How in earth do i get the money to make it to the North Pole?

by

Matt George

I think we all enjoy reading a good adventure story. From the tales of the earliest explorers in the Age of Discovery, to Amundsen and Scott, Hilary and Norgay, right up to the present day, with remarkable people like Ed Stafford and Karl Bushby (to pick a few names out of a hat). We all agree that the struggles of these people are truly inspiring. But then most of us settle back into our armchairs and quickly re-focus our attention to the television. But for some a fire is awakened. The imagination is sent racing, and dreams of travelling to remote and inaccessible places, seeking adventures, and lifting life above the norms of the 9 to 5 rat race follow fast. And once these ideas enter one’s consciousness, they are almost impossible to dismiss.

The ‘fire’ can take hold in different ways, and come at different times. With some, it seems they were born with this fire already raging. With others, the fire can be a slow burning flame, which only makes itself apparent much later in life. Environment certainly has a factor- those who spend a lot of time in the wilderness, places of extreme climate, and so on, and those who simply have the opportunity to experience an ‘adventurous’ life from a young age are of course pre-disposed to later in life becoming interested in pursuing this form of ‘career’. Similarly, people have a major influence. A mentor figure can awaken the adventuring spirit like nothing else. Would Mallory have become a mountaineer if he had not met Robert Irving (his master at Winchester College, whom he subsequently accompanied on many expeditions to the Alps)?

For me, the ‘fire’ came much later in life. I grew up in the far west of Cornwall, England. It is a beautiful area- a small peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and English Channel, with stunning granite cliffs and golden beaches. But, for whatever reason, apart from surfing, which I did all the time, I was not a very outdoors-y person in my youth. For example, I never took advantage of climbing opportunities, which are some of the best in the British Isles. Partly, I never had a mentor- no one said to me, Matt, let’s go climbing. Also, partly, I was not ready for this. I was, and still am musician and chose to spend my hours indoors, banging my drums and wailing on my guitar.

What changed? It is difficult for me to put my finger on, and I struggle to say why and when this happened. But in my late twenties I found myself reading tales of adventurers with great interest. I think the great chord that was struck in me, was the desire to challenge myself. To be put out there, somewhere remote, and see just what I could achieve. I guess it was also seeking the opportunity to go to places where few people have had the privilege to tread- a response to a desire I had always had to not fit in with the crowd and to do things differently.

Also, I had become dissatisfied with my chosen career path as a musician. I didn’t want to be like guys I saw playing in pub bands at the age of 45, still refusing to cut their hair, and still thinking they’re going to make it. And so many of my musician friends were miserable, because they were not getting the success they wanted, and they would continue to be miserable until they found it. I realised there is a whole world out there that MUST be experienced! I had had many years, and many great experiences as a musician, but the time had come to change tack.

I became obsessively interested in adventure travel. I discovered a kind of mentor figure too, and all from the comfort of my armchair! He gets much criticism, but I have supreme respect for him. He was making TV shows, being dropped off into the middle of nowhere and surviving by drinking from elephant dung and sleeping in dead animal carcasses. This man was Bear Grylls. Whatever you think of Mr. Grylls, he was a catalyst for me, firing my imagination towards what was possible in the natural world. He provided the mentor figure I had never had in my youth.

I also read Karl Bushby’s ‘Giant Steps’- the account of his truly legendary journey, walking all the way on foot from the bottom of South America, back to England in an unbroken journey, with no gaps. The words that he wrote in the preface, describing his feelings, were the same for me- he was dissatisfied with his career, and felt that he had much more to prove. And to prove it to no one but himself.

At the same I began reading about the North Pole. I found this challenge to be the most inspiring of them all. To journey across the frozen Arctic Ocean was, for me, about as far away from the 9 to 5 rat race as you could get. I started looking into it. There were a few options for a first Polar adventure. Some companies will simply fly you to the Pole. I was disgusted at the thought of this. It would be the same as taking a helicopter to the top of Everest (if it were possible). For me, reaching these places is ALL about the challenge and the struggle. Indeed, the North Pole looks exactly like the rest of the Arctic Ocean! It is never more true to say, it is not about the destination, but about the journey.

