Explorer Dixie Dansercoer is hoping to set a world record by travelling 6,000km across the icy wastes of the Antarctic next year, his sled and skis pulled only by kites that will harness the wind to power his journey.

After many gruelling expeditions in the Antartic, Arctic, Greenland and Canada, and various narrow escapes from prowling polar bears and enraged walruses, Dansercoer is familiar with the constant physical and psychological preparation needed for a life as a polar explorer.

An initmate knowledge of Antarctic winds, a gruelling training routine, yoga, a high-calorie, unchanging diet: all this is necessary to ensure the expedition has the greatest possible chance of success.

But Dansercoer is more than a lover of the wind and snow: he also has also set up a travelling exhibition alerting visitors to the perils of climate change. In his travels, he sees firsthand the problems of thinning and melting polar ice caused by a warming planet, and he wanted to spread the urgent message of the need to act.

The exhibition, ‘Antarctic Matters’, will be in Prague from September 2010, and more information can be found here: www.antarcticmatters.org

Dansercoer’s full story can be read in the latest Wind Directions.

By Sarah Azau