But, I have only slept three hours per night!

————Actually, I was so tired, so I fell a sleep writing this, which means, three more days, we have gone from Cusco to Puno to Lima, where I am sitting at the hotel waiting to finish the trip with a half day tour of the town which Fransisco Pizarro made the capital of Peru, Lima.——-

There´s so many details, except supplying the group with as much interesting stories as possible and details of everything, but you have to tend to everyone in the group with lots of care, attention and love, plus settle the wake up calls, see to that all the luggage get  picked up and moved to the rooms, see to that you as a tour guide looks neat and clean, always in a good mood, no matter how tired, well, it does work.! But it would be so much harder, without the help of the local guides.the ones in South America is the best in the world. One ends up with quite a few new good friends! They´re knowledgeable, funny, helpful and kind. And you learn so much from them yourself!

Well, this trip has been really great, and this is due to the clients and the local guides. Of course, Peruvians and Ecuadorians are really great in every way as a people as well. Best of all was Metropolitans great Faride Altamirano which made our trip a dream!

Aah, as regards to the negative sides of travelling the world, passing through Schiphol in Amsterdam is a really bad experience. The border police there, is becoming as unfriendly and arrogant as the Americans in the US, which by ease are the unfriendliest on earth. These two countries must have misunderstood the meaning of officers being employed by the people.

Naw, better you watch the videos and see the photos here!

My answer to this email was simple and direct: “You lost motivation and you hadn’t prepared enough!”

His email was similar to hundreds I have received in the last 25 years. After reviewing all of them at length, I realised these failed expeditions often had three things in common: Explorers had lost motivation, and they had failed to understand the need for good sleep, and the benefits of good food.

When the going got too tough, they proved not tough enough to keep on going! Key to any successful expedition is understanding why you go through all these hardships – at the most difficult of moments remember what it is that drives you, and draw on this, it can be your motivation.

Good sleep and good food are the two most important pillars of a successful expedition. If you don’t know how and where to pitch your tent, you will eventually fail due to lack of sleep.

The tent is your fortress and your home, where you spend most of your exploring life. This is where you rest, feed and recuperate. Don’t set off on an expedition until you can sleep very well in your tent. I have spent over 2500 nights in tents – many of them before even setting off.

As important, is being able to cook a great meal. You need energy and rest to be able to make the right decisions. So don’t leave before you know how to cook a gourmet meal on your petrol stove!

That said, you could just get out there! Trust me, this advice is only complementary; you really need to be out on the ground learning the lessons of exploration, if you want to succeed.

I was brought up in a working class environment, where the basic values of life was hard physical work, loyalty to your employer, never forget where one came from and stick to your own kind. For this reason, we only had two books at home, The Sea Wolf and White Fang by Jack London. My father had them on loan indefinitely from the local library, for the simple reason to show our neighbours that our family had ambitions beyond the village limit. I wouldn’t have touched those books if I hadn’t caught the measles as a bored ten year old and with plenty of time to kill, I started reading them. I just couldn’t stop. Once finished, I knew I had discovered an unknown, very exiting and important world. That discovery, in combination with a mother who loved me above all, gave me a self-confidence and a sense of uniqueness, to know that my future lay beyond the limits of the village.

Consequently, as quick as I turned 16, after spending most of my time avoiding the utterly boring knowledge taught in school, I set off for India, prepared to spend a year studying Mahayana Buddhism. Those studies only gave me diarrhoea and gut pains. Instead, I ended up hiking, reading and travelling around. When my money eventually ran out, I returned home with a wish to build bridges of understanding between people by writing, lecturing, filming and through photography. I met a total lack of interest. At that moment I realized, that I had to do something that nobody else had done before. So over the next 7.5 years I cycled from Chile to Alaska, from Norway to South Africa and from New Zealand to Cairo. I pedalled a total distance of 90000 kilometres passing through difficult terrain as the Sahara Desert and the Darien Gap. Since then, I’ve been privileged to live a dream.

The true explorer is unselfish, curious and ready to sacrifice his life in the quest of discovering unknown areas and human limits. An explorers life is a mission to make this earth of ours a better one to live in. For everybody.

The why and how I made interactive Google Maps of Historic Events

by

George Stiller

I began making interactive maps of historic events because I kept going to Google Map to find the locations in the various books I had been reading. It struck me that it would enhance my reading if I created my own Google Map of the book.  Thus, I was able to zoom in on and track the locations and people while I was reading  about in both fiction and non-fiction books. Having developed several of these maps, I decided that I should share them with others who might find them interesting and try to teach others to map their reading. So I created my blog MyReadingMapped.

After a period of time, I noticed that the maps that got the most attention were those of historic events. So, I modified my blog to contain only maps on historic events. Then it dawned on me, that without a college degree, I have no credibility and that I am not a recognized authority on history. To solve that problem, I decided to find 100+-year old eFree Google Books, or online journals, written by the explorers themselves and even Wikipedia pages on the exploration that my map locations could be linked to on a by page basis for credibility.  Thus, the map becomes a library portal to all the knowledge on the Internet.

My first map of this type was the Interactive Civil War Map. I knew there would be great interest in the subject and I found the links and coordinates I needed on Wikipedia’s List of Civil War Battles, which was very confusing to use and required the visitor to use a complicated and time consuming process to get to a Google Map for each and every battle one-by -one. On the other hand, my map was designed to be easy to use, enabled you to zoom in on the battle and made all the battles visible at once so you can see how they relate to each other without the complicated process.   These maps enable you to zoom in on the actual locations, see the buildings, the forts, the ancient ruins, etc. and read the actual words of the explorer, see the terrain as they saw it 100+ years ago in terrain mode, and what it looks like today in satellite mode. These maps can even provide directions, hotels and other points of interest. Some maps include links to National Archive photos, Wikipedia pages, and animations from CivilWarAnimated or AmericanRevolutionAnimated.

