MOUNTAINOUS seas and freezing temperatures, piles of scrap and boundless beauty await a young teacher prepared to take up the challenge of a lifetime.

Mission Antarctica, an ambitious multi-million pound scheme to clean up a Russian scientific station, is seeking to recruit a crew member from the region's school staff rooms.

The lucky seafarer will join teachers from Holland, Canada, America, Argentina, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa, manning "2041", an ex-BT Challenge yacht specially converted for the southern oceans.

En route to Antarctica, he or she will have to negotiate some of the most feared seas in the world as they journey from Ushuaia in Argentina, to the Antarctic station at Bellinghausen, leaving Britain on December 15, returning on January 10.

It will be a unique opportunity to visit the planet's last wilderness, a trip which it is hoped will motivate the teachers to pass on their experiences to future generations.

Mission Antarctica is the brainchild of Barnard Castle explorer Mr Robert Swan, the only man in history to walk unaided to the North and South Poles.

Mission control is in Crown Street, Darlington, for a project which will remove 1,000 tons of scrap from the Russian station and by doing so raise global awareness of a host of environmental issues.

The project's managing director, Mr Adrian Evans, said if the teacher had some sailing experience it would be an advantage but this was not essential. More important was having a commitment to spreading the mission's message around schools on their return.

"Our story needs to reach young people if we are going to avoid a crisis in 2041," he said.

That is the year for a review of the Antarctica protocol, the 1991 agreement between 44 nations pledging to keep the continent for scientific and environmental study.

Experts fear that by 2041 the world's natural resources will be so depleted that corporate eyes will fall on the icy wilderness.

Mission Antarctica, therefore, directs its efforts at children who will run countries in 40 years' time.

For more information on the teacher's voyage, contact co-ordinator Mr Hugh Bernard by e-mail at hugh