High adventure and exploration–they are your game, your mission in life. Like Ferdinand Magellan or Lewis and Clark or a few of the latter-day high priests–such as Sir Edmund Hillary or the late Naomi Uemura–with first in their credentials, you are driven by a desire to pioneer and probe some sacred temple of the wilderness.
But there is one problem. It seems as if all the doors to the great temples have been opened.
After all, Mt. Everest is scaled, seemingly, every other month. Solo-sailing trips around the world are as common as a rafting trip down the Amazon River. And a trek to the South Pole would lead you to a small, well-established community of scientists living on the Antarctic continent.
A 40-year-old Minnesota outdoorsman, nevertheless, has conceived what may be the last great unconquered wilderness challenge: a nonsupported (without food drops) dog-sled trek to the North Pole. His name is Will Steger.
Although many of us behold the textbook-taught version that Adm. Robert Peary accomplished such a feat by discovering the North Pole in 1909, some view Perry`s claim with a touch of skepticism. Peary was resupplied at least five times by Inuit natives of the Arctic.
Both the Peary expedition and an alleged nonsupported trip to the Pole undertaken by Dr. Frederick Cook in 1908 have fueled a controversy that still simmers among historians, explorers and scientists over the question of who was first.
No one has tried since to duplicate those trips. Snowmobiles, ships, submarines and even a dog-sled (in a solo-journey by Naomi Uemura) have reached the top of the world, but all benefited from some sort of tactical support, whether by air drops or satellite navigation.
”I used to think a trip to the North Pole would be silly,” Steger said the other day as he sat behind a makeshift desk in a high school building in Ely, Minn., a small community that borders on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area near the Canadian border. ”But then one day while I was doing a dogsled trip in the Canadian Barrens it dawned on me. It was real cold out, there was a blizzard going on, and I realized while huddled over the stove that the ultimate challenge would be a nonsupported trip to the North Pole.”
And so the Steger International Polar Expedition was born. Three years
–two for the planning and preparations alone–and $240,000 later (numerous corporations and other groups, such as the National Geographic Society, have given financial support) the journey is approaching the final countdown.
On March 3, the polar expedition team of 8 people and 40 dogs pulling 8 sleds packed with 1,000 pounds of supplies will leave Ward Hunt Island (in the Northwest Territories in the eastern Arctic) and begin a 1,000-mile journey to the North Pole.
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To begin to understand why anyone would want to travel two months in the Arctic, one should spend a few days in northern Minnesota. This frigid, relatively flat land in the center of the continent is part of the geological phenomenon called the Canadian Shield, and the temperatures and wind chill factors there in winter get as low as they do at the North Pole. Chicago, by comparison, feels like the tropics.
”A trip to the North Pole is basically an extension of living here in the winter,” said Paul Schurke, a coleader of the trip and a partner with Steger in a winter wilderness school. ”It is not uncommon to have 100 below zero with the wind chill. What you have here is a group of people who dig winter.”
For 22 years Steger has dug winter. He has traipsed extensively throughout the frozen tundra of the north-north country. Ten years ago he did his first dog-sled expedition. Since then he has completed a 2,000 mile dog-sled trip from Hudson Bay to Ellesmere Island. Last year the former school teacher, who is a product of suburbia, spent five months mushing 5,000 miles with a dog team and sled from Duluth to Point Barrow, Alaska. This was a training mission for the forthcoming journey.
”I have learned to see the beauty and spirit of the Arctic,” Steger said, trying to explain his fondness for life above 60 degrees latitude and 50 degrees below zero. ”It is not just a cold and harsh enviroment. It takes a great deal of energy and endurance, not just physical but mental and spiritual, to exist up there. It is that realization that draws me up north. Most people see the Arctic through uneducated eyes. They conjure up this attitude that the place is just cold and miserable–something that will kill you. It is that, but provided you have the skills, it is not an unhospitable place.”
For many of the same reasons–and a few more that had to do with money and fame–Peary and Cook dedicated much of their lives to trying to become the first person at the North Pole.
Peary claims that 25 years of pursuit paid off on April 6, 1909, when he reached the northern pinnacle. In what started as a 24-man, 133-dog team that February, Peary reached the pole, he reported, with a manservant and four Eskimoes.
His famous ”Stars and Stripes nailed to the Pole” cable was welcomed with great fanfare and turned Peary into a national sensation–and eventually a wealthy man.
Later that year Peary`s claim to be the first to the North Pole was challenged by Dr. Frederick Cook, a former Peary understudy, who announced that he had just completed a return trip from the North Pole. The journey, he reported, had climaxed in April 1908, when he reached the North Pole and wrote in his diary on that day: ”What a cheerless spot this was, to have aroused the ambition of man for so many years.”
Cook, who earlier in his career claimed to become the first person to successfully climb Mt. McKinley, took 12 months to return from the north to Thule, Greenland, where he left his field instruments and diaries to be sent to the U.S. From there he made his announcement and caught a ship to Europe.
When Peary returned to the U.S. he was indignant that Cook was being credited with the North Pole accomplishment. He began a campaign to discredit Cook`s claim, a campaign that started by calling–via the press–his former subordinate a liar.