After placing a few referrals on various online forums, interactive maps of historic events began to take off. My hope is that teachers would use it to inspire reading and writing to students who are currently fixated on an online media, and that travelers and followers of explorers would use these maps to plan their next vacation.

My most popular maps are the following:

• Interactive Civil War Map
• Sunken Ships of the Atlantic
• Explorations of Charles Darwin, Marco Polo, Mungo Park and Henry Morton Stanley
• The American Revolution
• Environmental Disasters

Until recently, all my maps were about explorers who had died a long time ago. The map on Mikael Strandberg’s 2004 Siberian Expedition was my first living explorer who was kind enough to allow me to do so and provided the materials I needed.  I now have twenty-nine Google Maps on historic events and two Google Map games called “Day of Atonement” and “Prag’s Google Street Road Rally.” It is of interest to note, the research involved and the creation of these maps has uncovered some errors in commonly held facts on history. I have found what I believe are errors in traditional exploration maps on Wikipedia in regard to Marco Polo and Cortès, and located odd details mentioned in books that affected history and you can read about them on my blog.

So today, start experiencing history digitally by making your own maps of an historic events and uncover your own discovery of little known facts that only a Google Map can reveal.

George Stiller is a retired marketing communications manager who began his 35 year career in advertising and marketing as paste up artist. As an ad agency art director, George has helped to establish Agfa-Gevaert as a worldwide leader in diagnostic medical imaging systems. As a corporate graphic design manager, George’s workflow improvements helped United States Surgical Corporation to become one of the fastest growing companies worldwide.  As a marketing communications manager for MechoShade Systems, George helped to establish the MechoShade brand as the third most recognized brand in the commercial shade industry and helped to develop the ImageShades you have seen at Levis and the Gap. Now that George is retired, he developed his blog, MyReadingMapped, and its 30+ interactive Google Maps on history.

Visit him on Facebook!

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Bear Necessities

by

Jim McNeill

When I sat down to write this article about my thoughts on polar bears I quickly realised that I could probably write a book about what I’ve learned over the years and the many and varied stories I could recount. Not just mine but friends’ stories as well. Close shaves, wonderful experiences, big mistakes and even funny events (my talks often include my own “funniest” bear encounter but you’ll have to catch one of those to hear it.) So I thought to myself how do I make the most of the limited space I have here? I also didn’t want to just regurgitate the training notes which accompany this so I came up with a bit of further guidance in the form the 4 D’s;

Don’t…; Detect; Deter; and ultimately, Dispatch.

So the first D - Don’t… go out into polar bear country without proper personal preparation and by that I mean having the right experience, knowledge, equipment and training. You can have all the right gear and all the knowledge but if you’re not used to the critical crisis of being faced at close quarters with a bear then it may be of no use.

If you’re not experienced yourself I would urge you to go out with someone who is and learn from them. Now that sounds an easy thing to do but unfortunately these days there are so many people who try and bluff these things that it might be difficult for the novice to tell the difference between who says they know and who really knows. So be carefully selective.

Before I went out on my own for the first time I made sure that I had done my homework. First of all I read anything I could get my hands on (both good and bad I’ve come to learn, retrospectively) about where I was going, what I might come across and who are the real experts in this area. So homework involves everything from reading first exploratory accounts through to sitting for many hours with the Inuit, gleaning all sorts of invaluable advice. Then take a trip with someone who really knows what they are doing.

Don’t go out there without knowing about polar bears. This is complicated by the fact that, like humans, each one is different and behaves slightly differently as a result, so it is always dangerous to generalise unless you have enough experience to justify trends. (Hence a person who has only encountered one or two bears has limited advice to offer).

The critical bit is being able to interpret the behaviour a bear is exhibiting. And that means putting some time in to study and read about the various behaviours. Is it being it curious? Is it predatory? Is it defensive? Has it got cubs? All these signs allow you to assess the situation and react accordingly. If you get this wrong the consequences can be deadly.

Don’t camp in known polar bear territory unless you have to. This is where evidence of bears exists. A trail-way, for example. Despite being naturally solitary, bears will quite often walk along the same paths even across seemingly desolate and uninteresting terrain. They have sort of polar bear highways where you can see a trail of footprints and scats (posh name for polar bear poo!) especially alongside cracks in the sea-ice, open leads, along beaches and the floe edge; all places where they find their food. Get to know the locality and talk to people who have been there or even better live nearby; even if that is a fair distance away. Inuit hunters will travel many miles away from their township. They will also have a wealth of general information for you as well as well as polar bear trends, if there are any.

(There are of course many more Don’ts in the training notes)

So having learnt as much as you can about the bear and the area you’re entering you then need to be able to Detect their presence.

Around the camp itself you can set up all sorts of improvised methods of detection as well as those marketed and talked about in the notes. Use the items around you to best effect. Ropes and skis and poles are all useful in setting up methods of hearing a bear penetrate your camp. Put any attractants such as food and rubbish away from the accommodation tent and put it amongst articles that will clatter and make you aware of bear presence. This won’t scare the bear but should wake you.

If you have to camp in known polar bear territory it is essential to set up a bear watch, much the same as a watch on a boat, and actually something really nice to do. So often when people within a team are preoccupied by the struggle of remaining sane whilst pushing the boundaries of their own endurance that they forget to stop, take a calming breath and take-in the incredible, often surreal, surroundings. The solitude of bear watch is a great place to do this and really begin to enjoy your time.

