There were days and times without a bright spot and with adversity on a completely different level than expected. There were days when the whole idea behind the North Pole expedition and the goal seemed pointless and wasted, and when I almost looked in my mind for a viable excuse to give up. Then it helped to pat yourself on the back and remind yourself that this is exactly what you have prepared for. That is how it should be.
On February 17th – my 34th birthday – we left Norway and headed for Canada. With me were Trygve Berge and Jørn Eldar Fortun who would be on the expedition, Peter Hesseberg who would be our contact and advisor in Canada and later on Svalbard, and photographer Ståle Wattø. The destination was Resolute Bay in the North West Territories, where we would meet the fourth man, Ekaksak Amagoalik, and make the final preparations before heading out into the ice.
In total, the expedition, including people and equipment, weighed nearly three tons when we took off from Resolute on March 4 in two chartered planes, a Twin Otter and a DC3. About three hours later, we landed on the small airstrip in Eureka at 80 degrees north. The thermometer showed well below minus 40.
A couple of hours later, the last sled was lashed, the scooters were started, and a column of three scooters and six sleds began winding down the mountainside towards Slidrefjorden and the sea. The journey had begun.
The first few nights in the tent were cold and uncomfortable. It took a while for us to get settled in and get into good camp and travel routines. It was worst in the mornings, when we woke up with an inch of frost under the tent roof and the opening of our sleeping bags full of snow.
On Friday, March 12th, we camped on the great Yelverton Bay in position 82° 30' north and 84° west. We had covered 460 km since leaving Eureka. We had been driving on fine ice close to land all the time. Now we were to take a due north course out into the ever-drifting Arctic Ocean.
The transition from fjord ice to sea ice was gradual, but no less brutal. For the first couple of days we advanced seven to ten kilometers per day.
In minus 45 degrees we hacked our way through meter-high snowfields. Lifting and dragging sleds and scooters over towering obstacles, cursing, sweating and struggling. Within a couple of days our outerwear was so full of ice from condensed sweat that we had to use force to get it on in the morning. And the ice just got worse and worse. It gradually became clear that we wouldn't be able to get through unless the ice improved radically.
One night we had a consultation and decided that our only chance was to get a plane up and reconnoiter the entire coast from Yelverton Bay to Ward Hunt Island and then plot a new course from land where the ice drifts were the least.
The day before the plane arrived, we woke up to find that a huge blizzard had split the camp in two. The ice was moving around us on all sides, and the slab we were lying on continued to crumble while new blizzards were rapidly building up on other sides.
We gathered all our people and equipment, loaded up our sleds and began a desperate drive back towards land and Yelverton Bay. For more than 12 hours we drove – almost non-stop – crossing a series of newly frozen ridges of thin ice, flying over screw fences, and making bridges over smaller ridges by filling them with small ice.
We had no choice but to continue north. In the course of a day we drove all the way up to Cape Martin Fanshave – not too far from Ward Hunt Island, which had been our original starting point. Here we finally got a new plane in, had a proper reconnaissance done and plotted a new course between the screw farms. For days we struggled through new screw farms: cutting, lifting and dragging scooters and sleds. We hoped that nice, beautiful ice would reveal itself behind each new screw farm we reached. We were equally disappointed each time, but still we headed north. We recorded a bottom temperature of minus 54 degrees.
On March 31st we had reached 84° 24' north and had weathered the worst of the landslips. We camped to await aircraft with new supplies from Resolute Bay.
The plane – a Twin Otter equipped with DC3 wheels and no skis – came in for a landing, broke through the seemingly solid ice cover and came to rest in a cloud of snow. As the six-ton plane broke through the ice and came to a sudden stop, it tilted forward so that the left propeller hit the snow and bent a propeller blade. What we had checked and found to be solid ice now turned out to be three to four inches thick.
We immediately contacted the airport in Resolute Bay to arrange for a plane with mechanics, a new propeller and skis to be flown up to the damaged Twin Otter. In the meantime, all eight of us were accommodated in our tent, which was initially designed to accommodate four people. Then the wait began.
During the first night, both the copilot and the radio technician became ill, the copilot suffered from severe open wounds on the inside of his thighs, while the radio technician suffered from stomach problems with vomiting and diarrhea. It was minus 42 degrees outside.
