North Pole conquerors return home

Scalding water put ten-week unsupported ski trek in jeopardy

print this

By Jouni Kantola
     
      The seven members of the Unsupported Expedition to the North Pole of the Airborne Rangers Club of Finland are showing a definite talent for shovelling cake into their mouths. Wives and children join in the party at Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport.
      The group of men, who have grown accustomed to strict rationing over the past ten weeks, can be forgiven for attacking the cake and for the announcement at the very beginning of the press reception on their return - namely that this briefing is going to be a very short one.
      "So that we can all get home as quickly as possible", says Henrik B. Reims, leader of the team.
     
The Airborne Rangers Club's expedition is the first Finnish party to have skied to the Geographic North Pole "unsupported", or in other words, with no outside material assistance dropped along the way, and carrying everything that they needed for the two-month trek with them from the very beginning.
      This is already at the more challenging end of modern polar exploration: only 32 people worldwide have managed to pull it off.
      The seven-member team skied more than 800 kilometres across the Arctic Ocean, negotiating rearing hills of pack ice and treacherous cracks, crevasses and open-water leads along the way.
     
The expedition took 54 days 23 hours to achieve its objective of skiing from Ward Hunt Island in Northern Canada, at 83°05'N 75°W, across to the exact North Pole at (of course) 90°00'N.
      All the members returned home safe and sound from their adventure.
      According to team leader Henrik B. Reims, the journey went ahead in three distinct phases.
      For the first three weeks after they set out from Ward Hunt, their progress was seriously hampered by dispriting and apparently impassable mountains of pack ice.
     
Skiing was in any event an extreme sport under such conditions, but matters were worsened by the fact that at this stage the sledges being towed by the members were all packed full of the gear they would need for the entire eight-week journey .
      "In effect, what we had to do was make every bit of forward progress two times over, going back each time to collect the remainder of our supplies and bringing it back to where we had stopped for the day", explains Reims.
      The technique - known as "double carry" - is a familiar one for expeditions; at least the daily tasks remain humanly possible, and also the risks of damage to supplies and sledges are kept to a minimum. But progress is slow.
     
Some of the diary entries, which can be read online, indicate that spirits were occasionally rather low at this point: it really did look at times as if the task was an insurmountable one.
      Weeks 4 and 5 saw a succession of cracks in the ice that had to be crossed, and actual leads of open water that forced a change of tactics.
      "From time to time we found ourselves jumping over the cracks, or using our sledges as pontoon bridges or as rafts, and then again there were moments when there was nothing for it but to put on our dry suits and jump into the Arctic Ocean and swim", explains Reims.
     
The third phase of the expedition was a sprint to the finish, trying to make up lost time and to get inside the target of 55 days that the party had set for itself.
      Conditions were marginally easier by now, but as the distances travelled each day grew to 30 kilometres and more, fatigue and lack of sleep began to cause problems.
      The team leader produced a scare in mid-April when boiling some water in his tent. He scalded himself and the team had to consult medical experts back in Finland on how to proceed.
      "The situation looked quite bad at the time, and we wondered if we would be able to go ahead as planned, reported Kari Suomela, who was responsible for photography on the trip.
      In the end, the other members took up Reims' additional cargo and after a day's delay, the expedition was able to go on.
     
Ten days later, on April 29th, 2006, at 19:31 Finnish time (16:31 GMT), the Finnish flag was thrust into the ground at the Geographical North Pole.
      Mission accomplished.
     
Broken skis and unscheduled swimming trips became familiar to the expedition members, along with enormous tiredness in the frenetic last few days.
      One hazard that did not show up the whole time, even though the party had been prepared to meet them, was polar bears.
      "Probably better for the bears that our paths didn't cross", grunts Reims, and shows a photograph of the expedition members practicing rifle-shooting.
     
All seven members lost at least 10 kilos in body weight during the ordeal, but in spite of the obvious physical and mental strains, morale remained high throughout.
      "The whole idea of something like this is that you do these things together as well as you are humanly able. There's no sense in picking fights and arguing in a situation like that", explains Perttu Ojala, who was responsible for the food supplies for the team.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.5.2006
     
A diary of the trip and many pictures taken along the way can be found from the website of the Airborne Ranger Club Expedition. A few of the moments referred to in the text have been listed below.

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Not everyone makes it home every time...

Links:
  Airborne Ranger Club of Finland: North Pole Expedition 2006
  Diary Entry, 29.4.2006: Mission Accomplished
  Diary Entry 18.4.2006: A scalding and a day off work
  Diary Entry, 31.3.2006: Swimming to the North Pole
  Diary Entry, 7.3.2006: Pack ice obstacle course

Helsingin Sanomat