Then we reach Deter. From the training notes you’ll see a whole range of deterrents. Some work; some sometimes work and others are still of dubious effect. Now you can read all the instructions and have the best of imaginations as to how to use these devices but really you need to practice. It is only then you realise that by mishandling the bear spray you’ve rendered it useless or by being too heavy handed releasing the safety catch you inadvertently let off some of the pepper spray into your own eyes, incapacitating you not the bear! Not taking good note of wind direction and shooting a flare or worse a bear banger (airborne firework) over the bear encourages it into camp instead of away from; all these things you’ll only learn from actually trying them. So, to coin a phrase, practice makes perfect.

Practice, practice, practice! Our Ice Warrior trainees get sick of me waking them up at all hours, day-in and day-out with either a bear encounter or the sea-ice cracking beneath them! It might be painful and they might moan but it stands them in good stead for the real thing; and that they do appreciate.

Finally there is the ultimate; Dispatch. Occasionally, very occasionally, you will encounter a bear which will be intent on attack and there is nothing else you can do but shoot it dead. This is absolutely the last resort but you should be fully prepared to do so, which means armed with the right equipment and know how to maintain, repair and use it. Depending on the likelihood of encountering bears I equip our teams with either a high velocity rifle or shot gun (for those less experienced); or sometimes both. And the number of weapons can be as many as 2 per six team members (a straight line of 3 two man tents).

Just to put this into context I have encountered too many bears to keep track over the years; definitely hundreds. And of those I have only had three that really gave me serious cause for concern. I have never had to shoot at a bear, although I am always fully prepared to.

I also wouldn’t want to put people off. It is inherently dangerous and you should wholly respect that but being in the presence of such a magnificent animal and sensing the overwhelming feeling of being in their territory and seeing that they will do exactly as they want (realising that all you can hope to do is persuade them, gently, that you are not their next meal) is a life-changing experience itself. Venture forth and take good care!

My closest call;

On a solo expedition I once had a bear wake me with his snorting just 6 inches away from my left earlobe through a frail piece of tent material – better than any alarm clock! I was miles away from any open water north of the last landfall of Canada on the Arctic Ocean with absolutely no sign of any bears being around. It was April so there was plenty of open water for him to be feeding around but none near me. If I did encounter one then it would be well fed and therefore more curious than hungry. That was my thinking.

My first reaction was to make an inanimate noise, gently tapping the side of my stove with my thermos flask. This was enough for the bear to question what he was dealing with and back off just a little. Very importantly, not enough for him to get frightened, panic and start lashing out. The last thing you want to do to a curious bear is to appear to act aggressively as you’ll undoubtedly come off worse.

Hoping that he had backed off, I carefully unzipped my tent door (now with bear spray in hand) and moved the material so I could get sight of him who was indeed now some 5 metres away and evidently wondering what he had disturbed.

My rifle was now in reach, loaded and ready, having been left outside the door so as to avoid freezing up with condensation and I worked up the tapping into louder noise and started speaking to him. (It may be that he had been frightened by the sound of humans before so it is always worth trying).

He backed off further allowing me to get out of the tent and reach into my pocket for the pen flares and bear bangers whilst gently but assertively hissing and shushing him away. Now I deployed my flares and bangers and crashing noises (pots and pans and skis are all good) until such time as the bear turned and nonchalantly walked off with an air of boredom and dismissiveness. I had respected him, he had to some extent respected me and the encounter was fantastic.

Ice Warrior´s Polar Bear Manual!

Jim McNeill has clocked up 27 years of polar travelling and 33 years of expeditioning; thousands of miles mostly on nothing but skis and dragging his world behind him. Few, have that breadth and depth of experience in extreme environments. His guiding, safety and survival expertise is employed by BBC TV and Hollywood film crews on location all over the world – hot as well as cold.

With a career spanning environmental science, military, commerce and fire & rescue Jim has selected, trained and led highly successful teams from top-level corporations, through high risk polar expeditions, to critical lifesaving situations where effective leadership and hands-on teamwork are paramount. He has a passion for leadership and getting the very best performance out of individuals and teams, at any level and has regular input to the Senior Police Training College at Bramshill, Hampshire (NPIA).

In 2001 Jim founded the highly successful “Ice Warrior Project” an organisation which gives “ordinary” people the opportunity to become polar explorers and achieve extraordinary feats of endurance and endeavour. Through Ice Warrior, his aim is to develop people, discover change and deliver it to global audiences in a way we can all understand, fostering a much better understanding of the world we live in and on.

In 2006 he was ITV News’ own “Ice Warrior”, reporting the reality of climate change directly from the Arctic Ocean to international audiences. The story will continue next year as he attempts the last, so far unattained, World First in polar expeditioning – to be the first person to reach the very centre of the Arctic Ocean – the Arctic Pole or Northern Pole of Inaccessibility. This expedition will mark the start of an eight year programme of purposeful, worthwhile, extreme expeditions, culminating in 2020.

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“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Saamis

and Coffee But Were Afraid to Ask”

by

Moki Kokoris

Despite its perception by outsiders as a barren and inhospitable wilderness, and depending on how the boundaries of the region are defined, the Arctic is home to approximately 4 million inhabitants – roughly one tenth of which consists of a diverse number of indigenous peoples spread across the Arctic territories of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, northern Scandinavia and Siberia. In Alaska, these peoples are known as Iñupiaq and Yup’ik Inuit, Alutiq (Aleuts) and Athapaskans; across Canada, Nunavut and Greenland, they are Inuit; in Scandinavia, the native people are the Saami; while in Siberia, there are as many as 40 different ethnic groups, the Nenets, Yakuts, Chukchis and Dolgans among those.

In general, the region is sparsely populated, with densities averaging fewer than 1 person per square mile. In spite of tremendous social, demographic, and technological changes in modern times, Arctic cultures nevertheless remain vital and resilient, with many small nomadic communities that are closely linked to native wildlife and local natural resources still continuing to follow a traditional way of life.

