Sea ice is dwindling all across the Arctic, so much so that in 2007, ice melt opened up the fabled Northwest Passage, the all-water route across the American continent that ill-fated voyages sought for centuries. The region might become even waterier in years to come, but one research team is going on a scientific road trip along the northern sea ice while they have the chance. Starting next month, adventurers from the Mars Institute plan to drive a modified Humvee across more than 1200 miles of treacherous thin ice and frozen ground, becoming the first road vehicle to drive the route of the Northwest Passage. This trip is meant to be a dry run for an even more extreme environment--the surface of Mars.

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Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute and three team members intend to depart the Vancouver area next month destined for their research base on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The journey is perilous, but the dangers--heading out to a frozen wasteland far from contact with civilization--are what make it ideal for a group doing research for a potential manned mission to Mars. The Mars Institute's main goal is to help NASA create a rover capable of traveling tens or even hundreds of miles on the moon or Mars, venturing farther than the Apollo lunar vehicle or the unmanned Martian rovers. The team has been testing the first Humvee rover on Devon since 2003, Lee says, but you only learn so much, puttering around an island. Driving a Humvee across 1200 miles of frozen, lonely terrain is about as close as you can get to simulating a Mars mission, he says, and to encountering some of the problems that might plague a road trip on the red planet.

The first Humvee rover, now located on Devon Island.

Contaminating the surface of Mars is one such problem that the group is studying. Their drive through one of Earth's most remote areas could also help to answer questions about how scientists in search of Martian life can tell the difference between--or prevent altogether--extraterrestrial life and Earth-borne life-forms that come along for the ride in a spacecraft. During the drive to Devon, Lee's team members will take ice samples from ahead of and behind the Humvee, as well as upwind and downwind from it, to measure just how many microbes tag along for the ride.

While travelers on Mars will not have to face the perils of sea ice, this danger will be ever-present for Lee's team. Driving on the ice is a risky venture in any vehicle, much less an oversized, diesel-powered Humvee (Lee's model is a model the military uses as an ambulance; it's extra-tall in back to allow passengers to stand). For safety's sake, two of the four crew members will be driving snowmobiles--one in front to watch for ice cracks, and one in back to watch for any parts falling off the Humvee. The small convoy will roll northward at about 12 miles per hour, Lee says, stopping near the coast every few days to stock up on both supplies and the most recent satellite photos of ice cover to try to avoid driving onto a melting floe or a cracking ice sheet.

But satellite images are only so accurate. To protect themselves from falling through the ice and to gather once-in-a-lifetime data, Lee's team plan to become part-time climate scientists on the way. Throughout the trip, which should last between two and four weeks, a sounder towed by the Humvee will constantly monitor the thickness of the ice. The device sends electromagnetic pulses into the ice and watches for the return signal. Seawater is conductive, he says, so if the pulse returns in force, the ice is thin; if the terrain is not conductive, there's plenty of ice between the team and the water. The team plans to record and submit the readings to fill in the gaps left by satellite-only observations of the Arctic.

A sketch of the Moon-1 Humvee, complete with treads..

All the precautions, however, give no guarantee of success. Despite the thinning ice and the looming history of the road--what Lee calls the "spectacular efforts and disasters" of Northwest Passage exploration--in its present, thin state, the passage will actually be easier to drive than ever before. Before the Arctic had warmed as much as it has how, the area was covered by "old ice," says Lee, which didn't melt every year and had a rough texture that was difficult to drive. "Ten years ago," he says, "what we're proposing to do would have been a lot more dicey." There's less total ice in the Arctic today but it is newly formed and smoother, making it much easier to traverse.

Though Arctic travel isn't quite as dangerous as venturing to Mars or the moon, a month before the scheduled start of the trip, Lee says he is still plenty concerned and planning for pitfalls that might happen along the way. Lee is approaching the trip with "a mixture of the confidence of a 21st-century expedition," he says. "The fact that you're in the middle of nowhere, and help might take hours if not days." Some confidence comes from driving an armored military vehicle, he says, which will protect the team if they run into polar bears--creatures that you are not likely to find on Mars, but are dangerous nonetheless.

(Photos by Mars Institute / Haughton-Mars Project)

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