This is a simple and fascinating story about the organization and implementation of the largest expeditionary project of the 20th century - about drifting research stations in the Arctic Ocean from the time the idea of ​ ​ such stations arose until 1991, when scientists of the USSR opened the last of them - station "North Pole-31." For a wide range of readers, such a book was written for the first time. The book focuses on the organization of stations on drifting ice, the living conditions and work of polar explorers on them, the difficulties that had to be overcome in the fight against the harsh Arctic nature, the complex relations of people in isolated groups. The drift trajectories of all North Pole stations are shown, the scientific results of the 40-year epic of drifting stations, which have made an invaluable contribution to the knowledge of the nature of the Earth, are analyzed.