by FROM NORINFORM - THE NORWEGIAN INFORMATION SERVICE
The world's longest dogsled expedition will start at the closing ceremony
of the Lillehammer Winter Olympic Games on February 28. Sixty dogs will
pull four Norwegians and four companions from other countries 16,000
kilometers from Lillehammer to Nagano, Japan - site of the next Winter Games.
The expedition - supported by the Lillehammer Olympic Organizing Committee
(LOOC), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Norwegian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs - calculates on spending 18 months on the
trip, which will cost about US$1.8 million.
The dogsledders will act as couriers carrying an environmental message to
the organizers of the 1996 Winter Games in Nagano, requesting that they
and future Olympic Committees treat the environment as a third element of
the Olympics, in addition to sports and culture. LOOC hopes that Nagano
will show even more concern for environmental planning than Lillehammer
is doing.
The Norwegian behind the idea, outdoorsman and TV producer Geir Randby
(31), says that the tam will first cross Sweden and Finland before going
on to Russia. A summer camp will be established on the eastern shore of
the White Sea.
The trekkers plan to cross Siberia in the autumn of 1994 and will use a
sailboat to cross the Bering Strait to Alaska before the last leg of the
journey, in August, when the sledders arrive in Nagano on roller skis.
The participants are to carry out research on canine physiology as well
as producing three or four documentary films.
--
Center for International Education | try ignorance."
University of California, Irvine | - William Bennett
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