Through Canada's Arctic Islands

At dusk we made fast to a heavy floe, each boat having its painter fastened to a separate hummock in order to avoid collisions in the swell. We landed the blubber-stove, boiled some water in order to provide hot milk, and served cold rations. I also landed the dome tents and stripped the coverings from the hoops. Our experience of the previous day in the open sea had shown us that the tents must be packed tightly. The spray had dashed over the bows and turned to ice on the cloth, which had soon grown dangerously heavy. Other articles of our scanty equipment had to go that night. We were carrying only the things that had seemed essential, but we stripped now to the barest limit of safety. We had hoped for a quiet night, but presently we were forced to cast off, since pieces of loose ice began to work round the floe. Drift-ice is always attracted to the lee side of a heavy floe, where it bumps and presses under the influence of the current. I had determined not to risk a repetition of the last night's experience and so had not pulled the boats up. We spent the hours of darkness keeping an offing from the main line of pack under the lee of the smaller pieces. Constant rain and snow-squalls blotted out the stars and soaked us through, and at times it was only by shouting to each other that we managed to keep the boats together. There was no sleep for anybody owing to the severe cold, and we dare not pull fast enough to keep ourselves warm since we were unable to see more than a few yards ahead. Occasionally the ghostly shadows of silver, snow, and fulmar petrels flashed close to us, and all around we could hear the killers blowing their short, sharp hisses sounding like sudden escapes of steam. The killers were a source of anxiety for a boat could easily have been capsized by one of them coming up to blow. They would throw aside in a nonchalant fashion pieces of ice much bigger than our boats when they rose to the surface,and we had an uneasy feeling that the white bottoms of the boats would look like ice from below. Shipwrecked mariners drifting in the Antarctic seas would be things not dreamed of in the killers' philosophy, and might appear on closer examination to be tasty substitutes for seal and pengiun. We certainly regarded the killers with misgivings. Sir Ernest Shackleton, 1912

What, again? Right now? What possesses people? Ah, they are simply possessed. Of a fever that will not be extinguished until they are. "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages and bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful." Yes, and who would respond to such an advertisement for hands on board to set out on a modern-day row-boat expedition through Canada's Arctic Islands to the North Magnetic Pole?

Demented souls, that's who. Obviously. Obviously people with a thirst for danger and adventure of a kind that cannot be imagined, that must be experienced first-hand to fully understand. And, having experienced that first-hand kind of adventure, if one survives, one may exult, and then plan the next improbable, life-enhancing/endangering adventure, and then another. To silence that desperate inner urge to a quiescent murmur of satisfaction.

I'm just going outside', I said, 'and may be some time'.
There was a blizzard blowing. I was in my stocking feet, yet I didn't feel the cold. I had only struggled a few yards, the snow driving against me, when I heard voices. I waved my hand in front of me, as though I was wiping a mirror, and then I saw Boy Charger, skittering backwards and forwards in the drift.
'Be so good as to restrain him, Mr. Brown', a voice said.
'I'm holding back the dawn', said Mr. Brown. "Captain Oates approaches'.
I only had to crawl a few yards; the pelting snow rained down like music.
'Happy Birthday' sang the man holding the bridle. And oh, how warm it was. Titus Oates' departure: Beryl Bainbridge: the doomed Scott Terra Nova expedition.

A modern-day adventure, a proposed voyage described as "one of the world's last great firsts" in polar exploration, to be embarked upon with Scottish sailor Jock Wishart who intends to captain a six-person rowing crew on a 2011 journey through ice-choked waters. In a search for the ever-moving magnetic pole, currently north of Ellef Ringnes Island, off Nunavut. Does that not sound romantic, alluring, irresistible?

It will be, presumably, for five hardy individuals aside from leader Jock Wishart. Adventurous individuals will respond to the advertisement, perhaps with some trepidation, but also with a huge amount of enthusiasm, no doubt. This "Row to the Pole" will be quite the adventure. Its website explains that the sailors "will face dramatic, icebound coastlines and shifting sea ice barriers on their voyage and their haul of the boat over land, which is necessary to complete the voyage."

Who could resist such an invitation to glorious adventure, seeing nature at her rawest, most inconveniently but dreadfully exciting, exhilarating fiercest; snow, sleet, ice, cold, inclement weather. Will any of the five souls who apply for the adventure have read about previous such adventures? There will be daily Web updates for the hordes of armchair adventurers who prefer to pursue their risk-taking at a distinct remove.

Mr. Wishart is proud of the fact that his will be the first polar voyage to row boats, emulating the adventure experienced by British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew who desperately manned lifeboats in an attempt to reach safety after the loss of the flagship Endurance, leaving them stranded in the ill-fated Antarctic expedition they had embarked upon a century earlier. Sir Ernest had no computer, no GPS, no modern high-tech gear and clothing and food.

The climate-change-blamed break-up of the sea ice making navigating more potentially easier is a boost. Reaching the magnetic pole may be problematical, it is said to be moving easterly at about 64 km a year, away from Canada toward the central Arctic Ocean. Closer to Russia. Mr. Wishart is preparing to embark on the greatest adventure of his life. And he has experienced some fairly remarkable adventuring.

Good luck.