Another idea looked more promising. I found a company that runs an event, a race to the North Pole. It seemed perfect, by far one of the cheaper ways I could find of getting involved in a Polar Expedition, with the added benefit of training and support during the race. Let’s be honest, I don’t yet have the experience to head out on a solo mission to the Pole. I had found the one thing in the World I wanted to do above all others. But the price tag, although cheaper than many Polar expeditions, was still fantasy for me- £18000GBP. I decided it was only ever to be a pipe-dream, and put it out of my head.

Or at least I tried. I don’t not think a day has passed in the three years since, where I have not thought of the Pole. I decided a smaller, more realistic challenge was a better outlet for my adventurous inclinations. So on the morning of 21^st July, August 2008, I found myself on a bus from Thurso to John O’ Groats. I had an approximately 20kg pack full of everything I would need to make a journey on foot ‘end to end’, as it’s known in the UK. That is a journey from John O’ Groats to Lands End. These are the two furthest points apart on the mainland British Isles, and a journey of about 900 miles (1400kms).

I completed the challenge in 42 days, walking all day on foot, and wild-camping at night wherever my weary feet decided it was finally time to stop. I had some choice campsites, such as a thin strip of ground to the south of Glasgow, about 20 metres wide, and between an ‘A’ road and a motorway, with brambles and stinging nettles providing my campground. And I was sorely mistaken by thinking that doing the challenge in the summer would give me the best chance of good weather. Indeed, the sun was shining brightly on my first day, and I was very pleased with myself. And that was the last day I saw it I think until I reached Devon, about 35 days later. I got very used to walking, with my waterproofs long since being compromised, with a sopping wet tent waiting for me. One funny experience was being confined to the shelter of the front the town hall in Lancaster during a thunderstorm. There was no sign of this one passing quickly, so rather than waste time I broke out my camping stove. I must have looked quite a sight calmly cooking my dried pasta meal right in front of the huge door of the town hall as the rain poured and the thunder and lightning rumbled and flashed around me.

I was proud of what I had achieved. I had walked undeniably a long way, walking an average of about 22 miles a day (35km), whilst carrying a load. But let’s face it; it was quite lightweight in the world of adventuring. I was never very far from civilisation, and apart from the section over the West highland Way in Scotland, I passed a shop or pub every day. In one correspondence with Karl Bushby, he cheekily said it was a good ‘warm up’. And he was right. I still craved the Pole. But the money was simply not there. One thing was clear to me- I was not going to borrow the money and go into debt to do the challenge, so that again, seemed to be that.

I decided to travel. I had always wanted to see Russia, and I decided to incorporate it into an overland journey from England to…well as far as I could get, I was thinking maybe Australia. A year later I had had some great little adventures. I had successfully traversed Yakutia, in Far Eastern Russia, along the infamous ‘Road of Bones’, via the village of Oymyakon aka the ‘Pole of Cold’. This tiny village holds the record for the coldest inhabited place on Earth. The record stands at -71.2°C. I was lucky enough for it to be -54°C during my visit. After that I went to Kamchatka, and indulged in some ski-touring and volcano ascents, all of which I thought would stand me in good stead for my future adventures.

I didn’t make it to Australia, and I returned home from Cambodia. But I did manage to fit in another nice adventure in Laos- after much searching, I purchased a kayak, and took it to the far north of Laos, near the Chinese border. And I journeyed solo down the remote Nam Ou River, finally joining the Mekong and reaching the town of Luang Prabang, some 200kms later. I was paddling 8 to 10 hours a day, and camping wild on beaches on the riverbank. The journey was not uneventful. The local Laos must have the shock of their lives as they lazed by the riverbank of their isolated village, when next minute a bright orange kayak comes round the corner, piles over the waterfall (that had not been seen by the Falang kayaker), and promptly sinks, soaking the kayaker and all his accoutrements. There were three other sinkings, insect infestations, and a visit to my campsite by a tiger (which turned out to be some cows, what tricks ones imagination can play!).

