Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other essential tips for explorers. Bruce Parry
your tents wide apart in a line so that a bear wandering into your camp won’t feel surrounded and threatened. Husky teams with a track record of scaring away polar bears are always a good deterrent.
If a bear does show signs of stalking and hunting you, there are no guaranteed strategies for scaring it away. It’s important to stay together as a group and stand your ground. It may help to make lots of noise by banging pots and pans together and throwing things like firecrackers, but if the animal is very hungry and determined you will have to rely on your armed guide. Sadly, if all else fails, it may ultimately be a case of kill or be killed.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ARCTIC
It is now an accepted fact that the Earth has been warming up in recent years. While there may still be some dispute over how much of the climate change is down to human activity and how much is part of a natural cycle, it is clear that global warming is already having a dramatic effect on the Arctic.
Local studies such as the glacier survey carried out in part by the Serious Arctic team suggest the Arctic is heating up at almost twice the average global rate. The area of frozen sea is shrinking, the spring ice thaw is happening earlier and the autumn freeze later each year. If the temperature continues to rise as scientists predict, there could be devastating consequences for both wildlife and local people.
Taking an ice core sample from the Grinnell Glacier.
An aerial view of spectacular ice formations where the frozen sea meets the open ocean.
Horrendous pictures of blackened fingers and toes mean frostbite is high on the list of concerns when in the Arctic – and with good reason. Many explorers and mountaineers fall victim, especially as frostbite creeps up on you without any real warning or pain (the cold actually numbs the area).
Frostbite is caused when parts of the body get too cold and the skin and flesh literally start to freeze, with ice crystals forming in the tissue. Most at risk are exposed parts such as the face and ears, and extremities like fingers and toes where blood circulation is at its weakest. If caught at the earliest stages frostbite can easily be treated, but otherwise it leads to awful-looking blackened areas, which may need amputating.
FROSTNIP
The first, completely reversible stage of a cold injury is called frostnip, where just the skin is starting to freeze. Signs are waxy-looking pale patches plus slight tingling or numbness. To treat this condition, simply warm up gradually without rubbing. If on your face, take off a glove and rest a warm hand on the area till the colour starts to come back. For feet the best solution is to place them somewhere warm, like the armpits or groin area of a colleague (this is where buddies truly earn their title!).
HOW CAN YOU stop your face getting frostbite?
It’s a scary thought that at -30°C (-22°F) with a wind of 16km/h (10mph), your skin can start to freeze in as little as one or two minutes. So if the temperature starts to plummet or an icy wind gets up, the only answer is to make sure no skin whatsoever is exposed.
Of course, in the Arctic nothing is simple, and if you cover all your face you immediately have the problem of your damp breath turning into ice on your face mask, as well as goggles steaming up and freezing over so you can’t see.
A neat solution is to customise a pair of goggles by sewing on a nose-guard made of windproof material. It leaves a gap for breathing and protects the nose, one of the most vulnerable areas of all.
CAN SNOW REALLY make you blind?
The glare from snow can cause a very painful condition called snow blindness. You don’t actually go blind – it’s just too uncomfortable to open your eyes for a day or two.
Snow blindness is effectively sunburn of the eyeball, and, like sunburn, it appears a few hours after exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the Sun. It feels as if you have sand in your eyes, vision becomes blurred, and you become very sensitive to light.
Treatment is to stay in a darkened area with cool bandages over the eyes, taking painkillers and applying special eyedrops until the pain settles down. This can take several days.
To avoid snow blindness, you should always wear either goggles or good wrap-around sunglasses designed to block out UV rays. Don’t be fooled by overcast days – the UV light still gets through.
© Colin Monteath/Minden Pictures/FLPA
© Colin Monteath/Minden Pictures/FLPA
Even if the weather’s a little ‘warmer’ it’s still essential to use the buddy system, where pairs of expedition members watch out for each other. Your partner can immediately warn you if, for example, they see that you have a waxy-looking patch on your face. Pulling lots of faces to exercise the muscles and get blood circulating is also a good idea in cold conditions.
There comes a point when being ‘a bit cold’ turns into something much more serious. As warm-blooded animals we need to stay at a pretty constant temperature of around 37°C (98°F) for our vital organs to work properly.
The body does an amazing job over a massive range of activities and outside temperatures, but in extreme conditions it may eventually not be able to cope.
It only takes a fall in body temperature of a mere two degrees to around 35°C (95°F) for hypothermia to set in. A victim will feel sluggish and groggy, unable to think or speak clearly, and will suffer from violent shivering as the body tries to generate energy.
If not treated quickly, hypothermia can be fatal. A sure sign it’s turning critical is when shivering stops completely. This happens as the body temperature falls further and energy reserves are used up. Everything in the body slows down including the pulse and breathing, so much so that there are cases where people have been assumed to be dead, only to recover completely on rewarming.
TREATMENT FOR HYPOTHERMIA
Firstly, get the victim out of the cold if possible,