The next day the plane arrived with mechanics and spare parts, but they did not find us and had to return. During the day the two sick people had become even worse, and their situation would probably have been catastrophic if the service plane of the British Transglobe Expedition had not come in and taken them back to Ellesmere Island with Peter Hesseberg. It was not until the next day that the plane arrived with mechanics and spare parts.
It came as a bit of a shock when I learned that Ekaksak and Jørn had decided to cancel the trip and return by plane as soon as it was repaired.
At first I was cursed, then despaired. My immediate reaction was that Trygve and I were allowed to continue alone, which Trygve was willing to do. However, upon closer consideration, it seemed to be a rather unrealistic project. The entire expedition was planned and built around four men. With three men we could still be reasonably safe, but with only two it wouldn't work.
Ekaksak's reasoning was that he no longer believed we would be able to reach the North Pole. The Twin Otter accident was the last straw.
"Do you want lives to be lost?" he asked me when I tried to persuade him to continue.
-No, I replied. – There is also no danger of anyone losing their lives as long as we are together and continue all four of us. It will only become dangerous if Trygve and I have to continue alone, which we will do anyway. For us, there is no going back. We have too many obligations both to ourselves and to our sponsors to end now.
Try for another fourteen days. If during that time we can't show progress or things start to go wrong, we'll get a plane in and end it all.
-OK, said Ekaksak. -Fourteen more days.
With Ekaksak willing to make another attempt, Jørn was also persuaded to continue, and it was with immense relief that after five long days I saw Twin Otter take off. There were still four of us left on the ice.
We struggled on northward. Ekaksak kept the lead the whole time. Looking for the best way through or past the ice drifts. Nevertheless, well over half of the working day was spent cutting a path.
As we crossed the latitudes heading north, the ice became better and better, but the daily stages did not become significantly longer because we had to make more and more repairs. The severe cold also caused fatigue failures in the equipment to occur more frequently than normal.
At just under 85 degrees north we received supplies by drop from one of the Norwegian Armed Forces Hercules aircraft. Due to the bad ice and run-down sleds, we had to return half of the gasoline that came in the drop.
It was clear that we were now travelling on a moving sea. It gradually became routine to work our way over active rifts. The ice usually did not melt faster than it was entirely safe to work through, but to be on the safe side we made an extra effort to make it go as quickly as possible. The thought of getting stuck in the middle of a rift that was on its way up was not very appealing…
There was no longer any clearly visible difference between night and day, and with an average temperature of minus 20-25 degrees Celsius, it felt warm compared to what we were previously used to. The leadership work was now done without mittens and parkas as long as it wasn't too windy. The "high" temperatures were not all good, however. The snow that collected in clothes, mittens and socks now had a much easier time melting, and it became a problem to stay dry.
One morning we suddenly discovered tracks of two scooters and two sledges. Incredibly, we were now crossing the tracks of the British Transglobe expedition. As we had approached the North Pole, we had talked several times about the possibility of this, and I had put up a prize for the first person to find them. As usual, it was the very observant Ekaksak who walked away with the prize.
We tried to follow the British track in the hope that it would save us some roadwork through the ice screws, but it soon became apparent that the ice had changed considerably in the two weeks since the British had passed. Several times the track simply disappeared, and at regular intervals we had to stop for screw guards that had not been there when the British crossed. After a couple of hours we lost the track for good.
On Saturday evening, April 24, we reached 88 degrees 54' north. Our fuel supply was almost exhausted. What was left in the tanks was no more than we would need in reserve if we had to evacuate the camp. On Monday morning we were promised "Husky 85" with new supplies from Norway and a new sled. We now had only three left of the original six sleds we started with, and two of these were dismantled and reassembled into a new one while we waited for the plane.
Tuesday dawned with good weather and over the radio we followed the Hercules plane from the time it took off in Longyearbyen until it roared into the camp and dropped supplies, gasoline and sleds.
A couple of hours later we were on our way north again.
For the first couple of weeks after the accident with the Twin Otter, I was unsure what Ekaksak and Jørn would do when the fourteen "trial days" were over.
But I could have spared myself the worry. No one ever said we should break off. On the contrary, it seemed as if everyone was more determined than ever to complete the trip. Even if it was sometimes bordering on the prudent.
We no longer had any doubts that the wind and the waves would not prevent us from reaching the North Pole. Even though we lost one or two scooters and much of our equipment, there was no more than 100 kilometers more than we could cover on foot. The only thing we were terrified of losing was our communications and navigation equipment.
