About the Race

In order to raise funds for the Carpe Diem Trust, a number of the Trustees are risking frostbite and hypothermia by taking part in an expedition to walk/ski to the Magnetic North Pole.

In order to do this, we are entering a team in the Polar Race 2007.

Why enter the Polar Race?

To plan and organise a Polar expedition on our own would be an enormous undertaking both financially and logistically. Much as we would love to take on such a challenge, it seemed more prudent to take part in the established Polar Race, which has a well proven system for resupply and safety. This is also the most cost effective way for The Carpe Diem Polar Expedition to mount an expedition to the Pole.

Why the Magnetic North Pole?

There are actually four north poles! The Geographic Pole, the Magnetic Pole, the Geomagnetic Pole and the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility. For more information on the four, there is an excellent article in Wikipedia. Some people have asked whether we would prefer to be going to the Geographic North Pole. In actual fact, most people who go to the Geographic North Pole fly into Spitzberg Island to walk ‘the last degree’ – which is 60 nautical miles. We prefer the challenge of walking 350 nautical miles from Resolute Bay to the Magnetic North Pole.

The Carpe Diem Trust has joined forces with the Polar Race 2007. This is a gruelling expedition to walk/ski 350 miles from Resolute Bay in Canada to the Magnetic North Pole. The race is billed as "Probably the World's Toughest Race', and will cross some of the most desolate terrain on Earth. Just to survive in this terrain takes courage and skill, but to race across it will require a willingness and determination that is rarely tested in modern life.

Founded and run by British adventurers Jock Wishart and David Hempleman-Adams, the Polar Race was inspired by their 1996 expedition The Ultimate Challenge when they successfully took ten novices selected from 500 applicants on the first ever televised trek to the Magnetic North Pole.

Following the success of the 1996 expedition, which proved that novices could be trained and equipped for a Polar expedition, Jock and David established The Polar Race. So far two races have been run with 25 out of 26 competitors successfully reaching the Pole. The 2007 Race will be the third.

Although not unsupported, there are strict rules on the carrying of equipment, with only food, fuel and camera batteries permitted to be replenished at the three checkpoints along the route. All other equipment, including tents, sleeping bags, clothing, stove etc will be hauled behind the entrants in ‘pulks’ or sleds.

To find out more about the Polar Race 2007 you can visit their website at www.polarrace.com

The Polar Race takes place in the Arctic Spring. During the winter conditions would be too harsh, whereas in the summer months the ice can be too soft to safely mount Polar expeditions. In the Spring, we will face a still air temperature of between -20°C and -35°C. Add to that a wind chill and it can drop down to -65°C. To put that into perspective, a domestic deep freezer chills to around -15°C

The Arctic is a dry cold, however. While not as dry as Antarctica, which famously has less precipitation than the Sahara Desert, the Arctic receives less than 250mm per year.

At the start of the race, we will experience a few short hours of night time dusk. Around 28 April however, the approaching summer means that we will be operating in 24 hour daylight.

We will be walking and skiing across a relatively thin crust of sea ice, some 2m – 3m thick: an ever changing and dramatic landscape of infinitely variable shapes, textures and colours. Such a terrain poses more natural hazards than a South Pole expedition: the risk of thin ice and polar bear encounters are unknown on Antarctica.

The terrain varies from totally flat sea ice, to huge boulders which have to be scrambled over. At times, conditions can be brutal. Our route during the race will also skirt the frozen Bathurst Island, adding yet further uncertainty and uneven ground to traverse. In past races, reading the ground and choosing the right route has been a major factor in a team’s performance.

The principal environmental hazard is the bitter cold. The dangers of frostbite and hypothermia are very real but with good preparation, sound personal administration, and most importantly teamwork these hazards can be drastically minimised, leaving only the polar bears to worry about…

Frostbite. Frostbite is quite literally frozen body tissue. If only skin deep it is referred to as frostnip and is easily dealt with. Regular checks of ourselves and each other should detect the tell tale whitening of the skin that is most common on cheeks, nose and ears. Treated simply by gently warming the affected area by covering it with a gloved hand or blowing exhaled air over the skin.

If the underlying tissues are allowed to freeze, then frostbite itself has set in. The blood vessels will constrict reducing blood flow drastically as the body tries to retain heat. With no warm blood flowing into the area, the ambient temperature will further cool the body part, causing ice crystals to form inside the tissue. These crystals will grow by drawing water out of the cells, quite literally freeze drying the affected area. Unless the area is gently warmed to reverse the process, the cells will break down and rupture, causing permanent damage.

Hypothermia. Humans are fragile creatures, and in the perishing cold of the Arctic we will be utterly reliant upon the portable mini-environment that we will carry with us. Our bodies are designed for the tropics, and are woefully inadequate to defend against the cold. For every 0.6°C drop in body temperature, cerebral metabolism decreases by 5%. As chemical reactions slow, thinking becomes sluggish and fine motor dexterity is lost – critically affecting our ability to get out of the very situation that is causing the problem. As we run out of energy, the cold starts to take over. Electrical transmission of nerve impulses is delayed and its amplitude reduced. Body parts become numb, limbs lose their coordination, and the mind becomes apathetic. Body temperature only has to fall by 2°C from the norm for hypothermia to start to set in.

