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A poet across the Arctic Ocean
16:21 p.m. EST Oct 27, 2003
"No doubt the explorers of 2015, if there is anything left to explore, will carry pocket wireless telephones, fitted with wireless telescopes".
(Thomas Orde-Lees (Shackleton's Endurance Expedition, 1915)
The Arctic ocean is a horror chamber. Masses of ice piled in towers of rubble. Black leads of freezing water opening and closing with the drift and full moon. Top athletes like Messner have escaped the jaws of death of all 8000ers - only to give up to the unforgiving pain and terror of the Arctic sea.
Ben Saunders sped to the North Pole solo for a few degrees last year updating his website every day with pictures and thoughts. On our own polar expeditions, we would find mighty poems from Ben every single day on our PDAs.
Ben was also the one who captured the interest of a reporter from NYTimes, when he came back from the pole and immediately - before anything else - sat in a corner of the base and started to upload his last picture and dispatch.
Ben is not Scott or Amundsen. Ben carries the spirit of Shackelton. We created Contact 2.0 for souls like his. And now, Ben is off to carry the Olympic torch of the Arctic Ocean.
In the year of 2000, Rune Gjeldnes and Torry Larsen set out to from Cape Arctichesky, Siberia to cross the Arctic ocean in an epic journey. In the end, the guys lost their sleds, gear and over 50 kgs of bodyweight. As they finally staggered back on land in Cape Discovery, North Canada - they were nothing less than dead men walking. The doctor's of a small research station that examined them on arrival said that Rune and Torry were only 48 hours away from death. They had been out for 109 days.
Now, the Arctic ocean holds one last challenge for man: Repeat what Rune and Torry did, but go it alone.
"This is as simply as I can say it: we went north, we picked up the torch, and shined its bright light down the long corridor of potential. Who will take the next step?" Mark Twight, 'Kiss or Kill'.
Today's poem is from Ben's site. You got it. Ben is the one. Expedition starts early next year.
Visit Rune's and Torry's site and buy the book of their incredible expedition "Dead Men Walking" to get a feeling of what Ben's up to. Plenty of spectacular pics of their skiing, paddling and pulling sleds in the Arctic nights.
Image of Ben Saunders courtesy of Transarctic.org.
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