85°. From the calculation of the positions as communicated by their website (86°13'23"N / 85°34'00"W, on 21 May), they should only have about 400 km to go. But is such conditions, that's one hell of a challenge…