Alan Fox

In last week’s blog I finished just as a crack in the ice approached our small plane. Our party (my two sons, Daveen, and I) quickly boarded our small, chartered airplane parked at the North Pole (actually, nine-tenths of a mile away), for the return flight back to the safety of the Canadian weather station base camp.  We managed to take off just as the ice crack extended dangerously close to our plane.

But our adventure wasn’t over. The flight back took eight hours and we needed to stop at a rendezvous site to refuel.  After refueling, the pilot told us that the ice pack was too bumpy for us to take off. He handed us all shovels so we could flatten the takeoff strip.  Unfortunately, we didn’t flatten it quite enough.

On takeoff we felt a large “bump” just as we became airborne.

Our pilot announced the bad news over the intercom. The plane’s hydraulic system had been knocked out which meant he wouldn’t be able to extend the flaps to slow us down or lower the wheels when we landed.  As we approached the weather station, he warned us we would be landing on a gravel runway with skis rather than wheels, and at a higher-than-normal speed.

“We’ll be fine,” he added.  That was certainly reassuring.

As our group leader I knew I was responsible for setting the tone, so I made it a point to remain entirely upbeat.  If this trip was to be our last, we might as well enjoy it.

Just before we landed the pilot instructed us to lean forward and hold our hands over the back of our necks.  Gee, I thought.  Just like a Boeing 737.

Crash. Thud.  Bumpity-bumpity-bump.  There was a loud cascade of expletives from the cockpit.

I’ve heard it said that a good landing is one you walk away from, and in that respect it was fine. For the passengers at least.  The pilot was a bit upset.  He told us that in ten years of Arctic flying he had never had an accident, and it looked like the plane would need more than $500,000 in repairs.

When we trooped into the weather station we were greeted with a festive lunch.  I wondered why I was so hungry.  And tired.  Then I realized – our adventure had lasted 23 hours.  The sun remained above the horizon the entire time, which meant that we couldn’t properly estimate the passage of time.

Would I do this again?  Maybe.  After all, I’m not even 93 yet.

But even as I write this a part of me is a little surprised I traveled to the North Pole in the first place.

Alan

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

We make many decisions throughout our lives, but very few have life or death consequences.  Ernest Shackleton, the famed explorer who led the Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916, was faced with several critical decisions that did impact the survival of his entire crew.

Shackleton’s ship, The Endurance with 27 men on board, couldn’t endure the extreme conditions navigating through ice in the South Atlantic Sea.  After getting trapped in an ice floe, it sank.  With little hope of rescue, Shackleton and five crew members spent 16 days in a small lifeboat crossing 800 miles of ocean to reach South Georgia Island.  At that point several of them had to trek across the island and over a mountain pass to reach a whaling station for help.

Their only supplies were rope, wood planks, and a small amount of food.  As they began their descent from the mountain top Shackleton suggested that they tie the planks together to make an improvised sled to carry them down the mountain.

One member of his crew objected, fearing they would fall off a cliff.

Shackleton explained that they would all freeze to death before making it to the whaling station. If they wanted to survive, their only hope was to take their chances on the sled.

The sled ride was a success.  They did not fall off a cliff, and a few hours later they arrived at the whaling station. They were greeted by a man Shackleton knew, although he and his men were so emaciated he wasn’t recognizable.

Despite the odds, Shackleton’s entire crew was rescued and survived. That is one of the more memorable successes of world exploration and it is a tribute to his decisive leadership (although I don’t know how he explained his loss of the ship to his financial backers).

I’m not an explorer, and I’ve lived my entire life in a city.  Thank goodness my decisions do not usually have life or death implications.  Years ago, I did fly on a chartered plane that landed nine-tenths of a mile from the actual North Pole.  After we enjoyed a leisurely walk on the ice, the pilot noticed a crack that was expanding in the direction of the airplane.  My decision was to sprint back onto the plane — faster than I have ever moved before or since.

We then had an adventure of our own on the flight back to the weather station in Northern Canada, but that story will have to wait for my next blog.

Happy travels!

Alan