Itıs no surprise that world-famous explorer Paul Schurke would be tapped to narrate and aid in production of a television docu-drama about an ill-fated Arctic expedition in 1913. What is a surprise is the way the Discovery Channel decided to invite him to work on The Ice Master, which will be featured on NBC Dateline Sunday at 8 p.m. It will be seen in a longer version on the Discovery Channel later this winter.

The story links a family vacation, Russian paleontologists, a childıs classroom video lesson, a web site posting and an Internet search by an Israeli producer working in New York. ³Basically, I was chosen because we were the only Americans who had ever been on Wrangel Island,² Schurke said Wednesday from his home in Ely.

The ³we² is the Schurke family, which spent years getting permits to visit the area, a remote wildlife refuge home to thousands of Arctic animals.

A Dateline crew came to Ely last March to have Schurke recreate dogsledding scenes for the program, which follows an expedition led by famed explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. The Karluk Expedition was launched from Alaska as the greatest and most elaborate Arctic expedition in U.S. history. It ended in tragedy a year later on Wrangel Island, with only 12 of the 25 crew members surviving.

³It was a failure of leadership,² Schurke said of the expeditionıs collapse. Stefansson left his crew just as the long Arctic night fell, and just as their ship was breaking up in the ice. ³It was a real ŒLord of the Fliesı thing out there,² Schurke said.

So how does all this connect to his daughterıs classroom video? It seems Bria Schurke had just seen another Discovery Channel video about the search for wooly mammoths when the family traveled to the island. There she met Russian paleontologists researching an area on the island known to have mammoth remains. She told the scientists about the video ‹ and they promptly explained to her that the story was a hoax.

The Schurkes put the mammoth tale on the Wintergreen web site. And when the Discovery Channel hired a producer for theWrangel Island show, he entered a search to find experts on the island. A few clicks later, and Schurke was part of a new program, one he says wonıt have any problems with authenticity.

Unlike the mammoth search, the history of the expedition is well-documented. Called ³The IceMaster,² the film is based on thebest-selling book of the same name.