Arctic Treks: Polar Explorations

Polar exploration continues to enthrall bold adventurers enraptured by the vision that through their determination and hard-earned knowledge of the icy reaches of the Planet, they can still achieve new exploration firsts. And one such individual is modern-day explorer Jim McNeill, who was set to take his British team to trek from the edge of Arctic Canada to the most remote place in the Arctic Ocean - the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility.

British explorers have a long and respected tradition of exploration for science and adventure. They were matched by American, Russian and Norwegian adventurers, all of whom were fascinated with the far reaches of ice-bound North and South poles exploration. Everyone wanted to be there first, to plant their respective national flags, and to bring to themselves national acclaim and international reputations.

Their determination to succeed cost many of them dearly. The treks were arduous beyond the comprehension of any who had never attempted them. The inclemency of severe weather conditions, the vast, isolated geography, the geological and weather-bound features of the areas they sought to explore, to arrive at their distant and severely-difficult-to-attain destinations caused the eventual grievous surrender of life and limb of too many intrepid explorers.

The swell increased that night and the movement of the ice became more pronounced. Occasionally a neighbouring floe would hammer against the ice on which we were camped, and the lesson of these blows was plain to read. We must get solid ground under our feet quickly. When the vibration ceased after a heavy surge, my thoughts flew round to the problem ahead. If the party had not numbered more than six men a solution would not have been so hard to find; but obviously the transportation of the whole party to a place of safety, with the limited means at our disposal, was going to be a matter of extreme difficulty. There were twenty-eight men on our floating cake of ice, which was steadily dwindling under the influence of wind, weather, charging floes, and heavy swell. *

Despite the hardships and the misery and the unbelievable pain suffered by North and South Pole adventurers, they kept returning time and again, and incapable of tempering their enthusiasm, met the forces of nature head on with often predictable results that destroyed their frailty, but ennobled the enterprise.

Now this British team planning to trek from the edge of Arctic Canada to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility - who ever even heard of such a destination, it is considered to be the most remote place in the Arctic Ocean - has had to re-think their plans, on the brink of departure into their adventure from Ellef Ringnes Island, Nunavut. For modern-day adventurer-explorers, hoping to burnish their reputations and aid science in the process, have tools at their disposal that earlier such enterprising men of outstanding courage and determination had not.

Environment Canada forewarned this hardy troupe that the High Arctic is currently in the "worst conditions" for winter ice cover in decades. So their leader, Jim McNeill, has been forced of necessity to postpone for the third time his desire to trek the 1,100-kilometre journey in the recognition of its foolhardiness that would "endanger lives unnecessarily".

The sun was shining in the blue sky on the following morning (April 8). Clarence Island showed clearly on the horizon, and Elephant Island could also be distinguished. The single snow-clad peak of Clarence Island stood up as a beacon of safety, though the most optimistic imagination could not make an easy path of the ice and ocean that separated us from that giant white and austere (peak). "The pack was much looser this morning, and the long rolling swell from the north-east is more pronounced than it was yesterday. The floes rise and fall with the surge of the sea. We evidently are drifting with the surface current, for all the heavier masses of floe, bergs, and hummocks are being left behind. *

The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility exists roughly 400 kilometres farther out to sea than the North Pole itself, therefore it is defined as the most difficult place on the Planet to arrive at, on the Polar ice cap. It was first discovered in 1927 when a pioneering aviator over flew it, while a Russian ice-breaker is thought to have passed close by it in the 1950s. Yet no human has ever yet successfully completed a crossing by foot over the expanses of heaving ice and murderously icy water leading to the centre of the Arctic Ocean's beyond.

At 9:30 p.m. a particularly heavy shock went through our floe. The watchman and other members of the party made an immediate inspection and found a crack right under the James Caird and between the other two boats and the main camp. Within five minutes the boats were over the crack and close to the tents. The trouble was not caused by a blow from another floe. We could see that the piece of ice we occupied had slewed and now presented its long axis towards the oncoming swell. The floe, therefore, was pitching in the manner of a ship, and it had cracked across when the swell lifted the centre, leaving the two ends comparatively unsupported. We were now on a triangular raft of ice, the three sides measuring, roughly, 90, 100 and 120 yards. *

Last week's advisory by Environment Canada came hard on the heels of a Canadian study highlighting unprecedented expanses of open water in the Polar sea; resulting in a fairly reasonable prediction of ice-free summers in the central Arctic Ocean; an occurrence much accelerated from previous forecasts.

"The risks of early failure, of cold injury and of needing to be rescued are too high to justify settingout", 49-year old Jim McNeill reluctantly admitted.

At 7:00 a.m. lanes of water and leads could be seen on the horizon to the west. The ice separating us from the lanes was loose, but did not appear to be workable for the boats. The long swell from the north-west was coming in more freely than on the previous day and was driving the floes together in the utmost confusion. The loose brash between the masses of ice was being churned to mudlike consistency, and no boat could have lived in the channels that opened and closed around us. *

Mr. McNeill, a former firefighter, has changed professions; now organizing endurance trekking tours through his Ice Warrior enterprise. On a previous occasion with the intention of mounting the same trajectory in 2003, he suffered a bout of flesh-eating disease in his ankle, effectively putting a stop to that trip.

Three years later, a second attempt to reach the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility was cancelled as a result of disintegrating ice conditions, and problems encountered with the group's equipment.

Soon after breakfast the ice closed again. We were standing by, with our preparations as complete as they could be made, when at 11 a.m. our floe suddenly split right across under the boats. We rushed our gear on to the larger of the two pieces and watched with strained attention for the next development. The crack had cut through the site of my tent. I stood on the edge of the new fracture, and, looking across the widening channel of water, could see the spot where for many months my head and shoulders had rested when I was in my sleeping-bag. *

The lead scientist associated with Ice Warrior made note of the fact that an Environment Canada meteorologist had advised against the planned journey given the "horrible" deterioration of the ice cover. The disappointment of the group must be vast, given their recently-completed four weeks of training on the Svalbard Islands, Norway.

The three boats were a mile away from our floe home at 2 p.m. We had made our way through the channels and had entered the big pool when we saw a rush of foam-clad water and tossing ice approaching us, like the tidal bore of a river. The pack was being impelled to the east by a tide-rip, and two huge masses of ice were driving down upon us on converging courses. *

Nothing can truly deter the stalwart-determined, and Jim McNeill and his expedition crew are prepared to launch yet another attempt - if ice conditions permit - in 2011.

Man proposes, Nature disposes.

* 1912 - from South, Sir Ernest Shackleton; Antarctica