Will Steger

ELY— Longtime Ely area resident and polar explorer Will Steger has been awarded the 2021 Leif Erickson Award for his lifetime of exploration in the Arctic and the Antarctic as well as for his tireless efforts to promote preservation of the polar regions.
The award winners for both 2021 and 2022 were announced recently in Husavik, Iceland, home of the Exploration Museum, which sponsors the annual award. The announcement of the 2021 winner was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Born in Richfield, Minn. in 1944, Steger has led some of the most significant dogsled expeditions in history, including the first confirmed dogsled journey to the North Pole in 1986. He also led the longest unsupported dogsled expedition, conducted a south–north traverse of Greenland, and led the historic 5,586-kilometer International Trans-Antarctic Expedition – the first dogsled traverse of Antarctica from 1989 to 1990. In 1995, Steger led the first and only dogsled traverse of the Arctic Ocean, from Russia to Ellesmere Island in Canada. Since 1991, Steger has invested much of his time and energy to highlight the dangers that climate change poses to the polar regions.
The Leif EricksonAwards are recognized annually in Iceland in three categories—the Leif Erikson Award to an explorer for a lifetime achievement in exploration, the Young Explorer Award to an explorer under the age of 35 for achievements in exploration, and the Exploration History Award, awarded to a person or an organization that has worked to promote and preserve exploration history, or to educate about exploration, science and environmental issues.
The awards are named for the Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson who is considered the first European to land in North America and who, according to the Sagas of Icelanders, established the first Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L’Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada.