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Expedition
Generali Arctic Observer
Access the sitefinal act of a trilogy | April 2010 After reaching the North Pole by pulling his own sled for 63 days (1986), and drifted on the ice pack for four months aboard the Polar Observer (2002), Jean-Louis Etienne decided to embark on a 3500 km balloon journey crossing the Arctic Ocean solo : Spitzbergen, the North Pole, Alaska. By this daring journey, he wants to draw the world’s attention to the global climate chaos that would result from the disappearance of the Arctic ice pack.
On April 5, 2010 at 3 am, router Luc Trullemans gave Jean-Louis Etienne the weather go-ahead to take off from Spitzbergen aboard a “rozière”, a helium/hot-air hybrid balloon. When he was in the vicinity of the North Pole, a storm drove the balloon towards Siberia where he would land after 5 days of an exhausting journey filled with mishaps : almost zero visibility, an electrical failure, flying only 200m above the ice pack and risking of running aground, insomnia, fire on a burner and a brain edema at an altitude of 5000m, before he finally reached Siberia !
Even though the wind pushed him out of the way he had set, Jean-Louis Etienne managed to complete the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean in a balloon.
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Expedition
Total Pole Airship
Access the siteRussian Ice Station Barneo, located at 89°N | April 2007 The aim of the Total Pole Airship expedition, which was among the activities organised for the International Polar Year 2007-2008, was to measure the thickness of the sea ice that covers the Arctic Ocean. The plan was to fly across the ocean from one edge to the other, via the North Pole, in a dirigible with a special apparatus (EM-Bird) slung beneath it to measure the thickness of the ice.
During April 2007, the EM-Bird was trialled in the Arctic to calibrate the apparatus (i.e. ‘ground-truth’ the measurements is gave). A small (200m x 60m) section of sea ice crossed by a compression peak was chosen for the calibration, and a helicopter overflew the ice with the EM-Bird slung underneath. The ice thickness given by the EM-Bird was then compared with measurements derived using 3D topography. But our expedition came to an abrupt end when the actual dirigible was destroyed in a storm during trial flights.
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Expedition
Clipperton
Access the sitePacific Ocean | December 2004-April 2005 Clipperton, the only coral atoll in the eastern Pacific, boasts one of the least perturbed island ecosystems anywhere in the world, and this makes it very important from a scientific and natural-heritage point of view. The aim of this expedition, which brought together a multi-disciplined team of researchers, was to do a “state of Nature” study of this little-known atoll: identification, population and origin of all species present; distribution of biodiversity in the Pacific; study of past climate and response to present environmental impacts, search for new active principles.
Today, this kind of inventory is more necessary than ever if we are to understand the threats to biodiversity and the major balances of our planet, and take measures to counter those threats.
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Mission Banquise
Access the siteNorth Pole | April-July 2002 I ‘set up house’ on the sea ice at the North Pole in April 2002 and began a drift journey that was to take me to the northeast of Greenland. The drift-speed of my section of sea ice depended on the wind and the state of the ice, and it could be anywhere between 5 and 20 km per day. After three months of being driven by wind and current on my ice floe, I was picked up as planned by an ice breaker that came to meet me in early July 2002.
During my drift, I carried out a programme of observations and measurements involving: meteorology, the atmosphere, the sea ice, the Arctic Ocean, marine life under the pack ice, the Arctic fauna, i.e. a whole set of data concerning the Arctic ecosystem and its evolution in the current context of climate change and pollution that are causing so much concern today.
The Mission Banquise website is a veritable “polar encyclopaedia” that will provide a better understanding of the Arctic.
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Spitzbergen
Access the siteNorth Pole | November 1995-June 1996 This mission involved a trial wintering aboard the sailing vessel Antarctica as preparation for my “Arctic drift”. The plan here was to drift right across the Arctic Ocean aboard a boat trapped in the sea ice and driven by the Transpolar current running from the Bering Strait towards the east coast of Greenland, via the North Pole.
After sailing around Spitzbergen, Antarctica was immobilised for the winter in a very sheltered bay protected by Van Mijen Fjord, on the western side of the island. The days rapidly grew shorter and the boat became stuck fast in the ice, which soon reached a thickness of 1 metre. As expected, the purpose-designed hull lifted the boat slightly to avoid it being crushed by the ice. We settled down for the three-month long winter’s night. Everyone on board had a clearly-defined role: boat maintenance; plankton samples; measurements and population counts outside; radio contact… In February, when daylight returned, the crew went on ski-hikes across the rugged valleys of ice. In March, the whole crew took part in an oceanographic programme in the nearby fjords. And in May, after being held fast for eight months, the Antarctica finally regained her freedom.
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Erebus
Access the siteAntarctica | December 1993-March 1994 Mount Erebus in Antarctica rises at the landward end of a deep indentation in the Ross Sea coastline. It is an active volcano whose crater, 3,794 metres high, contains a lake of molten lava. In 1974, Haroun Tazieff and his team attempted to climb down into the crater to collect samples of the lava, but they were driven back by the dangerous hyperactivity of the volcano. During our Erebus mission, we were to walk in the footsteps of this famous French vulcanologist. On 11 December 1993 we left Hobart, in Tasmania. During the crossing to Antarctica our three scientists began taking their daily samples of air and seawater. After ten days at sea we reached the Ross Sea, but it was covered in dense sea ice and Antarctica found it very hard to force a passage through. It took us more than three weeks to reach the foot of the volcano. It then took the expedition ten days to climb to the summit of the crater, where the scientists were met by another disappointment: the crater had been torn apart by explosions and rock slides and the lake of lava at the bottom proved inaccessible. We did manage to lower some equipment down into the crater to take and analyse gas samples, but we were unable to reach the lava ourselves. 
