Hundreds of years ago Irish monks jumped into little boats as this was a habit of theirs…get it, habit, you know the clothes they wear. They set up monasteries in cold places and met up with Vikings, who have always quite liked the cold.  Don’t know what the bears thought…”who are those strange people? Is that my dinner?” Russians also went up to the Arctic many centuries ago but that’s difficult to understand because russian is not a good idea on snow and ice. The Victorians made lots of trips to the Arctic and by then the polar bears were probably getting fed up with all these people turning up. These trips were very dangerous and some of the explorers died, even those with the latest goggles and tennis racquets on their shoes. The first man to reach the North Pole was an American, Robert Peary but nobody knows if he really did reach the Pole.

People still go there sometimes: maybe you would like to take a trip up there when you are older. Please please wear something warm and remember that the cola in your goody bag drink bottle might …just…..FREEEEEEZE!

Our own Captain James Cook was the first man to cross the Antarctic circle in the 1770’s but, rather carelessly, he didn’t actually see the continent! It took another fifty years to find it- see, it was there! During the next 100 years quite a few people went down there. They found lots of seals and penguins but the story goes that the search for Irish monks and Vikings came to nothing as they had their map of the world upside down! Actually, Antarctica has mountains and volcanoes as well as the usual snow. Roald Amundsen (not to be confused with Roald Dahl) was the first man to reach the South Pole in 1911. He beat our own brave, tragic Captain Scott and, unlike Scott, he used DOGS rather than people to pull the sledges….sensible thing to do! Nowadays there are lots of scientific bases around the Antarctic and possibly a few supermarkets, an ice skating rink and maybe a Christmas market or two! There might even be a few schools one day!

The Arctic and Antarctic are really beautiful places and we all need to look after them and stop them melting, don’t we?

One man who cares very deeply about the Poles is Pen Hadow, who lives here in Devon. In 2003 he made history by walking to the North Pole on his own …in 64 days, a great achievement! Pen is part of a big project which will set out in 2008 to find out more about the ice caps and to see how much damage has been done over the decades. We wish him every success. See what he said about becoming an explorer...