The North Pole

As promised, today’s blog is about my trip to the North Pole.

Unlike the South Pole, which is located on the continent of Antarctica, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Artic Ocean which has no land and is completely covered by ice.  If you want to go there, you have two basic options. You can take a ride on the Russian Ice Breaker that occasionally visits during the summer months, or charter two small airplanes and fly.

Why two airplanes?  One for refueling and backup, silly.  You don’t want to be stuck in a small airplane, with a tiny lunch, standing on an ice pack that may crack under your feet, more than a thousand miles from anywhere.

When we arrived at the base camp, a Canadian weather station with the northernmost landing strip accessible by a gravel runway, we spent four days sitting around with scientists from a polar expedition – all of us waiting for the weather to clear so we could complete our respective journeys.  Each day Daveen and I took a five-minute walk around the building, and boy, was it cold.

My dad, at age 93, would have been the oldest person to ever visit the North Pole.  We had even lined up an appearance for him on a national morning talk show.  But when we reached the weather station Dad began complaining of a slight pain in his chest.  My son and daughter-in-law, both doctors, “borrowed” a glycerin tablet from the station’s medical supply cabinet.

After Dad took the pill, he immediately felt better.  According to the doctors, however, that indicated he might have a serious heart problem, so we chartered the only jet air ambulance in the neighborhood to immediately fly him, together with my daughter-in-law doctor, directly to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota for evaluation.

Though he turned out to be fine and lived to enjoy many more adventures, Dad never kept his appointment to appear on the Today Show.

Our flight from the North Pole back to the weather station was very exciting, which is a euphemism for dangerous.

More about that next week.

Alan