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Antarctica
Access the siteSailing the Southern Ocean | August 1991-February 1992 On its way to and from the icy continent, Antarctica met a wide variety of marine life, essentially fauna. The whole crew was astounded by the wildlife on South Georgia, a small island dominated by mountains and glaciers and with a coastline jagged by deep fjords. Apart from a team British scientists there to study the geology, biology, meteorology and oceanography, this island kingdom is inhabited only by animals, ranging from sea-lions, seals and sea-elephants to the more than 30 species of birds (penguins, albatrosses, petrels...).
On 6 August, Antarctica left the Valdes peninsula in Argentina to go whale-watching, then we headed for the Falklands, a British possession whose inhabitants are mostly fishermen and sheep farmers. After making our way through the Straits of Magellan, past Patagonia and the ill-reputed Cape Horn, we set course for South Georgia, a natural paradise for the fauna of the Southern Ocean, and then headed towards Antarctica. After meeting our first icebergs, Antarctica tried to call in at the Orkneys but they were inaccessible because of ice, so we set course for the South Shetlands before finally reaching Antarctica. The expedition finally regained Patagonia on 17 January after six months of sailing particularly difficult waters.
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Patagonia
Access the sitePatagonia | 1982 and 1991 Mountain climbing (1982) Jean-Louis Etienne’s first expedition to the mountains of Patagonia was in 1975. Then in 1982 he returned aboard Gauloise III for a new sea-and-mountains expedition. The aim of the expedition was to climb to the top of Riso Patron, a mountain that is accessible only from the sea. There is only one known photo of the summit, because the winds blowing in from the Pacific bring continuous cloud cover. The expedition team was grounded by bad weather for ten days and was unable to reach the summit, but they did manage to make the first crossing of the Hielo Continental, an immense glacier separating the Pacific Ocean from the Andes mountains.
Marine exploration (September 1991) During this expedition aboard his sailing vessel Antarctica, Jean-Louis Etienne explored the channels lying between Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, rounding Cape Horn as well, in order to make a series of films for an educational series on the southern regions of the Earth. During the expedition, the crew met crustacean fishermen working the Geronimo fjord and then set course for Puerto Misericordia to explore the wreck of the Santiago, which ran aground more than a century earlier.
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Transantarctica
Access the siteAntarctic | Juillet 1989 › Mars 1990 Antarctic / July 1989-March 1990. This was the largest-ever international expedition to cross the continent using dog sleds. Members of the expedition were Will Steger (United States), Jean-Louis Etienne (France), Viktor Boyarsky (USSR), Chin Daho (China), Geoff Sumer (Britain) and Keizo Funatsu (Japan).
On 25 July 1989 the team set off from the tip of the Antarctic peninsula on a venture never before attempted: a 6,300-kilometre crossing of the “white desert”. The convoy comprised three dog sleds (12 dogs each) carrying provisions and equipment, with the men skiing alongside the sleds. The expedition covered an average of 33 kilometres per day for the trip. On 11 December 1989 it reached the American Amundsen-Scott base at the South Pole, and by early February the team had reached Russia’s Vostok base, the coldest place on Earth. On 3 March, after a crossing lasting seven months, the expedition arrived at Mirny station on the east coast of the continent.
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Greenland
Access the siteGreenland | July › August 1979 and April › May 1988 Marine exploration (July and August 1979)
This was the first polar expedition organised by Jean-Louis Etienne. On 14 July 1979 a team of mountain climbers and seamen set off for Greenland aboard the vessel Japy-Hermes. The aim of the expedition was to reach the summits of a number of mountains in the Umanak region, to the north of Disko Island on the west coast.
Overland crossing (April and May 1988)
In 1988, Jean-Louis Etienne and five companions made the first south-north crossing of Greenland using dog sleds. The expedition left Narssarssuaq at the far south tip of Greenland on 18 April and reached the Humboldt Glacier on the north coast two months later. This 2,000-kilometre crossing was intended to be a preparatory expedition for the Transantarctica expedition, a crossing of the whole southern continent, in 1989-1990.
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North Pole
Access the siteNorth Pole | March › April 1986 Jean-Louis Etienne’s objective on this occasion was to reach the geographic North Pole alone, on skis, pulling a sled. His only outside support was to be a number of way-stations where he would find provisions and dry clothes.
On 6 March Jean-Louis Etienne left Ward Hunt Island in Canada’s far North and reached the geographic North Pole (the point where the Earth’s rotational axis emerges) on 14 May 1986. In 63 days he had covered more than 1,000 kilometres at an average rate of 20 kilometres per day. Each day he skied non-stop for eight hours; he elected not to stop for a midday meal because of the cold, snacking on biscuits and dried fruit as he went along instead. Around 4 pm, he would pitch his tent on a flat space, if possible sheltered from the wind. After a hot “afternoon tea” and a short rest, he would check in by radio and ascertain his position. Then would come dinner time and a well-deserved sleep so as to be able to face the next day’s exertions. Jean-Louis Etienne occasionally saw polar bear tracks but there was only one occasion when he encountered another living creature: on 9 April, quite by chance, he met Will Steger and his team, who were travelling to the Pole by dog-sled.
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