In this first installment in a series of articles about the indigenous peoples of the Far North, we shall concentrate on the Saamis who have inhabited the northern regions of Fenno-Scandinavia and Russia for at least 2500 years. With the exception of the groups that settled near the coasts, the Saamis generally lead a semi-nomadic or nomadic lifestyle determined by the migrations of the reindeer.

Lapland, more currently referred to as Finnmark or Sápmi, is not a country but a region that stretches across the borders of Sweden, Norway, Finland and northern Russia. From the times of the Greek explorer, Pytheas, who first mentioned it in 300 B.C., this area of land had been given many names, most of which were strange to the Saamis. These included Thule, Ultima Thule, Fennia, Scritfinnia, Finnamarchia and Lappia. Today, the Saami people themselves use the word Sápmi.

Since the earliest years of the Christian era, wondrous rumors of a barbaric people in the farthest North spread as far as Rome. In 98 A.D. Tacitus chronicled that far beyond the Germanic tribes lived the Fenni who had no possessions and were completely wild. They had neither horses nor houses, they were clad in animal hides, they did not cultivate the land but ate only what they could find growing wild, and their beds were the bare ground. Their only protection against wild beasts and weather was a primitive hut made of sticks and skins. They had no iron, and instead tipped their arrows with bone. Thus armed, they went hunting, and women hunted with the men and took their share of the kill.

Later ethnographical and archeological field investigation proved that much of what appeared fantastic to the readers of the ancient writers had some basis in truth, and facts about what had been for a primitive people in this Hyperborean land an existence governed by practical necessity gradually emerged from the world of fable and myth into the light of history.

Although their territory is intersected by four national boundaries, most Saamis speak the same basic Finno-Ugrian language with up to fifty dialects spread over the wide area. Their costumes are also similar throughout a large part of the region with distinct variations mainly in ornamentation and embroidery and hats, which by their patterns and shapes indicate the specific area they are from and even the individual’s marital status.

By and large, the Saamis are divided into three groups according to their occupation and location: the coast-Saamis, the forest-Saamis and the mountain-Saamis. The coastal group is the most numerous and has never been known for reindeer breeding, choosing instead to settle in turf-huts along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They are trappers and fishermen, boat builders and skilled weavers. The forest-Saamis are regarded as half-nomads, basing their existence on the forest reindeer which remain in the forests throughout the year, moving to higher ground only in the summer. These Saamis migrate between permanent timber huts and their winter camps where they live in tents. The mountain-Saamis, who are regarded as being wholly nomadic follow their reindeer herds between the forests of the Gulf of Bothnia in the winter, the eastern foothills of the mountain range in spring and autumn, and the higher mountains of the northern sea coasts in the summer – all in a regular, annual rhythm. They live in relatively easily transported nomad tents through the entire year.

As can be expected, the Saami diet depends highly on which group they belong to, but consists predominantly of reindeer meat, reindeer milk, butter and cheese, fish, and various native berries. Grains and other items that cannot be cultivated are purchased at regional markets a few times a year. One such staple that few Saamis can live without is…. coffee!

Coffee has had a long-established place in the lives of Saami folk for well over 100 years in most parts of Sápmi, and many customs fluorished around its use. The Saami people probably had their first experiences with coffee from sources in Sweden, where it had been first imported after 1680. By the early 1700s coffee houses were established in Stockholm, and it is believed that coffee finally reached Sápmi’s coastal communities by 1750.

Customarily, coffee was prepared by the man of the household, perhaps because he was also responsible for the cooking of the meat. In the earliest years of its use, preparing coffee was, like the meat, a difficult task to prepare. By 1900, however, women had taken on the task and it became a companion duty to bread making.

Early on, coffee beans were purchased in unroasted form. The roasting process required constant stirring of the beans over the heat so it was a time-consuming task to keep a supply at the rate that coffee was consumed – often three or four cups per person per sitting. Migratory folk roasted a large supply during the winter before leaving for winter pasture, and in summers roasted it as needed in smaller amounts. A large frying pan was the utensil of choice for the roasting process, and apparently from the very beginning, Saamis liked their coffee roasted strong, stirring it until the beans were appropriately coal black.

Coffee was freshly ground for each pot, although herdsmen usually took along preground coffee. The earlier grinding was done with a stone on another flat or concave stone. Some grinding was done in a hollowed-out log using a stick as the pestle. Still a third method was to place the roasted beans in a skin bag and strike the bag with a stick until the grounds were suitably fine.

Early techniques for brewing coffee appear to be common across Sápmi, too, the process beginning by soaking the crudely ground beans in cold water which was then brought to a boil. After boiling, the pot was placed beside the fire to steep. As a result of the crude roasting and grinding methods, the brewed coffee was very murky and needed to be cleared before drinking. Clarifying coffee the Saami way required putting a dried pike skin into the pot. The slime from the fish skin picked up the floating grounds and carried them to the bottom of the pot as it sank.

Although sweetening coffee is gaining popularity these days, Saamis still enjoy a sprinkling of salt in their brew, and in northern Sweden, it has been known for Saamis to float reindeer feta cheese in their cups á la marshmallows in a mug of hot chocolate. (Let’s see Starbucks try that!)

It is no surprise that superstitions around the use of this most-favored beverage would evolve over time, and many of these commonly held beliefs remain to this very day – some of the more peculiar and amusing ones being:

*  When the coffee is ready, one must pour for oneself first or it will spoil the family’s best driving reindeer.

*  When cooking coffee, see to it that the coffee pot does not rock where it hangs, or surely you will rock away your belongings and end up in poverty.

*  When one throws the coffee grounds away, take care not to throw them outward but towards oneself. Coffee grounds, bones and other waste must be thrown towards oneself or there is a risk of throwing away happiness.

