Two biologists walk from the icebreaker Des Groseilliers toward their lab.
Scientists work in more than a dozen huts and tents on the ice.
Following carefully laid plans, the icebreaker was frozen into place in the Arctic Ocean, and left there for a year. But last October a big group of polar researchers left the ship in an icy embrace a few hundred kilometers from the North Pole anyway. The project is the National Science Foundation's largest-ever Arctic science program. Braving eternal darkness, frozen fingers and the occasional polar bear, these researchers are tending a zoo of scientific instruments in the Arctic Ocean. Their base is the icebreaker Des Groseilliers, a Canadian ship that has been part of the polar icecap since last fall. . .