I was back in England in August 2010. Polar Challenge was again at the forefront of my mind. My desire to go to the Pole had not lessened one bit. On the contrary. I decided I had to act on these feelings, and try to raise the money by seeking corporate sponsorship. It was late in the season, Extreme World Races needed a £1000 non-refundable deposit by September, and half of the now £22500 entrance fee by November. I knew it was a risky move. Friends and family said wait until next year. Taking advice from various sources I thought, “It is better to try this, and to fail, than to not even try”. And, “The first step in achieving any goal is making a definite decision that you are going to do it, whatever happens.”

So, I set out to dive into the world of corporate sponsorship and convince some companies, that I, an unknown quantity, with no previous track record of exploits north of the Arctic Circle, was worthy of investing a small fortune in. I am certainly not unique. And I am certainly not alone. How many people like me are there, who given the chance, would be flooding to the Poles, and all the other rarely visited places of the World? Maybe the North Pole would look as crowded as the Queensway ice rink on a bank holiday weekend? And maybe the route to the summit of Everest would be as busy as the Watkins Path up Snowdon on a sunny day in August? Sadly, it all boils down to the same old thing- money! And certainly adventure and exploration have never been cheap. Do you think it was a cakewalk for Christopher Columbus to get three ships to sail off into the Atlantic, maybe never to be seen again? It was not easy then, and it is certainly no easier today, with more and more people wanting to do things like this, and unique challenges becoming ever harder to find.

So where to start? What did I know about corporate sponsorship? I started scouring the net for some advice on strategies. And I bought the mostly highly recommended book I could find on the topic- The Sponsorship Seekers Toolkit. And I put together a sponsorship proposal, describing myself in the most glowing terms that were plausible, and describing my previous minor adventuring feats in terms that made the trials of Hercules seem like short walks to the corner shop for some groceries.

Next I put together, really quite at random, a list of companies I would contact. So I had a list of several hundred companies that myself and a few friends helped create. My ‘toolkit’ advised to select only companies that you knew had a good fit with your ‘event’ and their ‘target market’. Fair enough, I thought, but in practice that would leave me with maybe only about ten companies at best. So I scrapped that advice and thought it was simply better to adopt the ‘throw enough mud at a wall, and some of it will stick’ approach.

Then my frustrations began. I set entire days off, lunch breaks, and spare half hours, to getting contact information and phoning and emailing companies. I quickly discovered a kind of quantum feedback effect that exists in the customer service departments of almost all, but the smallest companies- you ring a customer service line, asking to be put through to the company’s marketing department. But instead you are re-directed to an answer machine, that I came to realise no one ever checks. This is what I call the customer service ‘Black Hole’. Alternatively you can email customer service lines, but I also realised that these emails simply are sent through a wormhole to some parallel universe, and only there is it ever read, let alone replied to. And of course we all know that wormholes only work one-way. At least customer service ones do.

There is an impenetrable wall at the first point of contact, specifically to screen undesirables like myself. “We have simply too many random people calling us every day asking for money to listen to any of them!” You have to answer a riddle, a bit like the chicken and the egg. You want to speak to the marketing department, but if you don’t know a name of a person working in this department you will not be connected. And of course, they will not tell you the name! A few times when I was lucky enough to find a gap in this first line of defence, a few people said that due to the ever-increasing number of people asking for sponsorship and handouts, they had simply stopped sponsoring anybody, preferring to work closely with some carefully chosen organisations.

Of course, a few people genuinely said that my event simply didn’t fit with how they saw the image of their product. I couldn’t argue with that, but couldn’t help wondering if what they were really saying was, “Who are you? Why on Earth should we give you this sum of money to go to the North Pole?” I also couldn’t help wondering myself, despite the benefits of sponsorship I was touting, whether there were really any tangible ones to offer at all. Apparently Polar Challenge is televised in over 100 countries, but have YOU ever seen it? Maybe, but did you go on to buy any of the products you might have happened to glimpse advertised on one of the contestants pulks? Almost certainly not! I guess I have always been cynical about the effects of advertising anyway, so I must, for my own sake, remain faithful.

