"I've never had a cold-related injury in my life, and I've camped out in 60-below temperatures and been on ice climbing and dogsledding expeditions," Andre said with a laugh Thursday. "I do see the irony."
Now three weeks into a four-month-long dogsled expedition across Baffin Island, Andre is eager, and a little anxious, to get back on the trail.
Andre, 29, of Ames, is part of a team of educators and explorers, led by Will Steger, that embarked Feb. 23 on a 1,200-mile journey in the Canadian Arctic as part of Steger's Global Warming 101 initiative.
One day into the trip, however, Andre experienced frostbite on her fingers while setting up two tents in minus-25-degree temperatures that were accompanied by 40-mph winds.
Camped several miles from Iqaluit, Andre decided to wait out the night before returning to the village the next day.
"I slept out there with the vague hope they'd be better the next morning but also knowing they probably weren't going to be," she said.
The following morning, the tips of Andre's fingers were still white. After packing the gear and loading up the sleds, Andre's team took off across the ice in one direction while she caught a snowmobile ride in the opposite direction back to Iqaluit.
"It was hard to have to change plans right away, but in retrospect, it was the right decision," Andre said.
As the team made its way toward the village of Pangnirtung, Andre spent the next two weeks in Iqaluit interviewing Inuit elders about the impact global warming has had on their villages in recent years.
"It's the main topic of conversation every where you go up here," Andre said. "We heard several stories of Inuit hunters going out to hunt seals, and the ice would break up, and they were carried out to sea and had to be rescued by boats."
Last week Andre saw first-hand evidence of global warming as she and several elders flew over the Cumberland Sound on their way to Pangnirtung.
"The Sound is probably about 60 miles wide, and the ice is very thin this year," Andre said. "We were hearing stories about baby seal pups falling through the ice because it's so thin. This is the same place that 30 years ago the people could drive their snowmobiles wide open across the ice and not worry at all."
Andre later learned Steger's team had crossed the Sound the day before the ice broke up and went out to the Baffin Sea.
"They could have been in a very dangerous situation," she said.
Andre arrived at Pangnirtung before the team did and alerted the local radio station about its pending arrival.
"They were supposed to get in at noon Saturday (March 10), and I got to the radio station around 11 (a.m.)," she said. "It was short notice, and I didn't know if anyone was listening and would find out. The village was pretty quiet."
But as midday drew closer, the village of some 1,200 people came alive. The residents fired up their trucks and snowmobiles and drove out on the ice to meet the expedition team.
"I think almost everyone from the village was there," Andre said. "It was really amazing. The Inuits, some who don't even speak English, were hugging all the members of the team and talking to them. To see the warm welcome and kindness they extended was really special."
The team spent this past week gathering stories from the village elders and visiting the local school while also fixing its sleds and repacking for the next leg of the journey - a 120-mile trek to Pond Inlet and Broughton Island. The team leaves Saturday, and it will be Andre's first extended time on the trail.
"I've got a little bit of nervousness about it because the rest of the team is in better shape and they've developed systems for traveling, and I never want to be the person on a trip holding everyone up," she said.
The team hopes to arrive in the village of Pond Inlet in a week but has enough supplies to last nine to 10 days, Andre said. At Pond Inlet, the team will continue interviewing elders but also plans to go on a seal hunt.
"A lot of the people are 95 to 98 percent subsistent so they depend on seal and caribou hunting to go with their fishing," Andre said.
The expedition is expected to conclude in June.
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Daily multimedia updates on the expedition can be found on the Web at
www.globalwarming101.com. The site is free to the public.
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