TREK TO THE REMOTEST PLACE ON EARTH
Exclusive by Adam Lee-Potter In The Arctic Circle, sundaymirror.co.uk 29/04/2007
EXCLUSIVE THE POLE OF INACCESSIBILITY IN THE ARCTIC IS SO BLEAK NO-ONE HAS EVER SET FOOT ON IT..NOW ONE MAN PLANS A SOLO WALK, BATTLING - 40C COLD AND DODGING HUNGRY POLAR BEARS
THE packed sled attached to my waist weighs more than me, the wind chill is minus 20C and as we trudge, painfully slowly, across the ice all I can remember is last night's supper.
Three bloody slices of seal, three bloody slices of whale and a raw potato. And it's not much comfort to know that our tent has already been slashed by a polar bear.
Welcome to Svalbard, 600 miles south of the North Pole and the training camp for the last world-first in global adventure - the first expedition on foot to the Pole of Inaccessibility, the point of the Arctic Ocean ice furthest from any land and the remotest place on Earth.
Explorer Jim McNeill aims to be the first man to set foot here - 200 miles north of the North Pole and 735 miles from the nearest land.
But it's a mission with an important purpose. In partnership with environmental charity Born Free, Jim plans to highlight the terrifying effects of global warming - the destruction of the sea ice which leaves polar bears facing extinction. Jim will be taking photos and carrying out research on the depletion of the thickness of the ice.
The Pole of Inaccessibility deserves its name. It was first discovered in 1927 when Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins claimed to have flown over it. And, 31 years later, the crew of a Russian icebreaker also said they had reached it.
Jim snorts: "Yes, but the first was by plane and, according to NASA, he was 150 miles out. So, too, the Russians. They weren't in the right place.
"I will be the first person, ever, to stand on the actual spot, having walked there solo. This is real journey-to-the-centre-of-the-Earth stuff. Forget Everest, the Arctic Pole is the last place man has yet to claim."
Jim, 46, is undeniably gung-ho. He's been an environmental scientist, a soldier, a £120,000-a-year City trader and a £12,000-a-year fireman. But, for the last 12 years, he's been an adventurer - he's walked to the Geomagnetic North Pole, been stalked by polar bears and almost died twice after falling into the Arctic Ocean.
Still the Pole of Inaccessibility eludes him. Next year's attempt will be his third and last. His first - a five-month, 735-mile bid - was blighted before it even began after he was struck down by the flesheating disease necrotising fasciitis in his leg. His second, last year, ended after just two weeks when he fell into the ocean 130 miles from his Canadian base camp.
He admits: "It was my own fault. I was trying to traverse from one pan of ice to another - it looked like crazy paving.
"I fell 4ft into the water. But what was mad is that my first thought was, 'This feels frightfully nice'. Because, although it was minus 40, you get incredibly hot hauling a 130kg sledge. Even so, I knew I had to get out of there. Pretty soon, I was freezing.
Literally. I set up camp on the ice as fast as I could. I looked down at my boots.
They were frozen solid. I knew what I had to do - I picked up my sat phone and made the call... 'Get me out of here!'
"When the plane finally landed, I had to walk, with no boots, for more than a mile. I got frostbite in my left foot. Even now I can't feel two of my toes - they're effectively dead."
Jim is no stranger to death-defying moments. "I don't have a death wish but my worst fear is going to my grave having not lived.
"My closest call was in 1995. I was in northern Canada, on the sea ice. The weather got too warm too quickly. I was on a sledge being pulled by a snow-ski when the ice gave way. The driver, to save himself, hit the throttle. I was left there, up to my neck in sludge, three and-a-half miles from shore. It was only determination that got me home. "But I felt euphoric that I'd got away with it. In that sort of situation, it is so easy to stop.
I dragged myself to shore and got in the tent. I don't know how long it took me - probably about four hours. All I concentrated on was staying alive.
"I could be an accountant in Croydon, sure, but that wouldn't be living life. I've only got one fear - wasting my life.
"I would hate, at the end of my life, for it to have been of no purpose. Maybe that's why I want to save the planet."
So here we are in northern Norway, three flights from London and 800 miles into the Arctic Circle.
Jim sets out in February from Cape Isachsen, Canada. If successful, he will be picked up by a Russian icebreaker in July. The other option, he says, "is not an option".
This is his last training mission. Svalbard - three hours from Oslo - is the closest "last frontier" to his Berkshire home. With a population of just 1,900, this is the Arctic Circle's Wild West. There is a school, a hospital that handily specialises in polar bear attacks, a coal mine and a hurricane-lamp-lit bar that sells reindeer sandwiches.
