Netbooks aid Arctic crossing

Australian explorers Chris Bray and Clark Carter have journeyed through the Canadian Arctic with the assistance of several Eee PCs.

The pair spent 70 days alone on Victoria Island in the Canadian Arctic, becoming the first people to walk across the island. They each pulled 250 kg of gear on the trek, including Eee PC 900s from netbook manufacturer ASUS.

Several days into their journey, the wheel covers of the explorers’ PACs — Paddleable Amphibious Carts, designed by the pair to haul their gear — started to split and tear and the men became concerned their trip would be over before it had even started.

Despite this complication, the netbooks withstood the harsh conditions, including temperatures of up to minus 15°, as well as the physical rough and tumble of the trek.

Bray says that the netbooks impressed him, given their ability to withstand the rigours of expedition life.

“We’d be in the tent at night, wiping condensation off the screen with our sleeve, rubbing the touch-pad mouse clean from all the mud and chocolate and other grime, shaking the keyboard free of bits of tundra and other rubbish and accidentally bumping, dropping or leaning on them — and they never even flinched,” he says.

The explorers used the netbooks for vital communications during the trip with the help of solar batteries and an iridium satellite phone. They were able to keep in contact with the outside world via email, as well as publish updates to their website.

The netbooks also allowed the men to download photos from various cameras with the built-in SD memory card reader, as well as cull, edit and crop images to upload.

Bray and Carter used the devices to create mini to-do lists and make modifications to their website structure, including FTPing new HTML code directly from the Arctic.

Most importantly, the netbooks helped map out the best routes across the island using Google Earth’s satellite imagery.

“We used the Eee PC to look at Google Earth images and suss out a possible route for the next day by analysing what terrain was lying ahead of us,” says Clark.

“That actually proved to be the best way to decide where to go the next day as the topographic maps we brought with us did not show what type of terrain we were dealing with and didn’t show hills all that great.”

“The Eee PCs made our life a lot easier out there,” he adds.

The duo is now in the process of writing a book and producing a documentary on their Victoria Island trip, before soon heading off on their next expeditions.