Four 13-year old kids on Tuesday raised their arms and cheered as they arrived at the North Pole. The expedition, Norway’s youngest ever, spent six days on their walk across the ice to the center point of the Arctic, Nrksuper.no reports.
“Wow, its cool to write history”, Johannes, one of the partcipants, says as he and the other teenagers plant a project flag at 90 degrees north.
The project Expedition Nansen, organized by Norwegian broadcaster NRK, was initiated in 2014 and aims at raising awareness about challenges in the Arctic. The group, two girls and two boys, has during the project period taken part in research activities at Svalbard as well as at the drifting vessel “Lance”. In December, the project will end with the four kids’ participation in the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Johanne, Erika, Johannes and Elias started training already early fall. They made the 111 km to the North Pole point in only six days, four days quicker than planned. The group has followed the footsteps of Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen from the 1890s.
“I am really happy about making it”, says Johanne Jerijærvi from Kirkenes. She was selected among several hundred project applicants.
NRK has widely covered the project on their website. The expedition is to become a TV series called Mission Nansen, aired in January 2016 on the children’s channel NRK Super.
