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2 MOTIVATIONS AND LIMITATIONS


Always trying to pioneer new methods of travel: the sled-catamaran used during the 2005 Bering Strait Odyssey

Why do People go?

What is it that draws people to the poles? What makes them want to suffer long periods in a harsh climate and cope with all the other hardships of polar travel? When looking at the history of polar exploration, it becomes clear that four groups of people have so far been active in this field: scientists, polar travellers, tourists and the military. Whereas scientists and the military have obvious reasons for going there, the other two groups have a variety of motives.

 Tourism Satisfying curiosity, ‘been there’, ‘done that’.

 Personal Strengthening friendships, (self) discovery, finding peace, beauty.

 Sport Beating records, improving on past exploits.

 Adventure New methods of travel, discovery of new routes.

 Publicity Greenpeace, WWF and other NGOs.

 Sharing knowledge Guiding novices.

 Financial Organised travel, logistical support.

 Media Relaying information.


The motivations behind polar expeditions are diverse


The environmental impact of flights to the North Pole

There are many reasons to go to the (Ant)Arctic, and they can be a combination of any of the above, but it is sensible for anyone thinking about a trip to consider their goals seriously. And the more third parties with different motivations become involved, the more complex the expedition. It is up to each of us to decide whether we want to go on an expedition for the sole purpose of setting out to reach a goal, or whether we are happy to involve other people with different aims and expectations.

In the recent history of sporting expeditions, the quest to become the fastest, the first, the highest or the longest has shown how humankind accepts challenges to push the limits. The urge to see how far we can go seems to be a natural one for human beings. We wonder how we can become better at something, we like to discover and analyse, and we like to take on new challenges.

Unfortunately the modern world is also a very competitive one. The more competition infiltrates the world of polar expeditions, the more senseless discussions will arise on how to compare exploits. Polar explorers who focus exclusively on the competitive aspect will become blind to the essentials of a polar expedition: amazement, vulnerability, power, true comradeship… We must safeguard the world of polar expeditions from becoming simply a competitive sport. There should be no place for judges or referees to determine whether or not an expedition should qualify for yet another record-breaking exploit or for success-hungry ‘explorers’.

Many of the great polar explorers were (and are) romantics, and it is clear that the intensity of life in the frozen world deeply affects the emotions. I would be surprised to hear of anyone who spends considerable amounts of time on the ice saying that they have never felt a moment of bliss.

It is fair to say that man is naturally ambitious, and that raising the bar has enabled huge discoveries and brought about much progress, but the polar regions have so much more to offer. Having in the early years focused too much on my sporting ambition, I now understand the old adage ‘the way to the goal is more intense than the goal itself’. Once on the ice, all is clear: anything superfluous disappears and you are on your own in a simple, pristine and truly wonderful environment. That, to me, should be the main motivation for polar travel.

The harsh reality is, however, that polar travel is costly, and in order to convince possible sponsors some explorers will let their imaginations run away with them, or let the sponsors determine what the rules will be. Sadly this leads to competitive motivations for polar travel which detract from the true value to be gained from time spent in the polar regions. The desire to push ourselves to the limit is deeply rooted in human beings, but genuine records can only be established when parameters have been laid out by some kind of regulatory body that does not yet exist. In any case, in the polar regions the conditions differ every day and make any comparison impossible. And why would anyone want to embark on a quest to challenge nature's position as the strongest force?

A PASSION FOR THE POLES

A polar explorer does not decide at birth that they are going to immerse themselves on a regular basis for long periods in the frozen deserts of the Arctic or Antarctic – it's something that develops over the years. Many people have asked me where my passion for the polar regions originated, and I have yet to find a simple answer…

As a little boy, I loved the feel of sand, grass or rain when I played outdoors with my friends. I loved my grubby knees after an afternoon of rambling in the woods, and was proud of my dirty clothes, proof of my time spent outdoors. The subsequent 11 years of boy scouting, culminating in a get-together of scouts from all around the world in Ireland, encouraged that connection and induced a strong respect for the natural world.

That same respect has continued throughout my life. At 18, as a long-haired bass player, I pulled myself away from busy city life to spend a year as an exchange student in the US. I was deposited in the quiet town of Moscow, Idaho, where church choirs did not appreciate my wild bass grooves… so I immersed myself in backcountry skiing, multi-day hikes in the mountains, and long-distance running through endless fields. Busy Belgium was exchanged for wide open spaces, and I discovered the natural beauty of the cold winters and hot summers of the American Northwest.

Surely thousands of people have done the same, and have experienced exactly the same exhilaration, but they haven't all become polar explorers, but I am convinced that a solid foundation in the natural world is truly character building.

