North Pole Revisited

Of all the Earth’s inhospitable places, the North Pole surely is among the worst. Still, it remains an irresistible attraction for adventurers 75 years after Robert E. Peary first reached this strange ill-defined spot where at ice-level the only way to know you are there is that every direction is south.

A number of expeditions have reached the pole since Peary’s team in 1909, assisted only by dog sled. People have flown over it in airplanes and dirigibles. The British got there on snowmobiles while circling the globe via the two poles. Submarines sailed under it. A Soviet icebreaker reached 90 degrees north in 1977. Japanese explorer Naomi Uemura reached the North Pole alone by dog sled in 1978. But Uemura, later killed climbing Mt. McKinley solo, had to be resupplied after a polar bear attacked his tent and ate his provisions.

Late last week, six Americans and one Canadian repeated Peary’s adventure, arriving at the pole with their dog teams and sleds after a 56-day trek of 500 miles across the ice. The expedition was led by Will Steger, 41, a former science teacher from Minnesota who estimates he has walked 10,000 miles in the Arctic.

Why do it? Why not? Or, as Prince Charles said of the British expedition: “It is a mad and suitably British sort of idea.”