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Outside Magazine September 2002

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Let's All Chill (Cont.)

"HOW WAS IT AT THE POLE?" I asked Børge the next morning as we got ready to board a Russian helicopter that would ferry us the 30 miles or so to the 89th degree.

Despite layers of gloves and mittens, frostbite blistered my fingers. Would this be a problem? "Only if you need your hands." Børge said.

"Cold," he said, looking tired. I started to tell him about our supply-tent nightmare, but then it occurred to me that he had actually slept at the North Pole, while I was eating cookies and hanging out with Brigitte.

"We leave right after lunch," he said. I felt like saluting. North to the pole!

The martial feeling intensified when our little group nervously piled in for takeoff. It was an eclectic bunch. There was Carlijn Hoekstra from the Netherlands, a 22-year-old medical student who hoped to become the first Dutch woman to ski to the North Pole. She was tall and athletic and had been dragging tires for months alongside a canal in Holland, an experience she described as "fun." She had never—ever—been on cross-country skis before trying on a pair at Spitsbergen, but she was smart and quick to laugh and had a perpetually upbeat manner that I doubted would crumble.

There was one other woman, a South African named Correne Erasmus-Coetzer, 44, who was determined to become the first South African woman to ski to both poles. Back in December she'd made it to the South Pole, which meant that she had a very clear idea of what we were in for. A tiny but incredibly strong person, she didn't try to hide her apprehension. "You have no idea," she'd say, smiling, almost shuddering.

Two Norwegian guys completed our band. Jan-Erik Warbo, 50, was an ebullient former Oslo ad executive turned real estate magnate who spent a lot of time pursuing new challenges like sailing across the Atlantic. Per Helgesplass was a quiet 33-year-old who had just spent a year in China at some godforsaken place near Mongolia, managing a factory for a Norwegian company. He'd never done anything like this. So why this particular trip? "It's the North Pole," he said when I pressed him. "I'm Norwegian." As if that explained it all.

The flight from Barneo to just past the 89th degree was a quick, noisy trip over the ice. As we landed in a whoosh of white, it seemed terribly important to the Russians to get us and our gear off the helicopter ASAP, as if we might come under mortar attack at any second. We frantically hurled our sleds out the door while the Russian crew chief scowled and yelled, "Go! Now!"

Then we were standing on the ice and the helicopter was taking off and we all waved, aware of the cinematic melodrama of the moment. Børge looked at us and grinned. "Always north," he announced, quoting a famous line by his countryman Fridtjof Nansen, the 19th-century Arctic explorer.

We nodded. Then we awkwardly strapped on our waist belts and headed in the same direction.

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