Nobody helped me with this construction of my ‘real self’. My parents encouraged me to save for my first pair of running shoes, stereo or any other material stuff, so I had to work for it. Picking fruit, waiting tables, working at a grocery store, painting houses, helping farmers, doing market research… As a result, working towards my goals felt like the most normal thing to do. Following my dreams would not come free, and I found pleasure in drawing up a plan to keep my focus and strive towards it.

You have to work hard to reach ambitious goals. Talent and intellect surely help but only when you add an eagerness to work will you have laid the foundations for a good polar expedition.

Acting Responsibly

I have an uncomfortable feeling that I am living in an era where everything is just a little too easy and I am probably not alone. It is the constant onslaught of comfort-promoting commerce that concerns me. When things become too easy, we get lazy. When we get lazy, we get ill. When we are ill, we cannot function.

It is difficult to operate in modern society without the latest technology: if you do not have the latest software, you cannot open certain email attachments; any new car will have all manner of unnecessary ‘must-have’ frills. Some people just give in and go with the flow; others are simply left out because they cannot afford to keep up. But – in the midst of it all – it is important to remember that nothing worthwhile comes without effort.

So what has this to do with polar exploration? The early pioneers had many similar heartaches. Organisers of past and present expeditions have had to overcome endless hurdles. Today we have to deal with paperwork and permits that we may feel restrict our freedom, but which are in fact essential – we all depend on someone or something to help us out on the ice.

The point is that however much we may wish to be ‘free’ in our polar explorations there are restrictions to be taken into account. For example, it is important to check whether we are actually allowed to do what we intend to do. Restrictions usually concern:

 political situations

 protection of the environment

 protection of wildlife

 safety issues.

None of these should be taken lightly: all polar travel requires the individual to act responsibly, and the word ‘responsibility’ can be interpreted in many ways. Even when there may not be any clear legal restrictions on what you are allowed to do, responsibility goes hand in hand with ethics and respect. It is vital to inform yourself fully of the issues before you go, and to take the planning stage very seriously.


In the northern regions, explorers’ responsibilities extend to the indigenous peoples – living on a tightrope between their traditional way of life and changes brought about by contact with outsiders

THE PROFESSIONAL VIEW

Explorersweb asked Canadian polar veteran Richard Weber for his opinion. Holder of speed records to both poles, and with seven full-length North Pole expeditions behind him, he is among the top 10 modern polar explorers in the world. A low-key guy, often the people he guides get all the headlines. This is taken from what he said.

In a recent expedition… a North Pole skier was rescued by the military after he had run out of fuel. The story received a good amount of media coverage. These days, with most extreme points already explored, modern adventurers kick up the difficulty by going with less support, faster, longer, higher, or via ‘impossible’ routes.

Sometimes it gets them in trouble and they become dependent on others to save their necks. It's OK, as bending of boundaries is necessary for human progress. But there is a line between that and reckless projects lacking in sufficient preparation. Not only do they jeopardise rescue possibilities for those who really need them, they also risk the lives of rescuers. Worse, some explorers overdramatise situations simply to gain media attention…

To trek to the North Pole from Canada is a tough, harsh, challenging journey, probably the hardest trek in the world. I applaud any adventurer who dares to take up this challenge. Adventurers choose to be on the Arctic Ocean. Each adventurer has a responsibility to have the food, fuel and money in place so that they can get off the ice safely using the normal methods (for example a pick-up by Twin Otter aircraft). It is the responsibility of the adventurer to ensure they have adequate supplies, taking into account the fickle nature of the Arctic Ocean. Polar adventurers have no right to run out of food and/or fuel and to call Search & Rescue. The rescuers are trained professionals who risk their lives to save the lives of others. Adventurers have no right to ask these men and women to risk their lives to take them off the Arctic Ocean.

To run so low on expedition resources that one needs to call the military, at the cost of the Canadian tax-payer, is completely unacceptable… Roald Amundsen once said ‘adventure is bad planning’. A well-planned and executed expedition does not include dramatics.

When an adventurer turns on an emergency beacon and calls for Search & Rescue, it is no longer a personal decision. It affects the safety of the Search & Rescue personnel, it affects the Canadian tax-payers who foot the bill and it affects other (more responsible) adventurers. This behaviour does and will reflect on the entire polar adventuring community. The Canadian authorities will not accept paying for very many unnecessary Search & Rescues before they put in place restrictions and regulations. In Canadian National Parks, if a person calls for rescue, that rescue is evaluated and… that person may be asked to pay the bill.

The same procedure should be used for polar adventurers. Anyone who calls for unnecessary Search & Rescue should not be portrayed as a hero on CNN, but as a fool.

