INQUIRER Sports

VANCOUVER - The Olympic flame traveled farther north than it has ever gone as it lit up the artic night sky in the northern outpost of Alert on Sunday.

The torch was carried across the frozen Nunavut tundra by 20 hardy runners who called themselves 'The Frozen Chosen'.

The relay is the longest in Olympic Games history and day 10 is the nearest the torch will get to the North Pole.

On Sunday night, torchbearer George Stewart took part by lighting the community cauldron in Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, located 800 kilometers from the North Pole. It was established in 1950 by the Canadian government as a military and weather station.

The torch is specially built to handle temperatures of minus-50 degrees Celsius and the temperature Sunday night dipped to minus-28.

The 45,000 kilometer (27,968 mile) torch relay will see the flame carried across Canada by water, land and air before it arrives in Vancouver which will host the 2010 Winter Games from February 12-28.