Staring out at the bright, open, broken plains of Arctic sea ice back in September , more than once I was struck by the thought of the early explorers who first trekked across similar icescapes at both of the frozen ends of the planet...

(Source: NOAA Photo Library http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/libr0352.htm) As I write this I'm looking out my window at the Fefor hotel in Norway at a wintery landscape of mountains, forest and an ice-covered lake; the same place...