Expedition Reports - In the beginning...

Our Greenland Quest would not have been possible without the fantastic advice and support given to us by sponsors, experts, family and friends. We are extremely grateful to everyone who followed our progress and encouraged us to keep going when things got tough – which they inevitably did – both during the organisation of the expedition and on the ice. ‘Team Fox' was far more than simply Felicity, Jenny, Jo and Rachel, it was a fabulous network of people from the UK and beyond - a combination that gave us Foxes the confidence and skills to cross the ice-sheet not just once, but twice!

The Arctic Foxes came about when Felicity and Jo placed an advert in Metro – a free London newspaper – asking for female expedition members who were prepared to train hard for a trip to Greenland. Jenny and Rachel were two of the hundreds who responded, and following interviews and a weekend away, they were chosen by Felicity and Jo to complete the team. We chose the team name together after many hours of deliberation and then left it to Jenny's friend Conny to design the fabulous foxy logo.

From September 2005 we worked tirelessly to make our Arctic dream a reality. We needed £40,000 to finance the expedition and approached numerous companies and trusts to sponsor our Greenland Quest: this involved calling, emailing, writing and preparing presentations to entice potential supporters. We had our photographs taken by Jo's friend Tom and wrote many pages of information to go on a website designed for us by Jenny's dad. We chose the fantastic Breakthrough Breast Cancer to be the charity we would raise money for. We also began work on the logistics of the expedition: applying to the Danish Polar Centre for permission to attempt the double-crossing, and contacting experts in polar exploration and kiting to ensure that we had all the information necessary to successfully complete our journey. Finally, our fitness and nutrition programme began in earnest with Dr Justin Roberts at the University of Hertfordshire and cream cakes became a distant and delicious memory!

No single sponsor came on board, however, a small number of companies and trusts were impressed by our determination and inspired by our plans to attempt the double-crossing. The combination of their donations - some of which were given in the week before we left the UK, following desperate last-minute telephone calls from us all to secure everything we needed - meant that the expedition went ahead. These sponsors are listed on the Supporters page of this website and we are very grateful to them all. A special mention must go to our main sponsors, Cotswold and Flexifoil, who provided the majority of the equipment we required for our journey, as well as Kiehl's and the Met Office. The Met Office provided us with a dedicated team of forecasters who we called every night from the ice for our very own one, two and three day forecasts. Kiehl's provided us with financial support and fabulous face creams and lotions to keep us looking as peachy as possibly in the extreme weather conditions. 

Rachel