British explorer Hannah McKeand set out on Saturday from Canada's Ward Hunt Island in an attempt to become the first woman to reach the North Pole alone and unaided.
McKeand, who in 2006 became the fastest person to ski unsupported to the South Pole, is expected to take 60 days to cover the 478 miles (770 km) from Canada's northern coast to the pole, where temperatures can dip to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit).
"She was in remarkable spirits with no hint of nerves or pressure," said McKeand's expedition manager Steve Jones in an e-mail sent to Reuters.
"Sang-froid of arctic proportions." After gaining a degree in Classics at Lampeter University, the 34-year-old McKeand worked for the Watermill Theatre in Newbury in central England for seven years before she got the exploring bug. She was flown to the expedition's start from Resolute by plane, which touched down on the Ward Hunt ice shelf after it had been unable to land on the designated landing strip.
On her trip McKeand will have to negotiate the frozen Arctic Ocean -- the floating ice can crumble and pile up into long ridges as high as a house -- by skiing, walking and swimming, when she will have to don a specially designed dry suit. Carrying all her equipment, including pepper spray and a shot gun to ward off polar bears, and provisions on a 120-kg sled, she expects to burn up to 8000 calories a day -- the equivalent of running a marathon every day.
To compensate for her expected weight loss over the next two months, McKeand has put on three-and-a-half stone in preparation for the trip.
"I've seen her in action -- she's been eating like a horse," said Clive Allen, a spokesman for McKeand. Her provisions include a mixture of freeze dried meals and high calorie snacks such as chocolate, fudge, cheese, butter, salami, nuts as well as oil. Five years ago Pen Hadow, then 41, became the first person to reach the North Pole unaided from Canada. Dubbed the "Human Icebreaker" because he swam through shattered ice sheets,
Hadow was stranded for eight days on floating ice by bad weather after he had completed his expedition. Kenn Borek Air, the company that flew him to safety, said he had put its pilots in danger by mounting his expedition so late in the year. Hadow was rescued at the end of May, though if McKeand's solo expedition keeps to its schedule she should reach her destination early in May.