*  If there is foam on the coffee, the direction in which it floats will show who the recipient of money or a gift will be. If the drinker is alone and the foam floats away, it is an indication that the drinker will have many debts.

*  If one spills coffee, guests will arrive who are thirsty for coffee. If coffee is spilled twice, count on receiving intoxicated guests.

*  When the coffee pot hanging over the fire turns by itself and there is an unmarried boy or girl present, he or she will marry the first guest of the opposite gender.

*  If an unmarried person receives a refill before the first cup is entirely finished, one risks getting a nasty mother-in-law.

Who knew?

Moki Kokoris – Wilderness Research Foundation Director, is the first woman of Ukrainian descent to reach the geographic North Pole (2003), and the founder of “90-north” — a 2007-2009 International Polar Year sanctioned multidisciplinary outreach educational program offered to students and teachers studying issues and topics relating to Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. She is the Arctic Editor of the Polar Times, the journal of the American Polar Society, and has recently been invited to contribute articles to the World Ecology Report – Promoting Health and Environmental Literacy, published by World Information Transfer.

Ms. Kokoris holds the position of Main Representative for the World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations NGO in consultative status with the UN Department of Public Information. In that capacity, she is invited to attend United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues conferences, specifically sessions with group representatives of the Arctic Council, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and the Arctic Council Indigenous Peoples Secretariat (IPS) that includes organizations from Alaska, Canada, Nunavut, Nunavik, Greenland, Scandinavia and Siberia. Ms. Kokoris acted as liaison to facilitate the screening of an Inuit film at the International Conference on Health & Environment: Global Partners for Global Solutions, held at the United Nations. This involvement earned her an invitation to act as UN/ECOSOC representative for the World Information Transfer NGO in general status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

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“We just have to live with it” , my wife said without really understanding. My thoughts. But maybe that is because I have lived in Siberia, where the harshest of the harshest environment exists and of course, I found a story about these flying nuisances from the Siberian Expedition:

Today, we left the mountainous region for awhile. The snow-covered and most spectacular of them, forever, since we have entered a new ecological region today. The flat, sometimes rolling, but alway gigantic Siberian forest, the taiga. When we leave the settlement of Seimchan, we will head for an area which is even more remote, untouched and unknown than the one we´ve just left. The area we´ve entered now is presently dominated by swampland, leaf forests and an enormous amount of gnats (or no-see-ums as they´re called in Canada and Alaska). Mosquitoes are still with us, but they seem have slowed down, finally. But, the gnats have arrived instead, millions in numbers, attacking us fiercely as quick as we get out of the canoe, ready to set camp. We can´t even get away from them inside our cot! Those specially made bug shirts we have are useless in this case and the repellent we´ve brought, well, they seem to like the taste! The only thing we can do, as always, is to accept reality and show patience. Which is not easy. Especially whilst trying to enjoy dinner during a heat wave like the one we´ve been hit with these last two days.

When we do the fire, we always place it so that the wind goes in the direction of the cot, gnats don´t appreciate too much smoke, but then of course, you need a wind. Which we haven´t had these last three days. So, these last two days of dinners, we´ve stood very close to the fire, we two, very close to be able to use the smoke to avoid the gnats. Almost like Siamese twins, sweating tremendously. I have to add, we try to avoid putting up camp in the forest, since that is half suicide, so we choose barren and stony sandbanks. But by doing this, we don´t have a shadow to hide from the blazing sun, therefore we perspire even more.

Still, we stay there next to the fire as long as possible. In general until we feel close to fainting or feel the smell burning our clothes! Or until we have to go into the forest next to us and look for more wet firewood to be able to generate more smoke. This we do try to avoid as far as possible, since one gets eaten alive in there! For this reason, mainly we just stand there, tightly together in front of the fire, in the smoke, coughing with burning eyes, waiting for the dinner to get ready. Which takes time, one only using wet firewood. When, eventually, the dinner is ready, we finish it off far too quickly, and then we dash off down to the river to do the washing up, then quickly back and inside the tent. Sweat continues to pour down. The gnats are there also, see finally, we can´t handle there presence and get forced inside our winter sleeping bags. During a heat wave. The art, folks, is just accept things the way they are.

What kind of dinner have we had these last two days? Well, since we´re forced to pick up speed to reach the settlement of Zyryanka, 540 km:s north of here, before the winter ice settles on the river in the beginning of October, we haven´t had any time to put out our fishing nets overnight and for this reason, our diet consists of tinned Russian pork and cow. All parts of the animals are squeezed in to these tins.

Fur, eyes, intestines, well, the lot. It keeps for 8 years. It tastes fairly good and it gives us plenty of fat and energy. We eat it together with mashed potato or pasta. And bread which gets moldier by the day. We don´t throw anything away, even though we know the civilization arrives tomorrow in Seimchan. We know harder times will eventually arrive, and then it is good to have disciplined oneself to eat everything. In any case, we cut the worst parts off!

See the YouTube film below, even if it is in Swedish, you will get a feel for these flying “friends”….

My Testament of Life, so far…

by

Mikael Strandberg

I just love life!

I wake up every morning thinking: “Yes!!! I have another privileged day ahead of me! Another day to try to change the world!  And I am still alive and kicking!”

The Explorers Club in London believes I am the best contemporary explorer in the world at the present. This is of course utterly wrong. Nevertheless I do feel honoured! But why does Barry Moss, the great chairman of the Club, believe this? Well, not only is he one of my very best friends, but he knows my life story. He knows that the real explorer is the one, who explores every moment and every day of his, or hers, life. Not only on an Expedition. An individual, who understands that joy and tragedy, are part of being a human and fully alive. You have to dare, even in every day life, to be able to live life to its fullest. If there’s one major lesson of life I have learned exploring, this is the one:

“Life is very short. This is the only opportunity you will get. Just take it!”