Because Cook`s equipment and diary were never returned to the U.S., his feat was officially rejected. Eventually Peary, endorsed by the Peary Arctic Travel Club, was acknowledged by the National Geographic Society as the first man at the North Pole, and a concurring bill was passed in Congress.
Although the Cook vs. Peary arguments intrigue Steger, he doesn`t expect to settle the controversy with his trip.
” `Unsupported` is the emphasis of this expedition,” Steger said. ”The Peary-Cook controversy is a sideline, similar, say, to an acid rain study we will be doing for the Canadian goverment as well as stress and diet studies we are involved in with the University of Minnesota.
”It just so happens that we are traveling the same way these two men traveled. It is probably the only expedition since that time that has traveled this way, so we should shed some light or facts on the matter.”
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Trekking across the Arctic Ocean might seem like a test of endurance against the cold. Indeed, it will be. Even in March the temperature drops to 50 below zero. The cold, however, is a mere distraction compared to battling the ice.
In many ways, the daily action of the ice is similar to the formation of the earth`s mountains that took place millions of years ago. Just as tectonic plates moved and collided, forcing up land masses, plates of ice bump and grind and create in minutes massive mounds as high as 40 feet.
Steger`s route will cross three zones of polar ice. The first is a land-fast area, where the ice, because of its proximity to the continental shelf, is relatively smooth and stable. Unfortunately that region is only about seven miles wide, or a half day`s trek.
Next is the shear zone. Here, masses of ice are moved constantly by the ocean currents. Much of the cataclysmic upheaval of ice takes place when the fringes of this zone collide with the first one.
”Traveling through the shear zone is definitely the most treacherous, rigorous part of the journey,” Steger said, ”When you are camped, the ice could start moving. In a matter of minutes you have to dismantle camp. But the big struggle is just finding a path through the mounds of rubble.”
The final zone, above 88 degrees latitude, is again fairly stable. At this point of the journey, however, another polar ice phenomenon–ledes or gaping holes that expose the ocean–is common. As weather gets warmer, an encounter with one becomes more likely. ”If there is anything that will stop us from getting to the North Pole, it is the ledes,” Steger said. ”They are totally unpredictable. We will have a canoe along, but if the wind is up and seas are high, it will be of no use.”
There is also the problem of navigation. A compass is totally worthless because the magnetic north pole is 900 miles south of the geographic North Pole–at least it was last year. Like the ice, it, too, is constantly changing.
Steger`s group will use a sextant to determine their location by charting the movement of the sun, at least when the sun is not behind the clouds or the visibility poor. Schurke, the navigator, has consulted with almost every man to visit the North Pole in the last 20 years. ”The worst scenario,” he said, ”is bad weather. At that point you can only follow wind patterns in the snow, called sastrugis.”
Schurke was Steger`s first choice for the team. Next came Chicago native Robert Mantell, an Alaskan resident, carpenter and experienced dogsledder. Robert McKerrow, a New Zealander who heads that country`s Outward Bound program and who has been to the South Pole, was the third team member selected.
Two Canadians were chosen next: Richard Weber, a four-time Canadian national cross country ski champion, and Brent Boddy, a Northwest Territories resident who runs dogsled trips in the eastern Arctic. Geoff Carroll, a resident of Alaska, got the nod for his experience working on the polar ice surveying whales for the U.S. goverment.
The final member of the team is Ann Bancroft, a teacher from Minneapolis. If the trip is successful, she will be the first woman to trek to the North Pole. Bancroft`s selection was not a publicity move.
”Through our wilderness school we have run many trips,” said Schurke.
”It has been our experience that a group of all men can eventually turn negative and that you need women to balance things out.”
For four months of fall and winter the members of the expedition lived together at Steger`s back-country homestead, which in the winter can be reached only by foot, sled or skis. Between physical fitness training sessions, the team members practiced shooting a .308 rifle (in case of a polar bear attack), built the Inuit-styled sleds (no screws or nails so it remains flexible while traveling over the shear ice) and worked with the dogs. To acclimate themselves, all slept in a tent throughout the winter. They also have adhered to a trip-like diet that consists of oatmeal in the morning, a peanut-butter bar for lunch and a pemmican, cheese-noodle-butter stew.
”The diet is super-high in fat,” said Schurke. ”It would clog the arteries of a normal person. It has between 6,000 and 7,000 calories a day.” As for their equipment, the group has worked closely with various sponsors, especially Du Pont, to design the proper tents, sleeping bags and clothing. The materials involved range from such traditional cold-weather clothing as wool, moosehide, beaverskin, and sealskin to the newer synthetics. At Frobisher Bay in Canada, the team will conduct a three-week ”dress rehearsal” trip.
As the team members were going through final preparations in Minnesota, they got an inspirational message from a man who has been both idol and adviser to them.
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest and to cross the Antarctic and now the New Zealand ambassador to India, sent them the following dispatch:
”Your journey to the North Pole is a true adventure in the old tradition. It is a clear challenge for people and dogs on the Arctic Ocean. Without the advantage of aircraft support the battle will be between you and the ice. I wish you every success. There are still many doubts about the old claim as to who first reached the North Pole. Maybe your expedition will prove that the unsupported trip to the pole was possible.”
