From Pole to Shining Pole

In 1986, I joined the Steger International Polar Expedition, a team of seven men and 49 male dogs. After reaching the North Pole as the first known woman to cross the ice, I was thrust into a new role and a new understanding of what I could do merging education and expeditions.

In 1992 and 1993, I mounted an all-female expedition across Greenland from east to west, and then from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole. In 2000 and 2001, I invited Norwegian explorer Liv Arnesen to join me in trying to cross Antarctica from Queen Maud Land to the Ross Ice Shelf by ski and sail. Liv and I have been working together ever since; we share both a love of outdoor travel and a desire to use these expeditions as a way to motivate and inspire young people.

Typically, there is excitement around the adventures Liv and I take. We utilize this excitement to open discussions of the above topics while people are following the expeditions. We expand on these discussions by providing educators with curricula that are designed to complement what is already taking place in the classrooms. The curricula are free and can be used in lots of ways. Teachers are extremely creative, and each time we have found that they expand upon what is offered in terrific ways. The expeditions are great metaphors for much that is going on in the classroom.

When we started planning our most recent expedition two years ago, our main goal was to broaden the discussion -- there was little discussion going on at all in this country. By talking about what is happening in the Arctic as we travel, we hope to empower people, particularly young people, to understand and engage in the solutions. Like an expedition, many small steps start to accumulate and make a difference. We as ordinary citizens can make a difference in so many ways to stem global warming.

The North Pole expedition 21 years ago was a dream come true for me. We traveled as far north as possible by dog team, and we had no GPSs or satellite phones as we do now. Communication to the outside world was sparse. I had a real sense of what it might have felt like to be one of the early explorers who ignited these dreams for me as a young girl.

Problems on expeditions are typically a series of small things that accumulate to create an issue. In our case, we were on Ward Hunt Island getting ready to go when a plane with skis came in to drop off a group, just as it had with us the day before. After losing control on the landing because of hitting rocks and ice, it swerved in our direction. It hit one of our sleds and one of Liv Arnesen's snowshoes. We repaired the shoe and got under way.

Our sleds were extremely heavy with supplies for 60 days, and the condition of the ice made travel brutal -- it was more like sand than ice. This meant that Liv and I were bent way over our snowshoes to try and move forward. And lastly, it was indeed cold -- although not colder than we expected, as it is generally very cold in the first part of March before the sun gets a chance to return to much strength. But the cold, the pressure our creative fix of the binding created, and the weight of sleds all led to an unknown problem on Liv's foot. On the sixth day we discovered three black toes with no prior warning, which is very unusual. But as we have come to learn over and over again on long journeys in harsh conditions, little can go wrong because your margin of error is so slim.