The Explorers Club in London believes I am the best contemporary explorer in the world at the present. This is of course utterly wrong. Nevertheless I do feel honoured! But why does Barry Moss, the great chairman of the Club, believe this? Well, not only is he one of my very best friends, but he knows my life story. He knows that the real explorer is the one, who explores every moment and every day of his, or hers, life. Not only on an Expedition. An individual, who understands that joy and tragedy, are part of being a human and fully alive. You have to dare, even in every day life, to be able to live life to its fullest. If there’s one major lesson of life I have learned exploring, this is the one:

“Life is very short. This is the only opportunity you will get. Just take it!”

I am really trying to do just that. Therefore, on paper, my life has been a series of near tragedies. I was born two months early, in a taxi, 48 years ago and nobody believed I would survive. I did, kicking and screaming more than most kids at the hospital. Seven years later I was rescued on a ferry from Sweden to England by a couple of sailors, who pulled me up from my place, where I was hanging on with only my hands gripping a rope on the outside of this gigantic ferry, ten metres up from the deadly sea. When they asked why I, as they saw it, tried to kill myself, whilst my mother was crying loud of anguish, I answered:

“I just had to see what it was like on the other side.”

When I was ten I discovered books. We had only three books at home, a picturesque house located in a tiny village surrounded by a lush Swedish countryside. My dad, a bricklayer, had stolen them from the local library, most likely so that we would look more intellectual and cultured than our working class neighbours. It was the Bible, White Fang by Jack London and the Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. They opened the gates to the outside world and took me away, forever, from the safe harbour and a potential future rat race to be like everybody else. Since then I have tried to stay free from normality.

At the age of seventeen I hitch-hiked to India, inspired by Herman Hesse´s book “Siddharta”. It is kind of a story about Buddha himself and all the phases of existence he passes through to understand the meaning of life. Therefore, I wanted to become a Buddhist monk. But after ten days in a monastery I realized that being ad infinitum silent and scratching one’s bum in boredom, wasn’t my path to understanding.

Instead I cycled from Chile to Alaska. It made me understand that in order to live a full life, you have to venture outside the confinements of the safe harbour of the known. But, I also realized that I didn’t really understand anything and that I needed to continue cycling. Which I did. Another 5 years. From North-Cape in Norway to Cape of Agulhaes, South-Africa. And from New Zealand to Egypt through Asia. All together 90 000 km. During this time I had hundreds of punctures, too many diseases, some deadly one’s like malaria, I almost collided with a lion in Tanzania and a black bear in Alaska, but it was only an angered baboon in Congo which managed to injure me, I got robbed twice, attacked by Taliban’s in Baluchistan and I was one of the first in history to cross the Sahara by a bicycle and that piece of Jungle between Colombia and Panama called El Darién.

What was the most important lesson I learned cycling?

Two really. The most important, most human beings are extra ordinary and generous. Secondly, cycling is too fast to fully understand. So, I stopped cycling, went to Patagonia to follow my dream to live as a cowboy, bought 12 horses and during one year explored the unknown parts of this, one of the most spectacular places on earth.

Most of the time crossing the vast empty steppes of Patagonia I thought about human kind and become conscious at the end that I probably had to live with a people which was relatively untouched by modern civilisation. Because I understood a long time ago that we humans were a mere 150 000 years old as a species, and the last 5 000 years, we had lived in some kind of an organized society, but that we, in heart, still were simple beings. A species were the fire and freedom was essential parts of happiness.

With this in mind, I went to live with the il-purko clan of the Maasai and during a year I crossed the vast savannah to explore all sixteen groups which make up the Maasai tribe. It was a year dominated by drought, drinking nailanga (cows blood mixed with milk), lots of diarrhoea, living very close to the great wildlife of the African savannah and just getting very confused by a very restricted tribal life. Far from the freedom I was looking for. Suddenly I realised that I had to seek my roots, to understand. Four years later I went to Siberia.

Siberia changed my life completely. And it ruined it. It was the best time in my life. It had everything I have ever dreamt about. The enormous taiga and the extreme cold gave me and my partner Johan Ivarsson unlimited freedom. We hunted and fished to survive. We met the best people on earth, the native Siberians. It felt like I had finally understood. Also, I felt like it doesn’t matter one bit if I die now. I have seen all. Returning home was a disaster. It completely ruined my life for the next three years. A tragic divorce with the worst of consequences. I faced bitterness, hatred, shame and personal ruin. When I didn´t care anymore, I ended up in Yemen, with an idea to cross the two biggest desert on earth by camel. One of the reasons, as always, was to build bridges of understanding between cultures and peoples. Another one was personal; it would be my final pilgrimage. The goal was to find some rest for my battered soul. Instead I found one of the major reasons for better understanding the meaning of life. I met love in the shape of a young American woman, who a year later, well, 26 days ago, gave me a gift in the shape of a miracle. A beautiful and extremely calming baby daughter. Suddenly my soul calmed down dramatically. I found what I was looking for, even before leaving on a camel from Oman to Mauretania. The pilgrimage is now on hold. Because I know, that no matter how much control over life you think you have, it can end in a second and you find yourself back to wandering the streets of understanding.

So, what lessons of life can I share so far?

I think most important is, life is short. And we are here, only this time, why waste it not living to its full? Since I am privileged to try to motivate people to change their attitude to life and find some kind of contentness, because if people were content, they wouldn´t hire me as much as they do, I can say that the main question from the audience is:

How do we do it? How do we get a more exiting life?

There’s no real answer. Everyone has to reach their own stage at the crossroad of life, when they have to take a decision. What I know is that it can’t be a half hearted choice. Don’t worry what people think. Everyone will eventually end up in that cross road. Such are we thinking humans. We question. We want peace of mind. There’s no age to take the step. Everyone has its own time to take a decision. When I am starting to get to comfortable, I immediately think:

“Mikael, remember, and never forget, that life is to short. Get out there and live! Nobody is going to thank me for not doing it!”

