The North Pole in Peril

To reach the North Pole is not easy.

The South Pole is a lot colder than the North Pole.

Ray Zahab treks to the South Pole

The South Pole is a lot colder than the North Pole.

Repairman ... Not too far out. Front poles, preferably.

Ben Saunders skis to the North Pole

They went on an expedition to the North Pole.

Genetically identical bacteria represent an extreme case.

North Pole. I've done this picture last summer.

Its north pole lies below the orbital plane.

The North Pole turned into a lake for the first time in 2000.

It should not be confused with the North Magnetic Pole.

The territories claimed by Russia include the North Pole and a huge oil field.

Tom said that he wanted to go visit Santa Claus at the North Pole.

I could see myself sticking the flag in a pole, you know ah, glorious moment the music kind of reaching a crescendo.

The Arctic is only water, with the North Pole itself 4,200 meters under the surface.

The Arctic is only water, with the North Pole itself 4,200 meters under the surface.

Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of darkness.

And two weeks ago, Denmark, which has sovereignty over Greenland, staked its own territorial claim, also covering the North Pole.

A month ago today I stood there 90 degrees south, the top of the bottom of the world, the Geographic South Pole.

This region seen here for the first time in the Cassini image taken in 2005. This is the south polar region, with the famous tiger stripe fractures crossing the south pole.

The industry front runner for Sukhoi Log is believed to be a consortium of the largest gold mining company in the Russian Federation, PJSC Polyus (which is controlled by Suleiman Kerimov's son, Said), and Rostec.

The fact that oil wells are being drilled in La Macarena first came to the attention of Paloma Valencia, a senator from the Democratic Pole party, through a group chat.

Throughout most of human history, ice almost completely barred all navigation in the seas surrounding the North Pole, and the Arctic was asleep in a silent indifference.

US Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, with the assistance of his first pilot Bernt Balchen, became the first person to fly over the South Pole on November 29, 1928.

Arctic explorer Ben Saunders recounts his harrowing solo ski trek to the North Pole, complete with engaging anecdotes, gorgeous photos and never before seen video.

No one knew what was there. It was utterly unmapped at the time. We knew more about the surface of the moon than we did about the heart of Antarctica.

The timing was highly significant Merkel goes to China, the emerging global power, after declaring her own commitment to strengthening the eurozone, if not the EU as a whole, as a credible pole of an emerging multipolar world.

So it took me from places like Chile the Atacama Desert in Chile to Siberia, to underground mines in the Japanese Alps, in Northern America, all the way to Antarctica and even to the South Pole.

Every South Pole expedition you may have heard about is either flown out from the Pole or has used vehicles or dogs or kites to do some kind of crossing no one has ever made a return journey. So that's the plan.

Fast forward three years. I did eventually get off the sofa, and start planning another expedition. This time, I wanted to go right across, on my own this time, from Russia, at the top of the map, to the North Pole, where the sort of kink in the middle is, and then on to Canada.