LONNIE DUPRE - EXPEDITION LEADER

During an arctic career spanning 25 years, Lonnie Dupre has traveled over 20,000 miles throughout the high arctic and polar regions by dog team, ski and kayak. His path has often followed in the footsteps of the Arctic explorers of the last century - Robert E. Peary, Roald Amundsen and Knud Rasmussen. Like them, Lonnie has lived and traveled with the Polar Inuit, learning from these hardy people and developing a deep appreciation for their culture and way of life.

Born in 1961 and raised on a Minnesota country farm, it was natural as a young boy to spend hours exploring every nook and cranny of the nearby woods and creeks. It may also have had something to do with family heritage - he is descended on his mother's side from Jacques Cartier, the French explorer and founder of Quebec. He also discovered in himself an affinity for Minnesota's cold winters, as he ice fished on nearby lakes at every opportunity. He came to prefer winter over summer.
Dupre is a survivor, no doubt about it. His demeanor is gentle, yet guarded – one never knows what is going on in his mind and the sense of mystery serves him well. It’s a rare gift to be able to retreat inside yourself so comfortably when you are consistently faced with incredible danger or prolonged solitude. 

As a younger man living in Minnesota, Lonnie wondered just how far "north" actually went. He began to look at maps and read everything he could about cold places and the people who lived there. Shortly out of high school, he loaded up his rundown pickup truck and left for Alaska on what was intended to be a three-week adventure. He wound up staying three years, making a living as a commercial salmon fisherman and carpenter. During that time, he and a companion flew into the remote reaches of the Brooks Range, planning to winter there. In the end, they had to snowshoe back to civilization with little more than the clothes on their backs. But by then, Lonnie was hooked on the Arctic.

In 1989, with the Cold War drawing to a close, he and 11 others completed a joint Russian/American 1,200 mile dog sled and ski expedition through the Russian far east to promote cooperation between the two superpowers. Striking out on his own in 1991, he organized and led the Northwest Passage Expedition, making a 3,000 mile, first, west to east transit of the Canadian Arctic route by dog sledge. In total, he has organized or participated in six major Arctic expeditions. Most recently, Lonnie and his teammate John Hoelscher of Australia became the first to circumnavigated Greenland. They have traveled 6,500 miles of the island's rugged coastline by dog team and kayak.

Following a failed attempt in 2005, 2006 saw Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen pulling and paddling modified canoes over 600 miles of shifting sea ice to the North Pole. This journey, called the One World Expedition, was the first to get to the Pole in the summer, and reached 68 million people worldwide on issues of global warming.

Dupre was awarded the Soviet Sportsman Medal for Arctic exploration in 1989 and was elected Fellow National of the Explorers Club in 1996. Upon completion of the Greenland Expedition, Dupre was keynote lecturer to the Fellows of the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has authored a book titled "Greenland Expedition - Where Ice is Born", and his expeditions have been featured in such varied publications as Reader' Digest, Sports Illustrated, Outside Magazine and Online, National Geographic Online, Backpacker, Australian Geographic, Sea Kayaker, Explorers Journal, Computer User, Lake Superior Magazine, Above and Beyond, Up Here, and Northwest Airline-World Traveler as well as international newspapers in Denmark, Canada, Greenland, Russia, Scandinavia, Japan, Spain and England.

In September 2004 Dupre was named one of five Rolex Laureates in a ceremony in Paris. The Rolex Awards for Enterprise are given every two years to provide visionary men and women worldwide with the financial support and recognition needed to carry out innovative projects, which expand human knowledge or improve the lot of mankind.
Lonnie radily confesses that the spirit of adventure is strong within his soul. So is his belief in ones ability to overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that may stand between an individual and their dream. The success of his arctic expeditions, with the extreme physical, mental and logistical hurdles they have represented, stand as testament to this . But even with all of his achievements, he remains very much that farm kid from Minnesota.

ERIC LARSEN - EXPLORER

Modern-day explorer, Eric Larsen’s life epitomizes adventure.  A polar explorer, dog musher, adventure racer and educator, he has spent the past 12 years of his life adventuring in some of the most remote and wild places left on earth. Totaled, Eric has traveled enough wilderness miles to circle the globe over two times.