No matter all the problems, near tragedies, real catastrophes and angst I have gone through in life, I don´t regret a second for choosing this life style. Most of it, however, has been a fantastic life, but one needs sorrow and tragedy to enjoy all aspects of life. So don’t give up if tragedy strikes! Just see it as an experience which makes you stronger, healthier, more humble and wiser. Just live!

One other reason is that this choice of life gives me a lot of self confidence when it comes to the future. No matter how bad things become, I only need a tent, an axe, a mattress, a few pots, and a fishing rod to survive and enjoy life. And I would than walk in to the forest somewhere on this earth, maybe the Siberian taiga, do a small, but warming fire after a few days of walking, not too big a fire to scare away the potential game, put on a pot of coffee, set a trap, feel the fresh air, shiver in the beginning winter cold, sense the total freedom and take out one of those cohibas I have saved for the occasion. Than I would smoke it, slowly, and look back at a very interesting life. And think:

“Yes, I have lived to its fullest capacity!”

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The need for Universal Expedition Standards

by

Alex Hibbert

I came up for the idea for Universal Expedition Standards whilst waiting patiently, or at times not so patiently, on the edge of the Greenland icecap this spring for the weather to clear in order to start a speed crossing. It was not to be and had to be postponed to August. However, the basis for UES had been in my mind in its constituent parts for months, if not years. In all areas of outdoor sports and activities, there are both national and international governing bodies. There are also a plethora of qualifications for the budding or professional climber, kayaker, diver and the list goes on. These tend to be controlled by groups or clubs without a vested interest or financial agenda and have grown to garner such respect that their name speaks volumes. For example, you know beyond reasonable doubt that an IFMGA mountain guide will be of the highest quality, should you wish to be guided or instructed.

What struck me, however, was the number of increasingly popular adventurous activities there are now available for those with the time and money to spare. This explosion in popularity may be for better or for worse, but that is a debate for another time. Most of these do not have a governing body, due to their obscurity, and have grown through word of mouth and shared experience, with the internet playing a major role. One example, apart from things like Stand-Up Paddle Boarding and numerous others, is my chosen specialism – polar travel.

As the desire for anyone and everyone to experience the polar regions developed, there became a need for guides from the late 1990s onwards and inevitably, a more than fair share of cowboys became involved in the industry, in order to make a quick buck. To secure insurance and indemnity to guide on icecaps or the Arctic Ocean, guides are still obliged to gain mountaineering qualifications, since it seems like the ‘best match’, despite the fact that many of the skills are irrelevant. It seems absurd that some underwriters require a guide to hold an IFMGA award, the pinnacle of mountain guiding qualifications and one that takes years of dedication, for another activity which bears only a slight resemblance to climbing.

Aside from guiding, which in the polar expedition world is a small slice, there are the independent expeditions. These groups venture onto the ice every year, expecting rescue cover from local authorities or private companies who operate aircraft, despite many having little more than hiking experience in the British hills. There was, until recently, no control over access but some authorities, such as Greenland Home Rule, have begun to crack down on novice expeditions due to the high chance of needing to rescue. Just this season I spoke to the Tasiilaq helicopter pilot, who services Greenland icecap crossing teams, and listened in horror to his stories of plucking bodies off the icecap just days before, following relatively mild icecap conditions. Greenland has borne the brunt of the post-credit crunch rush to undertake polar expeditions, cheaper than to either Poles, but by those without the understanding that Greenland is not ‘Antarctica-lite’. In spring, the temperatures are just as low, winds as fast and crevasses as treacherous. Anyone who sees Greenland as the easy option is either stupid or ignorant.

I use examples from my own area of experience but the principle applies to every remote or challenging endeavor - be it ocean rowing, open-water swimming, caving – the list goes on. It is very hard to apply conditions, control and rules to a group of people who thrive, myself included, on the lack of them.

This situation therefore spawned my vision for the Universal Expedition Standards - UES. I am aware of the plans for International Polar Guiding Association qualifications and other initiatives, but I believe that they have inherent problems. Not least, the fact that anyone who proposes a governing body will have an interest in how it is implemented. The rise in those wanting to ski in the Antarctic and Arctic is increasing and naturally more and more people will therefore offer services as guides. It makes sense that a small group will attempt to include their colleagues and friends, whilst freezing out those considered undesirable and thereby limiting competition for lucrative jobs. Not a healthy state of affairs in my mind for a market that should be dominated by quality and openness.

The UES is not a competitor or alike the proposed IPGA, the climbing IFMGA, MIC or any other example. It is not a guiding qualification. What the UES aims to achieve and become is:

• Non-proprietary - an open standard governed by the community
• Free – no money changes hands and so cowboys or business-interests are excluded
• Voluntary – not being UES approved does not stop you from getting flights, insurance or backing. Having UES approval can show a positive effort has been made, rather than disable those who don’t feel it fits them

The current criteria are:

• Expeditions of any style or discipline can apply, free of charge, to become approved as a UES project. In order to qualify, these criteria must be met:
• Press releases must not contain exaggerated or inaccurate information, nor omit information in order to enhance the impact of the statement.
• Expeditions must carry at least one form of emergency communication system, including VHF radio, EPIRB, EPLB or satellite telephone. The chosen system must have sufficient power sources for the duration of the expedition. In addition, communication must be carried aside from a beacon (e.g. EPIRB/EPLB). This is to allow assistance/advice to be sought for minor and non life-threatening injuries without necessitating use of a beacon (which involves significant expense and commitment from national authorities).
• At least one member of the expedition must hold a recent and valid nationally recognised wilderness first-aid qualification.
• The expedition must have a nominated representative in their home country responsible for coordinating rescue in the event of emergency.
• In order to state an expedition is ‘unsupported’, the team or individual must not receive external assistance which physically aids motion, including dogs, engines or sails. Skis, bicycles etc. are not considered support. An unsupported expedition will also not involve resupplies of any kind originating from a third party.
• Guides employed by a UES expedition must have at least 100 days of relevant experience.
• Approval is based on fixed, objective standards and does not involve subjective decisions.