Clearly, it is up to each individual to take responsibility and to put in place all the pieces of the puzzle in order to prevent reckless behaviour on the ice. Polar expeditions are not an exact science, and with Mother Nature being fickle and unpredictable even the most professional explorers are faced with problems that have them puzzled. But everything must be based on appropriate experience and immaculate preparation – and, once out there, sensible decision-making. Even though the complete uncertainty of the polar pioneers has long gone – replaced by the relative security of the modern era – the risk factor is still very much present.


At the top of the world – but even with modern technology, there are always risks

Novices often give themselves a false sense of protection by surrounding themselves with hi-tech communications tools such as rescue beacons, satellite telephones, GPS and other apparatus, and then rely on them totally. But it has been proven again and again that the only way to appreciate the polar regions fully is to immerse yourself in all aspects of the terrain, and make sure that you survive without the gimmicks.

Environmental Impact and Climate Change

We must all recognise that, as polar explorers – whatever our starting point – it is a long way to the places we have set our sights on, and that all travel imposes an environmental footprint. The very least we can do is take a look at alternative options, or choose different techniques to compensate for our actions.

To put things in perspective, the impact of the few polar expeditions that wend their way across the frozen (Ant)Arctic each year is close to zero by comparison with the footprint of the scientific bases or the more classic forms of tourism. At a rough estimate, polar expeditions are responsible for 0.001 per cent of the total impact of human activity in these fragile areas. However, it is not really about how much we ‘do wrong’ or who is responsible, but about what we honestly can or should do to minimise our impact. It is up to each expedition to decide how far they want to go in this regard. One option, for example, is to offset the emissions of the aeroplane and other motorised travel leading to your departure point and getting you back home.

THE RULES OF POLAR COMPETITION

There is no global organisation monitoring polar travel, nor is there a board of experts working together towards an internationally recognised framework to monitor polar travel; any rules that exist have been defined by private organisations. A more credible set of definitions and parameters is needed for those who want to engage in a more ‘competitive’ kind of polar exploration.

Cold and harsh environments with constant changes in conditions do not lend themselves to true competition but while the trend to compete exists, some guidelines are required. The following ones are reproduced with permission from Explorersweb (www.thepoles.com).

Assist

This is the outside help received by an expedition. The most common form of polar assist is air re-supply.

Labels

 Unassisted

 Assisted – re-supplies

 Assisted – emergency (this category also applies if one or more members leave an ongoing expedition)

SUPPORT

External power aids used for significant speed and load advantage. Typical aids are wind power (kites), animal power (dogs) or engine power (motorised vehicles). Only human-powered expeditions are considered unsupported. Human-powered equipment such as skis, snowshoes and sleds is not considered support. Navigation aids such as compass and GPS are not considered support. Safety aids such as radios, satellite phones and location beacons are not considered support.

Labels

 Unsupported

 Wind support

 Dog support

 Motorised support

STYLE

This captures other characteristics of the expedition.

Labels

 Unguided

 Guided

 Solo (The style label ‘solo’ requires that the explorer is alone and receives no outside assistance. A solo performance must therefore also be ‘unassisted’.)

START/END POINTS

The items below refer to overland or oversea North Pole or South Pole expeditions.

Travel to the South/North Pole

 The start point has to be from the boundary between land and water – the coastline. Permanent ice is considered part of the ocean, not the land.

 If the coastline is not obvious due to permanent ice, the start point should be according to the mapped outline of the coast.

Partial travel to the South/North Pole

 Any start point that is not at the edge of the continental landmass, but at least 1° from the pole itself. This covers ‘Last Degree’ expeditions as well as Patriot Hill starting points.

Traverse

 A polar traverse applies to expeditions travelling across a geographical feature – eg continents, oceans, glaciers and mountain ranges.

 A traverse has different start and end points.

 An Antarctic or Arctic traverse has to traverse the full continent/ocean.

I know that on a 100-day expedition my environmental footprint is much smaller, in terms of what I use in the way of natural resources, than in daily life. And – even though I am environmentally aware – I could probably fill a house with all the rubbish I produce in that same time frame when I am at home. When preparing for an expedition, I love to be part of the ‘reduce to the max’ movement. To date we have pushed waste reduction so far that the total amount of rubbish amounts to only 1.2kg for two people for 100 days (6g per person per day). For example, holding it above the stove flame shrinks thermo-retractable foil to a minute ball that can be easily stored in our small rubbish bag. Add to that the minimal 15ml of fuel burned per person per day, and I believe that we are exemplary when it comes to reducing our environmental impact.