We set out at 4am but with the 24-hour Arctic sunlight it might as well be lunchtime. Encased in six layers of merino wool and pulling a 130kg sled, my feet sink six inches into scarily crusty snow. Even the slightest of inclines feels like a punch to the lungs.
As we stop for a weak brew - one teabag between two and a boiled half-litre of snow - Jim shows me his tent. The door is zigzagged with thick-yarn stitches - the reminder of a swipe from a polar bear's paw.
"He was just being curious rather than predatory," says Jim. "Thank God. The biggest one I've seen was about 10ft tall and half a ton. I have a shotgun loaded with three bear-scarers and, as a last resort, two slugs. But I've never had to shoot a bear yet.
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"They are just fascinating creatures. Being aggressive with a bear is always a mistake. Because whatever you do, a polar bear is always capable of being more aggressive than you. He or she will just eat you and spit out the bones." Jim is, and indeed looks like, a polar explorer.
"Fat but fit," is his description and he's not wrong. With legs like canoes - courtesy, no doubt, of his 10,000-calorie-a-day diet - a frost-nipped nose and hands that could crush walnuts, he looks like a benign killer.
He's certainly a loner, although he is a father of three, whose youngest son is nine. "My son never says, 'Daddy, don't go'," he tells me. "He just accepts this is the way I am. I don't even speak to my children on the sat phone. Mac's too young. And the girls - they're 20 and 24 - worry but they accept it."
His daughters live with their mother - Jim's first wife - in Australia. His second wife Lori, 47, is, he says, his "soulmate" - which is probably just as well. "I've got no friends. I'm happiest on my own. People have always let me down."
For his record attempt, he will be hauling a 130kg "sledoo" - a £5,000 sledge he helped design that doubles as a canoe. When he sets off in February the ice will be solid but by the time he finishes the ice will be melting. "It will enable me to paddle across water."
Among his supplies will be a PLB - a personal location beacon. "I'll only activate that if I get into real trouble or get mauled by a polar bear. It sends off a global distress signal. At least they'll know where the body is."
Jim is, I think, joking. But he is deadly serious about highlighting the dangers of global warming. "I only fell through the ice last year because it's 40 per cent thinner than it was 40 years ago. Forty years from now there won't be any sea ice. At all. I want to pump out the message that climate change matters. That's why I'm doing this."
We have been going now for six hours and covered barely four miles. Jim, next year, will have another 731 to cover in temperatures twice as savage.
But I've had enough as the weather closes in over us from the west - a petrifying blur of snow blizzard whipping up off the Arctic Ocean. My thighs are screaming, steam comes off me like a horse and my frozen hands and feet are but a distant memory.
I turn grimly for the half-day trudge back to base camp. Jim sets his jaw, takes the strain, and - alone - heads north.
DANGERS OF GOING TO LOO
JIM will have to haul five months of supplies in his 130kg sle doo.
They will include 40 litres of fuel, 40kg of freeze-dried food, chocolate and nuts, a gas stove, a four-season tent, a GPS, a sextant, a global distress beacon, flares, a back-up survival suit, diarrhoea tablets painkillers and a gun.
His trip will take him across some of the most inhospitable terrain known to man. Even going to the loo in minus 40C can be dangerous. Jim must keep exposure to a minimum and washing will not be an option.
Each night he will set up camp on the ice and dig a latrine downwind of his tent. "That way, if a curious polar bear finds me, it will most likely investigate the latrine first and give me an early warning," he says.
JOIN JIM ON HIS EXPEDITION
THE Sunday Mirror's Adam Lee-Potter will be joining Jim's world-record at tempt to reach all four North Poles simultaneously.
While Jim will make, solo, for the Arctic Pole, four other groups will be heading for the Geographic, Magnetic and Geomagnetic Poles. A fifth party will head for the Northwest Passage.
Jim and environmental charity Born Free are looking for 60 volunteers to take part in this world-first mission. No experience is necessary as equipment and training, which will cost volunteers an estimated £5,000, will be provided in Canada and the UK.
For more info go to Jim's website www.ice-warrior.com or contact Born Free on 01403 240170.
THE Pole of Inaccessibilty is the point in the Arctic Ocean furthest from land.
THE Geographic Pole (aka the North Pole) is the furthest point north from the equator.
THE Magnetic North Pole is where the Earth's magnetic field points directly downwards.
THE Geomagnetic Pole - 500 miles east of the Magnetic Pole - better indicates the Earth's complex magnetic field.
'I've had frostbite.. I still can't feel 2 toes'
'At least they'll know how to find my body'
adamleepotter@sundaymirror.co.uk