Once again teamwork is an essential tool against hypothermia. The sufferer generally will not notice the problem, becomes confused and can even become irritable or aggressive when helped. In addition, the correct clothing is essential. If our sweat is not wicked by the correct thermal underwear away before it can evaporate, it will dissipate our body heat thirty times faster than if we remain dry. Heat loss is then prevented further by good insulation protected by a wind and waterproof shell.

Polar Bears. Despite their cute image, polar bears are a very real danger in Arctic travel. The largest land carnivore in the world, a polar bear’s primary prey is the ringed seal, although they will also prey on birds, eggs and small mammals. There is even evidence of polar bears preying on beluga whales and reindeer. When frightened, hungry, angry or just curious enough, they have been known to attack and kill humans.

Polar bears can weigh as much as 450 kilos and stretch 3 metres from nose to tail. The largest polar bear on record was shot in Kotzebue Sound, Alaska in 1960, and weighed in at 1002 kilos. They are strong, fast and agile on land, on ice or in the water. They have an exceptional sense of smell and good hearing. A human cannot outrun a polar bear.

Polar bears are supremely adapted to their Arctic environment. They have two layers of fur on top of a layer of blubber that can measure 4 ½ inches thick. Polar bears are so well insulated against the cold that they have more problems from overheating when they exert themselves, such as when they run.

Despite being excellent swimmers, polar bears rarely hunt from the water - instead, they use the pack ice as a platform for hunting their prey. Polar bears hunt by waiting patiently at a ringed seal’s breathing hole, for hours or even days, until the seal comes up for air.

Polar bears are under threat from climate change and the activities of humans. It is estimated that there are fewer than 25000 left in the wild.

All teams in the Polar Race will carry shotguns to protect against bear attack. Usually firing over a bear’s head is sufficient to dissuade its curiosity, and only as an absolute last resort should any team have to actually shoot a bear.

A Brief History of Arctic Exploration

The Arctic is a vast, frozen ocean at the top of the world. It is, by its nature, a unique environment. The name Arctic comes from the ancient Greek αρκτος, meaning 'bear', and is a reference to the constellations of the Great Bear and Little Bear which are located near the North Star.

For millennia philosophers and scientists debated what would be found at the Earth’s northernmost point. For the Mediterranean countries of the Classical world, the north represented barbarian invasion and ill fortune. The Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, who is believed to have travelled as far as Britain in 330BC, spoke of a strange northern land he named Ultima Thule in which the summer had no night.

‘…where neither earth, water, nor air exist separately, but a sort of concretion of all these, resembling a sea-lung, in which the earth, the sea, and all things were suspended, thus forming, as it were, a link to unite the whole together’. (Pytheas, 330BC).

Other Greek myths spoke of the Hyperboreans - a legendary people believed to live "beyond the north wind" at the edge of the world, in a land of unbroken sunshine where they live for a thousand years and enjoy perfect happiness.

It wasn’t only the Greeks who speculated about conditions on the top of the planet. In the 1300s scholars spoke of a huge magnetic mountain some thirty miles across, which explained why a magnetized needle always pointed north. In some cases, the pull of this mountain was thought to be so powerful that it could carry a ship to its doom by pulling on the iron nails holding its planks together.

In the 19th Century, the suggestion of an open sea at the Pole was much mooted. Several explorers in the 1850s claimed sightings of open water, leading geographers Maury and Petermann to defend the idea of a relatively warm liquid sea at the top of the world. Of course this was not so far from the truth – the North Pole is in fact surrounded by a Polar sea, albeit a frozen one. Some writers, such as Jules Verne in his underrated 1865 novel ‘The Adventures of Captain Hatteras’, even suggested an island in the centre of this Polar sea crowned by a savage volcano in full eruption.

British dominance of Arctic exploration in the 19th Century has been attributed to Waterloo. After Napoleon’s defeat, the overmanned Royal Navy was encouraged to channel its energies into the search for the elusive North West Passage.  When Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition disappeared, more than sixty ships were dispatched over the years in search.

Even when man finally stood at the Pole, there was controversy. Two men, Dr Frederick Cook and Commander Robert Peary, both claimed to have reached the Pole first. Although Cook’s 1908 claim pre-dated Peary’s by a year, credit for the conquest of the North Pole is traditionally given to Peary. However Peary's claim remains controversial, with both the accuracy of his navigation and the speeds he claims to have achieved coming under doubt.

Despite later expeditions by submarine and by plane, it was not until 1968 that the first confirmed and undisputed surface expedition reached the North Pole by skidoo, led by the American Ralph Plaisted.

Finally it could be said that ‘North’ had ceased to be merely a direction, and had at last become a place.

Even today, with adventurous travel locations starting to include both the Arctic and Antarctic, more people have been into space than have walked/skied to one of the Poles.