(Last update : end of December 2023)
ARCTIC AND SUBARCTIC REGIONS
My Top 10
Beechey Island (Nunavut) with the tombs of the Franklin expedition / Northwest Passage
Dempster Highway : up North on this winter-only road to Inuvik & its weird "pingos" & driving on frozen Arctic Ocean
Franz Josef Land : fantastic icy mountainous islands with strange Champ Island stone spheres
Ilulissat (Greenland) & Disko Bay : an amazing icy fjord & a bay full of icebergs
North Pole : reaching North Pole on a nuclear icebreaker
Pole of Cold (Omyakon, Sakha Republic) : coldest inhabited place on Earth & meeting "Chyshaan", the 'Old Man Frost'
Road of Bones & Gulag remains (Sakha Republic)
Svalbard with Pyramiden, a ghost Russian settlement
Wrangel Island and its outstanding wildlife
Yttigran Island (Bering Strait) with the "Alley of Whales"
Geographic North Pole
Aboard a Russian nuclear icebreaker (Yamal) across the Arctic Ocean and the pack ice (2004)
Canada
North Manitoba : Churchill (2008, 2014)
Northern Territories : Inuvik, Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk (2013)
Northwest Passage : Beaufort Sea, Victoria Island (Holman, Cambridge Bay), Larson Sound, Peel Sound, Franklin Strait (2005)
Nunavut : Iqaluit, Cornwallis Island (Resolute), Devon Island (Beechey Island, Dundas Harbour), Prince Leopold Island, Coburg Island, Ellesmere Island (Buchanan Bay, Dobbin Bay) (2003) ; Monumental Island, Akpatok Island, Baffin Island (Kimmirut, Cape Dorset), Mallikjuaq Island, Digges Island, Coats Island, Southampton Island, Marble Island, Morso Island (2014)
North Quebec : Eric Cove (northernmost point of Quebec) (2014)
North Yukon : Alaska Highway (1974), Dempster Highway from Dawson City to Northern Territories (2013), Herschel Island (2005)
Finland
Finnish Lapland (1973)
Greenland
North Groenland : Qaanaaq (= Thulé), Etah, Nares Strait (between North Greenland & Ellesmere Island, up to the Arctic Ocean) (2003)
West Greenland : Kangerlussuaq, Sissimiut, Disko Bay, Ilulissat (2014)
Norway
Norwegian Lapland and North Cape (1973)
Svalbard : Longyearbyen, Ny Alesund, Prins Karls Forland, Oscar II Land, Albert I Land, Friesland, Wahlbergøya, Nordaustlandet, Kvitøya, Karl XII øya (2016)
Jan Mayen & Svalbard : Jan Mayen (southern coast), Isbukta (Sørkapp Land), Hornsund Fjord, Julibrenn, Ny London, Smeeren Bay, Bellsund Fjord, Longgyearbyen (2023)
Russia
Chukotka : Anadyr, Novoye Chaplino, Providenya, Yttigran Island, Cape Dezhnev (eastern mainland point of Asia), Uelen, Kolyuchin Island, Wrangel Island (2005)
Iakoutia (Sakha Republic) : Iakoutsk, Road of Bones, Siberan goulag, Pole of Cold (Omyakon) (2014)
Franz Josef Land (2004)
Kamtchatka (2001)
Yamalo-Nenets okrug : with the Nenets (reindeer herders), Salekhard (2008)
Kola Peninsula : Mourmansk (2004)
Svalbard : Barentsburg (2016)
USA
Alaska : Alaska Highway, Panhandle (Juneau, Skagway), Fairbanks, Point Barrow, Prudhoe Bay (1974), Anchorage, Seward, Whittier (1974, 2005)
Bering Strait & Beaufort Sea (2005)
ANTARCTICA & SUBANTARCTIC REGIONS
My Top 10
Dry Valleys : an ice free "oasis" of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
Ellsworth Mountains : landing in an Iliouchine on Union Glacier & exploring around Union Glacier Summer Camp
Lemaire Channel : one of the most spectacular places in the Peninsula
South Georgia : wonderful scenery, plentiful wildlife & remains of the whaling industry
Shackleton's Hut & Scott's Hut at the foot of mythical Erebus
Peter Ist Island : one of the remotest islands in the world, very rarely reached
Snow Hill Island : a momentous event : hard-to-reach island & a large rare emperor penguins rookery
South Pole : Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station & Ceremonial South Pole
St Paul (TAAF) : an amazing island for nature (now off limits)
Ultime Thule (South Sandwich Islands) : harsh island with thousands of penguins & abandoned Argentinian station
Coastal Antarctica
Antarctic Peninsula : Gerlache Strait, Neumayer Channel, Port Lockroy Station, Lemaire Channel, Rothera Station (2003)
Bellingshausen Sea (2003)
Amundsen Sea (2003)
Ross Sea (including the Ross Ice Shelf & Bay of Whales, southernmost point of open ocean on Earth) and Mc Murdo Sound (2003)
Mc Murdo Sound : Nimrud Hut (Shackleton), Terra Nova Hut (Scott), Erebus (from bottom) (2003)
Drygalski Ice Tongue (2003)
Cape Hallett (2003)
Weddell Sea : Atka Bay, Neumayer Station, Riiser-Larsen iceshelf, Halley Station, Stancombe Wills rookery (2003)
Snow Hill Island (Nordenskjöld's Hut & a large emperor penguins rookery, only discovered in 1997 by air and reached for the first time with the Khlebnikov, the icebreaker on which I was) (2004)
Inner Antarctica & South Pole
Dry Valleys (2004)
Queen Maud Land : Aboa (2004)
Ellsworth Land : Ellsworth Mountains Range (Union Glacier, Driscoll Glacier, Elephant's Head, Charles Peak) (2012)
Geographic South Pole (2012)
Subantarctica (Southern Ocean)
Campbell Island (2003)
Paulet Island (2004)
Peter 1st Island (2003)
South Shetlands Islands : Deception Island (2003), Bailey Head, Greenwich Island, Yankee Harbour (2004), King George Island (Bellinghausen & Artigas) (2015)
South Orkneys Islands : Laurie Island (2015)
Subantarctica (South Atlantic Ocean)
Bouvetoya (2015)
Crozet (Ile de la Possession, Port Alfred) (2003)
Falklands (2012)
Gough (2015)
Kerguelen (Port aux Français ; trek Pointe du Morne, Bras Jules Laboureur, Port Couvreux) (2003)
St Paul (2003)
South Georgia (Grytviken, Salisbury Plain, Pion Island, Gold Harbour, Cooper Bay) (2004)
South Sandwich Islands : Southern Thule (= Ultima Thule) (2004, 2015)