Modern-day explorer, Eric Larsen's life epitomizes adventure. A polar explorer, dog musher, adventure racer and educator, he has spent the past 12 years of his life adventuring in some of the most remote and wild places left on earth. Totaled, Eric has traveled enough wilderness miles to circle the globe nearly two and half times.

Eric has recently returned from a history-making expedition, the One World Expedition. On this first ever summer journey to the North Pole, Eric and expedition partner, Lonnie Dupre pulled and paddled specially modified canoes over 600 miles of shifting sea ice and open ocean. Eric's other expeditions include a 700-mile dog sled journey through northern Ontario, a six week dog sled journey in the barren lands of the Canadian Arctic, several training trips to Hudson Bay and countless dog sled races. He has also ridden his bike across the United States, been a back country ranger in Alaska, a white water canoe guide in Colorado and wilderness trip leader in Hawaii.

A gifted communicator as well, Eric travels the country giving motivational and educational lectures to K-12 schools, universities, non profit organizations and corporate groups. Several documentaries have also been created around expeditions that Eric has been involved with.

Eric lives in Grand Marais, Minnesota where he is busy planning for his next expedition, Save the Poles, an unprecedented adventure to Mt. Everest, the North Pole and South Pole in one year.

You are an important and integral part of the Save The Poles team. With your help in spreading with word about our project, and more importantly taking action to help slow down and reverse global warning, together we can make a difference for the health of our planet.

Whether trapped in a submerged vessel in the Atlantic Ocean, caught in an unexpected avalanche in the Canadian Rockies, snowbound in a unserviceable helicopter in the unforgiving Arctic, or lost in the vast Canadian wilderness, Darcy St-Laurent, a search and rescue technician from Winnipeg, Manitoba is the rescue specialist required for such an emergency. The aforementioned scenarios are examples of a typical workday for the elite band of Canadian Forces specialists who call themselves Search and Rescue technicians (SAR Tech). A highly decorated veteran of the Canadian military, Darcy has long desired to continue training in the high Arctic. Save the Poles 2009 is such an opportunity.

Darcy has participated in various exercises, both military and personal, in the high Arctic. Whether heÕs involved in a multinational Arctic search and rescue exercise or trekking across Ellesmere Island with a small group of comrades, DarcyÕs love of the Arctic has never wavered. No stranger to hard work, he has spent his entire life engaged in emotionally and physically demanding activity; working the farm, combat engineering, combat diver, army parachutist, explosive ordnance disposal, UN peace keeper (Cambodia and Bosnia) and search and rescue technician are a few examples of DarcyÕs lifestyle that depict his level of dedication and perseverance.

Darcy lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his wife and young son. His interest in raising awareness to the problems of global warming and climate change was the impetus that solidified his desire to join this team. He is busy planning training exercises and expeditions for the North Pole leg of Save the Poles 2010.

Mark Wood has been "getting lost" most of his life. From traveling abroad to working operationally for the British Army, Adventure is Mark's passion. Mark was also a member of the Fire and Rescue Service where he worked alongside professional rescue teams. Currently, he is leading and instructing at outdoor education centers in northern England.

Mark has always enjoyed training and leading people on polar expeditions. Arctic travel provides a very pure existence that has a strange way of enticing him back for more. During the past few years, Mark has traveled extensively through the worst, and best of Arctic conditions. While he will always be learning, Mark has refined his skills to be an effective and efficient leader.

In his free time, Mark enjoys creating his own escapes including trekking in the Himalays to weekend mountaineering trips in the English Lake District to cycling across USA in 2006.

Mark is also operates his own arctic guiding company Snowball Expeditions

Aron Ralston is an experienced mountaineer, author and public speaker, and environmental advocate. In 2005, Ralston became the first person to solo climb -- in winter -- all 59 of Colorado's mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. This accomplishment followed Aron's epic self-amputation of his right arm after a six-day entrapment by a boulder in the remote Blue John Canyon, Utah. His book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, is both a New York Times and international bestseller, and Aron travels the world inspiring audiences with his story. Today, he climbs using prosthetic equipment that he helped to design, and is a board member of three non-profit groups working, respectively, on eco-activism, wilderness preservation, and disabled extreme sports.

Gloria R. Leon, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota as of June 2006. Dr. Leon is co-principal investigator on a fourth NASA-funded study assessing human performance in extreme temperature conditions, with implications for better monitoring the status of astronauts during extended extravehicular activities. She is also a member of several NASA committees, the External Advisory Council of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and the International Astronautics Association psychosocial committee.

Nick has been involved with the outdoors on a number of levels, for a number of years now. From his involvement with the Outward Bound Canada College, to training sled dogs and preparing the logistics for an Iditarod champion. All of it has honed his skills and interest towards expeditions - and specifically expeditions in the northern regions of our world. He is now enrolled in the Outdoor Recreation Management program at Capilano College in Vancouver, and from this is developing an adventure tourism business - Bearing-North, based out of the Canadian Arctic.