Polar Expedition Training Course
A one-week intensive polar-expedition primer combining classroom instruction with a real 40–50 km ski/sled traverse across Arctic terrain.
Overview
The Polar Expedition Training Course is your gateway to serious Arctic or Antarctic travel — a high-intensity, one-week program that blends essential classroom instruction with an actual mini-expedition across polar terrain. Beginning in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, participants are immersed in the full suite of polar-travel fundamentals: layering systems and cold-weather clothing, sled-pulking and ski travel, camp logistics, cold-weather cooking and nutrition, snow and ice navigation, weather and environmental awareness, and safe sheltering and tent protocols.
Over four to five field days, you’ll push 40–50 km across Arctic snow and ice, hauling pulks loaded for an expedition, and putting classroom lessons into practice under real conditions — sub-zero temperatures, shifting terrain, and remote wilderness.
What sets this course apart is that training is delivered by true polar-expedition veterans — led by Doug Stoup, a legendary polar explorer whose decades of first-hand expedition experience inform every lesson.
By the end of the week, participants emerge not just more knowledgeable, but capable — able to confidently plan, execute, and survive in polar‐scale environments, ready to take on longer, more complex expeditions to the poles or other remote icecaps.
Meet your instructors.
Doug Stoup
Doug has numerous firsts to his name and has skied to both the North and South Poles more than anyone on the planet. He continues to push the limits of human endurance while raising funds for charities, collecting scientific data for climate change scientists, and leading disabled adventurers to the polar environments.