Talk about a road trip: Russian explorers spent the past two-and-a-half months driving from Russia to Canada via the North Pole. But instead of car bingo and the alphabet game, they passed their time clearing the route with a pickaxe, gazing upon the aurora borealis, and spotting the occasional polar bear. The 2,485-mile journey from Russian archipelago Severnaya Zemlya to Resolute Bay in Canada's far north took 70 days at a speed of about 6.2mph—about farm-tractor speed, PhysOrg reports. The team flew back to Russia on Thursday, leaving their vehicles in a garage; they'll be driven back to Russia across the Bering Straight next February.
Speaking of those vehicles, they're pretty bizarre: CBC describes them as "amphibious trucks," while PhysOrg calls them "buses with bloated tires." They were able to carry the explorers over drifting ice floes and would have kept them afloat, had they fallen into the Arctic Ocean (which they almost did at one point). The expedition leader is planning to meet with investors who are interested in manufacturing them, which should perhaps concern Canada: As Next Big Future points out in its headline, "Russians have proven a land invasion of Canada is feasible by driving over the North Pole." (More Russia stories.)
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