A few times, I had a positive reply. “This will be the one!” I told myself, excitedly, working myself into a frenzy, imagining myself already feeling the crunch of snow beneath my feet. But they came back to me, saying that their superiors didn’t feel that it fit with their projected image for the coming year, or that they had spent their budget for that year. Indeed, I knew it was late in the day to be trying to get the cash together- November was looming fast. I suppose anyone who has ever succeeded in raising large sums of money for an expedition by corporate sponsorship will tell you it’s a full-time job. I can confirm this. Indeed, it seemed like a much greater ordeal than the 320 nautical mile trek to the Pole. That would simply be a breeze compared to this. And a lot more fun!

One lesson was learnt above all others. In all my efforts to gain sponsorship from a company, in maybe 1% of cases I was actually able to speak to the relevant person who actually had some influence on how the marketing budget was spent. It is the same with almost anything in this World- it is about who you know. Contacts, contacts, contacts. 99% of my efforts to approach a company were a total waste of time, simply because the relevant person or department never even knew I existed. I experienced similar frustrations as a musician. The actual playing of the music I wanted to play was only possible after negotiating a maze of networks, schmoozing the right people and scratching the right backs. Mastering these things is a necessary to skill to allow one to advance in any chosen path, and sadly they have nothing to do with the actual thing you really want to do. And sadder still, they seem to be things I’m not very good at!

Eventually I had to admit defeat. November came and went, and I had not raised a single penny towards my trip northward. I had lost my £1000 deposit though. I retreated to Siberia for a few months, licking my wounds, disappointed that I wasn’t going to be taking advantage of the Siberian winter to train like a madman for my race to the Pole.

It’s a new year, and a new season of fundraising can begin. I want to go to the Pole, the first of many adventures I planned, more than ever. I have been spending the winter in Siberia, Nordic skiing and ice-climbing, and have some small adventures planned for the summer, all to keep the ball rolling, and to improve my experience and credibility. The global economic crisis continues, which makes it as bad a time as ever to try and coax money out of people, but what can I do but try again? All I can do is dust myself off and start banging my head against that brick wall once again.

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1. What does exploration mean to you?

For me, 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.

2. How did you get started in exploration, was there a decisive moment that shaped what drives you?

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 Huli Whigman of Papua New Guinea impressed me a lot with there attitude to life. A lot had to do with their hair.....

3. Why do you explore?

I explore to understand the meaning of life. I am looking for an answer regarding the eternal question, why in earth did we humans end up on earth, dominating it the way we do, but not fully understanding it. And I believe that to be able to understand fully, you have to understand the basic values of people who live very close to nature every day of their lives. And, I feel I have a mission, trying to get people in my own world to understand other people, for them unknown and often, misunderstood. Basically, a builder of bridges between cultures.

4. What do you remember as being your most exhilarating moment in the field?

The day I arrived to the small Siberian settlement of Kolymskaya was the happiest moment of my exploring life. It was the end of the most demanding part of my Expedition along the Kolyma River, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth. I had, together with my assistant Johan, spent most of the past 5 months hauling 660 pounds of necessities, mainly in utter darkness, experiencing a terrifying cold with average temperatures around -50°F, day and night. A reality which made sleep almost impossible, giving us plenty of frostbites on both fingers and cheeks and it ruined most metal parts in our equipment. Like our ski bindings, and therefore, we arrived walking, not skiing, to the village. It seemed like every inhabitant were there to greet us with customary warmth, joy and most of them were dressed in their colourful traditional dress. We saw Chukchis, Even, Yakuts, Yugahirs and Russians. After the traditional welcoming offerings to the spirits, we were brought into the local museum, where more cheerful and hugging villagers awaited us, around a table full of local delicacies. After having survived mainly on moose meat and raw, frozen fish during most of the winter, we nearly cried when we came across big plates of fried reindeer brain and cooked bone marrow. At that stage, I suddenly realized, after spending 20 years of exploring extreme parts of our world and trying to understand the meaning of life, from now on, I’ll stop thinking about the big worrisome issues and simply concentrate on the uncomplicated ones. Like the thought of some more cooked bone marrow.

