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QIKIQTARJUAQ/BROUGHTON ISLAND - A scientific survey team was in Qikiqtarjuaq last month preparing themselves and their equipment for the extreme conditions they'll face on their way to the North Pole.

Expedition director and head surveyor Pen Madow, left, is the first man to trek solo to the North Pole without re-supply. Photographer Martin Hartley, right, is an award-winning expedition photographer with 19 trips to the Arctic or Antarctic under his belt. - photo courtesy of Joanne Dignard

The Catlin Arctic Survey team will travel roughly 1,200 km, moving constantly north until they reach the pole itself, surveying the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean as they go.

The team was in Qikiqtarjuaq for two weeks practising with their equipment and in physical training.

Gary Arnaqoq, the son of a Qikiqtarjuaq outfitter who has been helping the team, checked out some of the clothing the team will be wearing later in the expedition as summer's warmth reaches even the farthest reaches of the Arctic Ocean.

"I tried one of them on when my mother was sewing fur onto the hood. It was the lightest parka I've ever worn in my life," he said.

Qikiqtarjuarmiut clam divers strapped on their scuba gear and helped the team as its members drilled in how to get out of the water if they fall through the ice.

The crew tested watercraft, diving equipment and scientific instrumentation, much of which is technology new to Arctic exploration. They will carry a portable radar system for measuring ice thickness and shapes, advanced new communications gear to keep the team in touch with the rest of the world and new, lightweight batteries to keep it all running.

"The amount of information we'll be sending back is one of the extraordinary things about this expedition," said expedition manager Rebecca Duckworth.

Previous Arctic expeditions have had to accept being cut off from civilization because there simply wasn't any way to maintain communications in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Using a new global satellite network, the team will be able to have telephone conversations and send photos, videos and scientific data.

Three veteran Arctic explorers will make the actual trek, supplied by air from Resolute Bay. The team is headed so far away they'll set up floating support bases as fuel depots to allow the plane to travel far enough to carry the supplies they'll need.

During the roughly 100 days of the journey the team will take measurements of sea ice, which will be added to the body of knowledge scientists have on the Arctic. The data will be useful in computer models to estimate the effects of climate change.