North Pole Tenderfoot. Doug Hall
Each of us took a turn with the sextant, learning how to shoot the sun and the noon meridian. The experience reaffirmed my appreciation for modern technology, but it also made me appreciate how things were done before batteries and how the old ways invariably required one to use more of one’s own resources. Paul Schurke’s emphasis on self-reliance appealed to me. Slowly, almost without realizing it, I began to grow into an adventure mindset.
And just as readily, I would relapse into fear and confusion. Later that evening, I put the Why query to Paul, hoping to find an answer that explained why I was drawn to this challenge. Why was this little voice inside me urging, prodding, poking me to go to the North Pole?
Paul’s answer didn’t help, but it was a good one nonetheless. He told me that, growing up, he always wanted to be an astronaut, and the high Arctic was as close as he’d ever get to standing on another planet.
“When the plane leaves, you have this feeling of being dropped onto another planet,” he said. “It’s a powerful sensation. The sound and colors are amazing. The surface and environment change hourly. There is also something about the sense of total isolation from the rest of the earth. It brings your attention to things like never before.”
He paused to collect his thoughts before adding, “Then again, maybe it is just crazy. Maybe we’re just doing an incredibly grueling trek on a constantly moving surface hoping to arrive at an invisible target.”
That night around the campfire, Paul ratcheted up the risk factor. He made us understand what we were about to undertake. He said he was obliged to advise each of us to get a membership in MEDJET, an insurance group that would evacuate us in case of emergency. He also made it abundantly clear that we would have no guides, Sherpas, or friendly polar bears to help us when our loads became heavy. He told us we were the expedition.
By the end of the week I was functioning nicely in nine-degree weather. It wasn’t bad at all. I was struck by how quickly my body adapted to the cold.
Ready, Set, Go — and I was off…
When we returned to the lodge we unhitched and fed the dogs. Then, before we went into the lodge, Paul led us down to the lake for our final test: A full swim in full gear. We were to extricate ourselves on our own and make our way back to the lodge. Seeing myself as the runt of the litter, I was one of the first to volunteer.
Paul pointed to a black hole in the ice. “The ice isn’t too hard,” he said. “Just be sure to hold onto your ski poles. You use the points as ice picks to pull yourself out.”
Then Paul gave the command: “Ready, Set, Go!” I reflexively dug my poles into the ice, thrusting myself forward on my cross-country skis. My legs shook, partly from the cold, partly from absolute terror.
As I reached the edge of the black water, I heaved myself upward, imagining myself in an arching trajectory like one of those Olympic ski jumpers I’d seen on TV, flying gloriously into the wind, almost tasting the thrill of victory.
My first attempt was not successful.
In my mind, it played out in slow motion. Up, up, up I went—a noble Icarus of the ice. What, ho! Was I getting a smidgen of lift from the wind? Down, down, down I went, anticipating the bone-deep chill when I hit the water.
Instead, I bounced.
I bounced.
Instead of a deep hole in the ice, I’d fallen into an eight-inch puddle.
As water rolled down my back, I got super-cold.
The second time I went for a full swim.
Like the rag-dog ski jumper in the famous credits of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, I instantly knew the agony of defeat. The wind seemed to amplify the laughter of my teammates. As I lay there, sprawled out in a freezing cold made colder by the wind, Paul decided I wasn’t sufficiently submerged and casually pointed to another hole.
The wind whipping my wet clothing—coupled with my desire to put this behind me as quickly as possible—inspired me to get moving again. I skied toward another black hole and this time I went straight in, all the way under. The cold grabbed my body like a giant fist and squeezed. I broke the surface and shifted my grip on my ski poles, holding them near the point. Then I used them as ice picks to pull my soaking self back onto the ice.
Paul grinned slightly, then turned his attention to his next victim. As I scrambled the half-mile to the lodge, I mumbled to myself. Actually, I started holding a conversation with a little cartoon devil enemy of mine who loves to make me uncertain, unsure, and downright scared. The devil screamed into the wind,
“HEY IDIOT! What’s the point? You could be warming your balding head on a beach in the Bahamas. Instead, you’re in the middle of a Minnesota winter volunteering to be miserable. Volunteering! And if that’s not dumb enough, you’re going to pay twenty grand for the right to do this.”
“It’s not that bad, it could be worse. At least there’s a lodge to warm up in.”
“There’s a lodge here in Minnesota, but what about in the Arctic? What are you going to do if you fall in up there? Get out! Get out now!”
As I sprinted down the ice toward Paul’s lodge, teeth clacking spastically, I wrestled with another dilemma. When I ran fast with my arms swinging, the wind chill was frigid. If I walked slowly, I could wrap my arms around myself and feel warmer but it took longer. Should I run or walk? I opted for running, hoping that the numbness I was feeling on my face, fingers, and toes would not do permanent damage.
To ignore the devil, I focused on what the admiral wrote about tenderfeet and how they handled a “wetting.”
It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that I watched, my Arctic ‘tenderfeet,’ as I called them, proving the mettle of which they were made. A man who cannot laugh at a wetting or take as a matter of course a dangerous passage over moving ice, is not a man for a serious Arctic expedition.
The devil saw an opening and pushed hard at my fragile confidence, “Be honest. You are not a man for a serious Arctic expedition.”
I tried hard to convince myself that I could do it. I told myself that a touch of lunacy, mixed with levity, is a prerequisite for trekking to the North Pole. As with any great adventure, it’s not the rational thing to do. The whole idea of this trip is to see what I’m made of.
The admiral said it himself:
The Arctic is a great test of character. One may know a man better after a short time there than after a lifetime of acquaintance in cities. There is something in those frozen spaces that brings a man face to face with himself and with his companions. If he is a man, the man comes out. If he is a cur, the cur shows as quickly.
The devil worked this hard:”Well I guess we know the answer to the question ‘Are you a man?’”
Before I could respond, I arrived at the lodge. I peeled off my ice-crusted clothes and rubbed my fingers to bring warmth back into the tips. I poured myself a healthy nip of Scotch but I avoided adding ice or a splash of cold water. I’d had enough of that for one day.
I knew that alcohol actually makes you colder, but the trip was finished and I felt I’d earned it. Besides, the admiral liked a nip of brandy. He carried a bottle with him on his Arctic expeditions. He wrote of how the brandy would freeze solid at minus 60.
As the rest of the team made their way into the lodge, I looked at Paul’s pictures from the Arctic hanging in the lodge.