Why did we sign?

1. Learn to survive at -20°C
2. Hands-on climate change research
3. Rifles, Flares and Polar Bears
4. Summit your first snow covered Arctic peaks
5. Experience the midnight sun and transformation of the spring melt

10 weeks camping in the Arctic wilderness, 15 Young Explorers and 7 leaders will depart on 2nd April 2009.

Scientific Fieldwork

The Extreme Arctic expedition to Svalbard in Spring is to run for the next 4 years. The plan is to build data year on year to establish a body of knowledge in specific regions. This means that the main body of the fieldwork will be repeat science (although there will be ample opportunity for other projects of interest). By empoying this method, we hope to build a picture of the region as an indicator for the whole of Svalbard and wider environments.

The main areas of interest are to be glacial mapping using differential GPS (accurate to 2cm), spring melt surge studies and ornithological surveys of indicator species of Svalbard.

Please click below to access the interactive pdf fieldwork report from the 2008 Extreme Arctic expedition.

Open publication - Free publishing - More youth

Extreme Arctic 2010

This expedition will be running again next year to enable us to conduct year on year fieldwork and build up a body of knowledge.

We are now taking applications for next years expedition as well as for 2009 summer expeditions:

Peruvian Amazon - Indian Himalaya - Greenland adventure - Arctic Kayaking

If you are between 16-23 and up for a potentially life-changing challenge, download an application form HERE

It could be you next year!

Storm at base Camp 1

Showing the set up at BC 1 in 2008, Ade Harris the Chief Leader talks us through the camp in some relatively testing conditions...

Expedition Sponsors

Our most sincere thanks go out all of our sponsors for their generosity and efforts that has helped make this expedition possible:

Thank you to Tentipi who kindly sponsored a Safir 9 to BSES for use on this expedition. The leader team highly recommend this tent for it's stability, ease of erection and practical use in testing conditions.

Leica Geosystems are one of the World's foremost providers of solutions for mapping, surveying and monitoring. Leica have generously loaned BSES an RTK DGPS system for use in our glacial mapping project.

The exploration team will be taking Primula squeezy cheese on their expedition. Due to Primula's convenient packaging, the cheese can be consumed straight from the tube and caried easily.

A leading supplier of GIS software and data, ESRI are a long term supporter of BSES and they are supporting this expedition also with their ARC GIS software and mapping data.

After finding our flowmeter to be a financial write off, Geopacks generously came to the rescue by sponsoring a brand new one for our melt water fieldwork.



The RSPB have kindly loaned the expediiton several pairs of binoculars from their second hand scheme. These will be put to great use in our Geese survey fieldwork. Please support this project if you are able.




Amersham Field Centre is part of the Field Studies Council (FSC), an environmental charity with 17 centres around the UK offering resdential and day visits for students. The FSC kindly loaned several waders to keep the team dry during the melt project.

Support BSES

BSES is a youth development charity that has been running fieldwork expeditions since 1932. Our work simply wouldn't be possible without our funders, supporters and fantastic volunteer leaders.

If you feel you would like to contribute towards expeditions in future years and help more young people develop into more rounded individuals, you can do so by clicking the link below.

If you would like to support our charity, any amount large or small will be greatly appreciated. To find out more about BSES use the links on the right hand side.

Click below to donate now. Thank You!

Expedition Info

Click the interactive pdf below to read a brief overview of this year's extreme Arctic expedition:

Read more about the expedition on the BSES website - CLICK HERE

Open publication - Free publishing - More youth

Team Svalbard 2009

A BSES expedition is formed of one or more 'fires'. A Fire is a group of people that historically would hold 12 people in total as this was the number that the founding member of the society, Surgeon Commander George Murray Levick , believed fitted best around a camp fire.

The new fire lists as of May 29th 2009 are as follows:

Rype

Ade Harris (Chief Leader)
Jackie Harris (Base Camp Manager)

Polarrev Pat Lurcock (mountain Leader) Lucy Bruzzone (Science Leader) Emily McKie Joe Jones Ash Sethia Sarah Phillips James Settrey Mark Kittle Herpreet Bhamra Adrian Halilaj-Everguard

Isbjorn Richard Payne (Mountain Leader) Lucy Dickinson (Doctor) Helen Jewell (Science Leader) Jamie Worsley Jamie Logie Christian Moore Ben Holmes Pippa Sellars Steve Scribbins Fay Done