5. What do you think the future of exploration is?

I worry quite a lot regarding the future of exploration. There’s an awful lot of young male dominated quite ridiculous adventures today, were focus is purely on showing off a male hero image. The type who’s gone to the North Pole and back sitting in a shopping cart from Wall-Mart using an oar to move forward and keep polar bears at bay. A bloke whose selling point is dirty underwear, ice in his beard and modern polar clothes packed with sponsors and whose lecture theme is “Everything is possible!” I hope this awfully trivial way to travel in the name of exploration will disappear soon and I look forward to the return of good old Exploration in the name of documentation, building bridges of knowledge whilst doing research and tests of the human limits. There’s also a need of much more women in Exploration, especially the classic adventure genre, to give a much better, and more serious, perspective of it all. I think, and hope, this is the future of exploration.

"A good quality knife. You can do a lot with a sharp knife. You can hunt, skin, prepare meat and other types of food and than use it as an eating utensil. And many more matters concerning pure survival." Siberian straganina here!

6. What is your most trusted ´Don´t leave home without it`piece of kit?

A good quality knife. You can do a lot with a sharp knife. You can hunt, skin, prepare meat and other types of food and than use it as an eating utensil. And many more matters concerning pure survival.

7. Could you share a message to empower future generations to continue to explore or do you have a favourite quote to encourage young people?

Even though everything has been discovered geographically today, there’s an enormous amount of important things still to discover, since the world is forever changing. Don´t think, just go. You will make a difference. It is the best life one can imagine. The life of an explorer.

Well, that seems a loooong time ago….things have happened since then, some really good, some really bad. Read this article in Turkey´s biggest daily Sabah!

The Empty Quarter, or Rub Al-Khali, was often referred to in the first part of the 20th Century as one of the few remaining genuinely unexplored regions of the world, on the same scale as the South and North Pole. Therefore many explorers wanted to do the first crossing of this vast sandy desert, 650 000 square kilometres in size, like putting Belgium, Holland and France together, but first of all gold digging explorers to catch this price -forgetting the local Bedu who lived here- turned out to be a simple civil servant from Bristol in the UK, Bertram Thomas. He crossed the Empty Quarter together with local Bedu 1930-31 and wrote an excellent book called Arabia Fenix. Amazingly enough his book can be read on the Internet!

At this stage when I have decided on where to go, understanding the objective of the expedition, all effort has to be put into finding the right contacts and background material. Both tasks filled with joy. Communicating with experts on the area is half the fun. And so far almost everyone I have contacted have been very helpful, showing a camaraderie unknown between people in the same business as me here in grey Sweden. One of them is the Grand Old Dame of desert and Camel travel, Arita Baijeens. And as always, you come across people associated with other things and other dreams you have had. Today, by pure coincidence during my research, I came across an old acquaintance of mine, Dan Mazur, and remembered that I had told him a few years ago, that I of pure interest after reading Hillary´s account of his conquest of Everest, wanted to make an attempt on Hillary´s and Tenzing´s original route. Dan Mazur, like me using Facebook, so I contact him and said, I am still interested. He advised me to go for it, if prepared, april 2010. Why not then….life is short.

Second task is to put an enormous effort into getting a picture as big and broad as possible regarding the area. What I have to learn and try to understand in a very short time, 10 months or so, is a gigantic task. Even though I have already had quite a lot of insight into Islam, Arabs, the Middle East and desert travel from earlier travels, I know almost nothing about the Gulf, camels or, most important, their original inhabitants, the Bedu. And I need to learn Arabic, in shallah.

At the same time I have to try to support myself, find sponsors, set up the media kit, keep extremely fit, eat the right food, be relatively happy, have a social life, but still spend most of the time studying, no easy thing. Gee, there is some sacrifice indeed! It is at the same time, one of the best moments of an explorers life, but also the worst in some ways, because you love it more than other parts of your life. But it is the same thing before every Expedition. Most people who are close to you, genuinely fear and hate it! This is what a true explorer want to do more than anything else in life! travel, be it through books or in reality. I do look forward to this Expedition more than ever before!