The expedition reached Dickson, the last point on the mainland

March 16, after nearly two weeks of the way, the Marine Live-ice Automobile Expedition 2011 reached the village of Dixon. This destination on the mainland, then starts the actual crossing of the ocean. Our friends headed by the leader of the expedition Vasily Yelagin tested equipment, entered into a rhythm and are ready for the main part of the route.

MLAE-2011 is short for Marine Live-ice Automobile Expedition 2011. It is organized under the patronage of Arthur Chilingarov – Special representative of President of Russian Federation for international cooperation in the Arctic and the Antarctic.

RCAE is short for Russian Center for Arctic Exploration – an Autonomous Non-profit Organisation which is developing innovative amphibious automobiles “YEMELYA” and organizing expeditions in High Arctic.

This year March 4, 2011 our team had started from town of Urengoy in Yamalo-Nenetskij Autonomous Region of Russia and is driving up to the North Pole (approximately until April 20) and further to Ward Hunt Island, Canada (supposingly by May 26) and will finish in the town of Resolute, Nunavut, Canada (probably by May 31) plus a few days spare. From Resolute Bay we shall fly to Montreal before we can fly home to Moscow.

For the expedition we shall use newly built automobiles “Yemelya-3” and “Yemelya-4”. We plan to leave them in Resolute Bay for a period of 10 months until March 2012 when we plan to return to Nunavut from Russia and continue the route of the expedition further on along the coastline of Canadian Arctic to Alaska.

During previous expedition MLAE-2009 – seven-men crew: Vasily Elagin Afanassi Makovnev, Vladimir Obihod, Sergey Larin, Alexey Shkrabkin, Alexey Ushakov, Nikolai Nikulshin in two automobiles “Yemelya-1” and “Yemelya-2” under the leadership of Vasily Elagin had started from Severnaya Zemlya, Russia and after 38 days and 2033 km of driving over drift ice for the first time in history of Arctic exploration reached the North Pole by car. It happened on April 26, 2009 and now this achievement is included into Russian Book of Records.

Marine Live-ice Automobile Expedition in March-April 2009, traveled by automobiles from the Northern Earth to the North Pole. On the island Middle of Archipelago Northern Earth men and equipment were flown Aviation Administration Federal Security Service of Russia. The expedition started in half past 12 AM (Moscow time) on March 20, 2009 from a base station «Island Golomyanny». After passing over the island Medium and Strait of the Red Army and went to the ice of the Laptev Sea expedition has headed for the North Pole. Members of the expedition moved on a floating ice of the Arctic Ocean on cars-amphibians«Emelya 1» and «Emelya 2» design engineer Elagina equipped with wheels with tires of low pressure. Members of the expedition MLAE-2009: Vasily Elagin Athanassi Makovnev, Vladimir Obihod, Sergey Larin, Alexey Shkrabkin, Alexey Ushakov, Nikolai Nikulshin. For 38 days there are passed on cars more than 2000 km.The average air temperature on the route to the Pole was minus 35-45 degrees Celsius. There were strong winds from the east and north, the counter and lateral drift (0,4-1,5 km / hour). Operational headquarters of the Office of Aviation Russian FSB in order to ensure the safety of participants was conducted daily monitoring of movement of cars of expedition on a route. 26 April 2009 at 17.30 Moscow time on a satellite navigator expedition leader Vasily Yelagin to light coordinates 90° 00,000 'north latitude. The North Pole was reached.