They say 'youth is wasted on the young'. Not so in the case of Eric Larsen. He will extract every ounce of potential from the day and then go on to party well in to the night – only to repeat the entire process the very next day. One of the most gregarious people you will ever meet, Larsen is also incredibly athletic and has built up amazing stamina through intense running and biking hundreds of miles a week.  This gift for focus and commitment to the task at hand has sustained him through some very challenging times, emotionally and physically, on the ice.

And he is every girls' dream and nightmare. Quick with the laughs but always somewhere else, Larsen is an idealist wrapped inside a dreamer - a dreamer that will commit everything he has to achieve his goals.

On January 3rd 2009, Eric successfully led an international team to the South Pole - covering nearly 600 miles in 41 days. Eric is now one of only a few Americans in to have skied to both the North and South Poles.

In 2006, Eric and Lonnie Dupre completed the first ever summer expedition to the North Pole. During this journey, the duo pulled and paddled specially modified canoes over 600 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean. Eric's other expeditions include a 700-mile dog sled journey through northern Ontario, a six week dog sled journey in the barren lands of the Canadian Arctic, several training trips to Hudson Bay and countless dog sled races. He has also summited Mt. McKinley, cycled across the United States, been a back country ranger in Alaska, a white water canoe guide in Colorado and wilderness trip leader in Hawaii.

In 2008, Eric was elected as one of Outside Magazine's Eco All Stars. He was also inducted as a member of the prestigious Explorer's Club based in New York City. A gifted communicator, Eric travels extensively giving motivational and educational lectures to schools, universities, non profit organizations and corporate groups.  

Eric Larsen has recently constructed and launched the 'Save the Poles' expedition. He and his team members will travel to the North Pole, South Pole and the summit of Everest all in one year. The 'Save the Poles' expedition will journey to these last frozen places in attempt to tell their amazing story while promoting clean energy solutions to the problem of Climate Change.

MARK WARFORD - DIRECTOR and EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

An unrelated social call to Greenpeace’s Washington DC HQ put Mark Warford in the same place as the bewildered explorers. As Warford passed by a meeting room, a voice called out “Hey, Mark! Do you have a minute?”

Warford walked in to a sweltering room to be greeted by Dupre and Larsen, all smiles and outstretched hands as they got up and made their introductions. A young campaigner offered that Dupre and Larsen, visibly wilting in the DC summer heat, had dropped in to discuss a project they had cooked up to bring attention to global warming.

Dupre took a deep breath in the manner of someone that had repeated the same pitch over and over to complete strangers and to no avail, and said,

“We want to cross the Arctic Ocean in summer pulling modified canoes weighing over 350 lbs and…”

That was it. The one or two times in your life when you are hit with a clarity of purpose so real you can almost taste it just whacked Warford upside the head – out of nowhere.

Over the next two years, the three men and a dedicated team of activists would spearhead one of the greatest adventures of our time – and then they would do it all over again. Millions of people around the world would follow this extraordinary event. Passion would ingite, tempers would flare, sleep would be lost - and that was just in Washington DC. On the ice, a formidable, life-threatening challenge was being undertaken and only now will the true story be told.

Mark Warford is unique amongst his peers. A true renaissance man, his creative abilities put him at ease whether directing behind the camera the likes of Sir Anthony Hopkins or Harry Belafonte; composing music with the likes of Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and Joss Stone; being nominated as an international environmental ambassador along with Bishop Desmund Tutu; desert racing vintage motorcycles; flying planes and helicopters or even being detained by the Kazakhstan KGB for exposing corruption and human rights abuses.  Warford’s tenure with Greenpeace International throughout the 1990’s awakened a deeper connection with fighting wrong doing on all fronts. Along with dedicated colleagues, exposing Russia’s largest oil spill, halting the export of shipments of toxic waste to the developing world and facing 20 years in a Chinese prison for conducting an illegal nuclear protest was and is still no deterrent to raising his voice on issues that really matter.

Turning a project to cross the ArcticOcean in summer into an issue of global importance was to be a challenging undertaking. Getting back on board with Greenpeace as a senior director, Warford saw the missing link – these two honest American voices witnessing firsthand the disappearing wilderness of the Arctic due to climate change had the potential to make this gigantic issue palatable to the general public - something scientists and politicians had failed to achieve. But this was an adventure story first and foremost, not a political message. This was a story that would unfold and evolve naturally and honestly. That is where the message would come from. These guys were risking their lives, partly because it's what they do and partly because they feel they had no choice.