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Børge Ousland heads for Novaya Zemlya

Børge Ousland and Vincent Colliard will cross the biggest glaciers in the world, among them the one on the Severny Island at Novaya Zemlya.

The Norwegian polar explorer prepares to cross Europe’s biggest glacier, the Severny Island ice cap, on the heavily militarized Novaya Zemlya.

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The first person to ever reach the North Pole point alone and without getting underway supplies is preparing for another stunt. Børge Ousland this summer intends to cross the Severny Island ice cap, the glacier, which covers a major part of the Russian Novaya Zemlya.

The expedition is part of Ousland’s plan to cross the 20 biggest glaciers in the world before they melt away. With the expeditions, Ousland intends to attract public attention to the current dramatic shrinking of the word’s glaciers. “We are about to ruin Earth, we have to do something about it”, he stresses to NRK.

The expedition on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago appears to be Ousland’s first visit to the strictly closed Russian islands. In former expeditions, the adventurer has used other sites in the Russian Arctic, among them Cape Arctic, the northernmost point on the Komsomolets Island, in both 2004 and 2006. Later, in 2007, he also visited the Franz Josef Land after an expedition from the North Pole. In 2010, Ousland was part of a team which sailed through major parts of the Arctic, both the Northeast and the Northwest Passages. The three month expedition would have taken up to six years at the time of Roald Amundsen. 

The Severny Island ice cap covers about 40 percent of Severny Island, the northern part of the Novaya Zemlya. With its total area of about 20,500 square kilometer, it is the biggest in Europe. The expedition, which is named the IceLegacy, will be conducted together with the Frenchman Vincent Colliard.

In his preparations of the trip, Ousland will face a major challenge in getting the necessary permission from the Russian Armed Forces. The archipelago remains a strictly closed military area. More than 220 nuclear tests were conducted in the area in Soviet days, and the islands still host the Rogachevo military airport.