Even with the flights there and back, I would probably fly just as much if I stayed at home, if not more. (Asking those people who claim to be the greenest people on Earth how many flights they take each year always provokes an interesting response!) It all comes down to a personal decision as to how much you care, how much respect you have for our planet, and how much you want to keep it a beautiful place to live for generations to come.

Almost unbelievably some expeditions do leave expedition gear behind, even discard a second sled that they took to aid their progress, or dump fuel that weighs too much (and was only taken along due to bad planning). Some even fake equipment loss or failure in order to have their insurance cover the expenses of an unnecessary pick-up. Such blatant choices cannot be responsibly accounted for, and such behaviour is unforgivable. The more aware of our impact we become, the better we will be able to decide how to reduce it.


Considering the environment in a small sailboat, treading lightly and risking getting stuck, or…


…ploughing through in a nuclear-powered icebreaker. The choice is ours.

Becoming environmental ambassadors

It is up to each of us to find a way to at least offset our own environmental imprint. Emissions of CO2 generated directly from the tourism sector today account for 5 per cent of global CO2 emissions; on Antarctica tourism is responsible for 2 per cent of CO2 production (the sum produced by all the scientific bases). How much positive behavioural change or environmental awareness will result from either tourism or scientific activities? Minimising the environmental impact in Antarctica and sending home convinced environmental ambassadors should be a top priority for both. (Luckily, corporate activity can be excluded as a direct cause of environmental damage, as the sixth continent is a superb example of an area unilaterally protected from exploitation by the Antarctic Treaty.)

With limited resources available on the ice and none of the CO2-producing tools used at home, polar expeditions are a great example of how we can ‘survive’ with very little. If done well, there is hardly any waste. During long-haul expeditions the weight of waste (packaging foil) can be reduced to 5.1g per person per day.

As always, a collaboration will be needed between the parties involved in transportation to and from the polar regions, but it is also clear that responsibility lies with the individual. There will always be those who care and those who do not, but a willingness to recognise our environmental imprint and do something about it is vital.

SWITCHING FROM OIL TO WIND POWER

While guiding on a cruise ship to Antarctica in 2003, the sight of a small yacht made me think about the impact of an icebreaker with about a hundred tourists on board. I envied the liberty the little yacht offered. The crew was not on board, and when I asked at Port Lockroy where they had gone I was told that they were climbing ‘up high’. That was it! The maximum time I could spend on a cruise ship landing was a morning or afternoon. I wanted more freedom, and more time.

Four years later, I found myself en route to the Antarctic leading a seven-man crew on board the Euronav Belgica, a specially outfitted 47-foot steel yacht. To generate maximum attention for the white continent during International Polar Year I planned to re-enact the 20 landings executed by the Belgica, the ship led by Captain de Gerlache who had invited Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook on board in 1897–98, and carry out a comparative meteorological comparison.

Apart from the potential for adventure in an independent schedule, the ‘pure’ aspect also made perfect sense. If you're planning a trip to Antarctica, it using wind power is much more environmentally friendly. A yacht does have an engine and waste water but with the will to minimise our impact, huge steps towards minimal consumption and ‘greening’ our activities could be made.

The facts

There is clear scientific evidence of the reduction of ice in the Arctic due to global warming.

Average ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million km2 (1.78 million square miles), 2.43 million km2 (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average (see graph). This was 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) above the average for September 2007, the lowest monthly extent in the satellite record. Ice extent was below the 1979 to 2000 average everywhere except in the East Greenland Sea, where conditions were near average.

While recent studies have shown that in wintertime Antarctic sea ice has a weak upward trend, and substantial variability both within a year and from year to year, the differences between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice trends are not unexpected. Climate models consistently project that the Arctic will warm more quickly than the Antarctic, largely due to the strong climate feedbacks in the Arctic. Warming is amplified by the loss of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean in areas that had been ice-covered for decades, and by the warming of Arctic lands as snow cover is lost earlier and returns later than in recent decades.


Arctic sea ice extent for September 2011 was 4.61 million km2 (1.78 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1979 to 2000 median extent for that month. The black cross indicates the geographic North Pole. (Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, US)


Source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews (website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado, US)

Moreover, rising levels of greenhouse gases and the loss of stratospheric ozone appear to be affecting wind patterns around Antarctica. Shifts in this circulation are referred to as the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). As greenhouse gases have increased, and especially when ozone is lost in spring, there is a tendency for these winds to strengthen (a positive AAO index). The net effect is to push sea ice eastward and northward, increasing the ice extent. As the current sea ice anomaly has developed, the AAO index has been strongly positive. (See the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) AAO Index, www.noaa.gov.) For more information about the differences between sea ice dynamics in the Arctic and Antarctic, see the National Snow and Ice Date Center (NSIDC), www.nsidc.org/seaice.


Polar Exploration

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