The 100-day experience criteria for expedition guides, in order to be UES approved, is to combat the rise of companies and individuals who offer dangerous and inadequate services. Whilst not a supporter of open-source, crowd-sourcing or other internet generated movements (I believe in open markets where skills are rewarded with pay, not a credit-line), I do want UES to be self-policing. Criteria such as the one which attempts to rein in outlandish and uncontrolled press releases with exaggerated statistics is not there to make expeditions safer. It is included to try and re-introduce common-standards and honesty into the competitive world of expedition promotion and publicity. Something good for the future of the adventure and expedition community as a whole. At present, many who stick to the truth are out-competed by the claims of others – surely not a positive situation.

So, with the aims and hopes laid out in front of us, I welcome peer-review, amendments and comments to see if we can really make something of UES and the expedition world.

Alex is a world-record holding polar expedition leader and photographer. Only 25 years old, he has spent over one hundred and fifty days unsupported in the Arctic and has crossed the second largest icecap on Earth three times. His highlight to date was leading the 2008 record-breaking Tiso Trans Greenland which, at 1374 miles, is the longest fully unsupported polar journey in history. From 2008 Alex spent a period as a Royal Marines Officer and his first book, The Long Haul, was released in March 2010. He was elected a member of the prestigious Explorers Club shortly after. In the spring of 2010 Alex guided an international team 350 miles across the Greenland icecap. In 2011 he plans to break the world speed record for a Greenland icecap crossing followed by Arctic Ocean plans for 2012.

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Johan Ivarsson at the pen:

Me and Mikael woke up at 4 am this morning and we could both feel the body aching with pain and tiredness. We then took the decission to stay at this abandoned hut and take a day of well needed rest. N 66°18´52,0 and E 151°46´34,7. Only -35°C today but snowy and bad visibility, light but cold wind from south.

´´I think we might have a problem!´´
I hear a touch of stress in Mikaels voice from inside the tent,
´´The stove´s dead!´´

I´ve always thought that sleeping for a long time in a tent when the temperature is as low as -43°F would be impossible. But I´ve proved myself wrong! It´s not as bad as I imagined. At least not once you get inside the tent and get the stove going. But there´s always some moments of stress before that happens, since it is not that easy to get the stove warm enough to ignite. So far, though, it have eventually worked out.

There´s always a lot of stress involved while the stove is running, to get everything else sorted out. So that the only thing you have to do once the stove is turned off, is as quick as possible, get inside the warm and cozy sleeping bag! It is important, though, not to get to wired up, since it is dead easy to make a nasty mistake, like burning a hole in the sleeping bag on the stove, or like I did the other night, tip a pot over and pour a liter of water all over myself and the sleeping mattress. A mistake like that can cause big problems.

One other problem in sleeping outdoors in low temperatures like these, is the huge amount of condensation that occurs. Snow together with your own body warmth and bathing, melts and makes everything wet. Sometimes it´s so foggy inside that it is impossible to see each other! Condensation is also a major problem regarding all technical equipment.

First thing we do once we´re inside the tent, is to melt some snow and boil it for a cup of coffee. It´s vital to get something hot inside the body to keep it warm. Then we melt more snow for dinner, a packet of dried food and one piece of whole grain bread each. Finally we melt additional snow for two cups of tea each before we go to sleep.

It stays warm inside the tent as long as the stove is running, but as quick as we open the zipper to fetch more snow, it gets immediately cold again. Also, it doesn´t take long before it is freezing cold again once the stove is turned off. On top of that, it´s not unusual that the stove stops working once or twice during the cooking, since the bad quality petrol that can be found here, has clogged it up totally. (Best quality is only 72 octane!)

To get inside the sleeping bag is not as easy as it sounds, not when you have to bring three pairs of wet mittens, an icy and wet facemask, two pairs of socks, a small palm computer and then finally the headlamp with it´s big poach loaded with batteries. First one has to get inside the inner fleece bag, where all the things I mentioned before also goes, then into the down bag itself. Hopefully by this time, one has succeeded well enough to make it possible to zip up. Then after 30 minutes or so, when one finally has gotten everything in place, I always have to get up again to empty a full bladder. This is a quite simple operation, though, since we have a bottle with us that makes it possible to pee inside the sleeping bag. But I still have to get up on my knees, which causes everything inside the bag to fall out and I have to start all over again when I´m done!

And every single time during the night, when one has to get up, or when moving about too much, the face gets wet and cold from snowflakes, caused by the condensation from breathing that have frozen like a pillar on the ceiling of the tent.

We wake up at 6 am every morning, in the dark, to start the day. The roof of the tent is then totally covered with snow and ice crust, hanging down in different shapes. It´s the same procedure as during the evening, first light the stove to melt snow, which will immediately cause a light rain to fall from the ceiling. After that, find all equipment dried overnight inside the sleeping bag and then quickly get dressed.

The breakfast consists of a big portion of porridge with raisins (250 grams each) and two pieces of whole grain bread. We also have to prepare our thermoses with noodle soup for lunch, eaten a few hours later, standing up, freezing, together with two frozen pieces of bread each. This is hard work for the old teeth!

The only thing left to do after finishing two hours of breakfast, is to pack everything together, get the ski-boots on and head out for another day of struggle and enjoyment in the coldest inhabited place on earth- Siberia!

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