COPENHAGEN — The age of aristocratic adventures and royal derring-do largely died out with whalebone corsets and dueling pistols, but Danes are getting a glimpse of a modern prince taking on Mother Nature through a four-month expedition to Greenland beamed home over the Internet and television.
This dog-sled expedition by the Danish Greenland Patrol is drawing unusually keen interest because one of the six hardy souls grappling with the geographic severity is a national heartthrob and local hero, Crown Prince Frederik.
The 31-year-old heir to the Danish throne has long had a penchant for far-flung travel and physical challenge, having served in the army, navy and Danish version of the Seabees. The Harvard graduate will get his pilot's license and will train with the air force after the Greenland expedition, Sirius 2000, concludes in June, said Soeren Haslund-Christensen, lord chamberlain at Christianborg Castle.
"He's a very serious young man, and I think it's good experience for a young crown prince to see the world from other viewpoints rather than running around as a playboy," said Haslund-Christensen, an erstwhile adventurer who took Frederik along on a 1986 trek through Mongolia and Central Asia.
Danish newspapers have carried dozens of reports about the expedition since the crown prince, a photographer and four veteran dog-sled drivers took off from the northern settlement of Qaanaaq on Feb. 11, as soon as the sun began peeking over the horizon again after three months of winter darkness.
But the real window on the expedition has been its Web site, http://www.expedition.tv2.dk. The site carries daily updates that include diary entries, weather reports of temperatures averaging 40 degrees below zero, photographs, video clips and maps showing territory covered so far on the 2,200-mile trek and the route ahead to the expected finish line in Daneborg.
"There's been enormous interest, especially among schoolchildren who are following the expedition as part of their studies," said Freddy Neumann, whose public relations agency is handling media inquiries about the trip that unites TV2 and the Ministry of Education in a project to teach young Danes about Greenland.
The world's largest island, Greenland is bigger than Mexico and 50 times the size of Denmark. It has been under Danish rule for most of the last two centuries and became an integral part of the realm under this nation's 1953 constitution. The island's indigenous people have enjoyed home rule in all but foreign and military affairs since 1979.
