They paddled through rushing rapids and oversized lakes. They broke through -- or dragged their boats over -- ice. They watched as a black bear ripped up their tents, and carried a shotgun in case a polar bear wanted to do the same.

Starting last May, five young women ages 22 and 23 paddled their two canoes in far northern Saskatchewan, Canada, and didn't stop until they reached the Arctic Ocean, some 1,200 miles and 90 days later.

The trip -- the Borealis Paddling Expedition -- was all in the name of raising money for the camp they spent their summers at together. Along the way, backcountry float planes dropped off food at predetermined resupply points.

asap talked with two of the trip's five paddlers -- Karen Stanley, of Waukesha Wis., and Nina Emery, of Granby, Conn. -- about what it was like to canoe in the Arctic Circle.

asap: What's your favorite story from the trip?

Emery: On Day 10 we had a bear come into camp and had it basically tear one of the tents apart. It came in during dinner, it was just a black bear -- we have all this training with shotguns for polar bears -- and it was just this little black bear so we weren't particularly concerned. So we took the food and paddled to the other side of the river. We thought he would poke around and leave, but instead he started trashing our tents. So we paddled back over and scared it away.

asap: What did you do about the tent?

Emery: We ended up calling home to Emily's parents and getting a new set of poles sent up with our resupply (of food). That was one of the more divisive decisions that we made. In the end it was a safety issue, being on the tundra in a tent that wasn't going to stand up to much wind. But we wanted to be self-sufficient. We had this satellite phone, but it was meant for logistics like the resupply plane, it wasn't meant for calls home. It's an expedition, you want to figure out how to deal with the gear you've got out there.

asap: What other kind of high tech gear did you have?

Stanley: We had a solar roll donated to us ... We would plug in our satellite phone and it would charge the battery. We had two digital cameras, and we could charge those batteries. We had a PLB, a personal locator beacon, for safety, as well as a line of site radio. We had the option to go more high tech, but we wanted to stay as low tech as possible.

asap: How does a PLB work?

Stanley: It's a beacon that you turn on in an emergency, what they call a life or limb emergency. It has an internal GPS. You'd turn it on and the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) would come and pick you up.

asap: What if you're 500 miles from nowhere?

Stanley: Helicopter or plane, and thousands of thousands of dollars later we would get rescued.

asap: What inspired you to do all this?

Emery: All of us had been campers and staff members at (Camp) Manito-wish and believed strongly in the Manito-wish mission, which had a lot to do with outdoor experience and collaborative leadership, and Manito-wish has a strong tradition of women leadership. And in 2000 there was a group of men that did a three month trip in a similar area to where we were and they raised money for a scholarship, a "campership," a need-based scholarship for camp. So we were inspired by that and we were inspired by five women doing a similar but different route.

asap: Do you think the fact that your trip was all women made it more special?

Stanley: I think that it does, just from talking to my dad, and how he'd share the story and most people would ask, 'So did they have a guide?' Most people didn't say that to me, but a lot of people, my dad's colleagues and friends, they were very impressed/very confused that we were five women, and we didn't have a guide showing us the ropes, that we could do it all ourselves.

asap: Did you ever feel like you were in danger?

Stanley: No, I didn't. I feel like we used expedition behavior, which is basically just being very cautious, and I trusted every one of the women that was on the trip that if anything happened to me they would probably be able to deal with it.

Emery: I think that you'd get really different answers from us. My personal answer is that I think we were in danger a lot. We were walking on ice, we were running really big whitewater, and the river is really cold. ... We were in (polar) bear country.

asap: What was it like reaching the Arctic?

Stanley: It was very exciting, as we had talked about it for two years. But it was a little bittersweet because we knew we would be picked up a couple days later. It was a little sad.

asap: For those of us who are never going to see it, what's the Arctic Ocean like?

Stanley: The ocean is very sandy ... and it's cold. Cold.

The 90-day trip, by the numbers:

1,200	-- miles paddled
900	-- pounds of food eaten
101	-- days without showering
400-500	-- estimated number of caribou seen
50	-- estimated number of musk oxen seen
5	-- actual number of wolves seen
1	-- black bear nosing through their camp
1	-- tent destroyed by that black bear
1	-- set of polar bear tracks seen, on the second-to-last day
30,000	-- dollars raised for Camp Manito-wish "camperships," of a goal of $50,000

On the Net:

Borealis Paddling Expedition: http://borealispaddlingexpedition.com

Camp Manito-wish YMCA: http://www.manito-wish.org

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