The Stars Align Over the North Pole

Today is the day we have been all been waiting for, and we have some exciting news to share with you. When we planned this expedition, our ambition was big already — to ski to the North Pole to lower a special pod and a flag for the future to the seabed below. 

But sometimes the stars align and things happen that you never could have expected.

Last week we discovered that representatives of the Arctic Council would be meeting at the North Pole for the first time ever. I wrote a letter to the chairperson of the council to ask whether he would consider meeting us at the exact place that we’re working to protect. Then he called me on Friday and said he would try to make it happen — which is fantastic news for me and the three other young people with me.

We’re here to represent everyone who wants to protect the Arctic for future generations and for the sake of the world’s climate. Young people everywhere have an interest in this amazing place, whether because they live in the region like me or they face the impacts of climate change in their own lives.

When Gustaf Lind and the rest of the council arrive this week, we’ll be able to share our concerns with him and for a few minutes at the top of the world. I’ll be calling him to arrange this today, so fingers crossed we can arrange this extraordinary meeting. We have come so far to make this expedition, and for we all now feel like this meeting was meant to happen. Wish us luck, and help us save the Arctic. 

Josefina is a 26-year-old Swedish-Sami student studying law at Umeå University and a Member of the Sami Parliament in Sweden. She is currently trekking across the frozen Arctic Ocean on a mission with Greenpeace to plant a time capsule on the seabed below the North Pole.