Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival

by Les Stroud

  In addition to participating in an exercise regimen, each man was trained to pack and unpack his sled in the dark, cold, and wind, and manage his equipment by feel and instinct. Mawson had them set and strike camp in the middle of blinding whiteouts and would often redesign equipment on the spot. Nothing was taken for granted; he was always looking ahead.

  In early August, Mawson and two of his most trusted associates headed south to establish a supply depot for the sledging parties that would be fanning out across the land in the months to come. They struggled across the ice for five and a half miles into a blinding gale before finding a suitable place to dig an ice cave. The vertical shaft, replete with shelves and room to accommodate four sleeping men and a host of extra provisions, was named Aladdin’s Cave. It would prove to be one of the most important things Mawson ever did in the tapestry of catastrophic events that would unfold months later.

  As September rolled around, unusually calm weather allowed the men to break into several sledging parties, test equipment, and begin mapping of the rugged coastline. These sorties came to an abrupt halt when October’s weather became unrelentingly fierce. Mawson was anxious. The Antarctic “summer” was exceedingly short, and any unforeseen delays would significantly hamper his crews’ ability to map and complete the very task that had prompted the journey.

  As November dawned, the weather showed no sign of abating, but Mawson was undaunted. He gathered his men around the mess table one evening and declared that the sledging parties would be leaving within a week, regardless of what Mother Nature might throw at them.

  It is here that Mawson’s tenacious personality, which would serve him exceedingly well through the ordeals he was yet to endure, caused him to make his first mistake. Mawson was an extremely ambitious man and simply couldn’t accept defeat. So, even after experiencing the fury of the Antarctic weather for almost a year, the knowledge that the Aurora was coming back in mid-January forced him to decide that all the sledging teams would embark on their journeys in the next week, regardless of the weather.

  In those final frenzied days before departure, the camp was abuzz with activity. Mawson meticulously counted out the trekking rations and weighed everything to the last ounce. This is not only an important bit of knowledge to have (in case you end up in a survival situation), it is also reassuring to be that comfortable with your gear and your rations.

  In total, Mawson sent out five separate sledging parties. The consummate leader, he handpicked each team’s members according to their strengths and weaknesses. Three parties traveled to the east to map the coastline, one south to the magnetic pole, and one to the west. Mawson planned to lead what was likely the most treacherous trek of all: the Far Eastern trek, using three sledges and seventeen of the Greenland dogs they had kept since arriving at Cape Denison some ten months before.

  On November 10, 1912, Mawson—along with Dr. Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave E. S. Ninnis—set out. Although the wind and weather beat at them mercilessly, Mawson and his companions were tough, experienced antarctic travelers, and they made excellent progress during the early stages of their journey.

  Their trip was aided by their collective ingenuity, as they made constant revisions to improve their gear. This ability to improvise—I call it MacGyverism, after the 1980s television character with an uncanny ability to instantly rig up a solution to a life-threatening problem—is an important skill in any wilderness situation, but it’s paramount in a survival situation. There are times when you have to sacrifice one object to make it into another, more effective one. You also have to be aware of the risks the environment may throw at you and use your survival smarts to keep yourself alive. In Mawson’s case, doing something as simple as tethering the sledge to his body kept him alive on more than one occasion.

  Mawson kept his group on strict rations every day. He employed a food-consumption strategy he called “No work, no hoosh.” The team members were prohibited from consuming large amounts of rich food on days when they were idle because of bad weather. Instead, these foods were saved for days when the men worked hard and expended lots of calories. It was a brilliant bit of rationing that kept the men strong and fit—and excited to work hard.

  Yet Mawson also erred a bit when it came to food rationing. He insisted that he, Mertz, and Ninnis all receive the same amount of food at every meal, even though he was much bigger and stronger than his comrades. Whether Mawson ever actually considered his size and strength advantage over the other two remains a mystery, but I think he should have accounted for it when doling out the food, just as I would do if I found myself in a survival situation with my kids. I believe Mawson short-changed himself when it came to food, which may have played a role in the neuralgia he later developed on the left side of his face and in his shoulder.

  As November waned, the trio successfully navigated across the treacherous crevasses of the newly dubbed Mertz Glacier, though the glacier claimed its victims. They lost several dogs to various injuries and accidents along the way, and Ninnis was slowed by an acute case of snowblindness. The ever-ready Mawson knew just how to deal with such a setback, though, and inserted small tablets of cocaine and zinc sulfate under Ninnis’s eyelids, leaving them there to dissolve and ease the burning. Mawson advised his friend to wear his dark goggles as often as possible, and to screw his eyelids nearly shut in those instances when it was necessary to remove the goggles.

  * * *

  Preventing Snowblindness

  Snowblindness, also known as photokeratitis, is a serious concern in snowy terrain under most conditions, but is particularly acute on bright, sunny days. In essence, snowblindness is a sunburn on the cornea, caused when eyes are not well enough protected from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Snowblindness causes an excruciating burning sensation in the eyes that can last as long as several days.

  The best protection again snowblindness is protection from the sun’s UV rays. Sunglasses and ski goggles work particularly well, though Mawson and his mates likely would not have been fortunate enough to have anything so civilized on hand. They would have had to become more creative.

  Ultimately, anything that cuts down on the amount of light reaching the eyes will suffice. On a survival outing in the Arctic, I once cut strips of foam from a snowmobile seat cushion to make snow goggles. Traditionally, the Inuit carved snow goggles from caribou antlers.

  Making snow goggles is not that difficult. You simply need to use something, anything, into which you can cut two small slits for your eyes, then incorporate a tying system so that it can be secured to your head.

  * * *

  Eventually, the Mertz Glacier fell behind them and progress picked up. But they now faced an even bigger challenge: the far riskier ridges and cracks of the so-called Ninnis Glacier. Progress amid what Mawson described as “rolling waves of ice” was maddeningly slow.

  As if the deathly maze of ice ridges and yawning crevasses of the Ninnis Glacier wasn’t enough, the trip was compounded by an infection that Ninnis had developed on the second finger of his right hand. Mawson was shocked to find one afternoon that the finger had swelled to nearly double its size and was turning a putrid combination of black and green. This was a huge judgment error on Ninnis’s part, one that not only jeopardized his own well-being, but that of the entire expedition. In adventure racing—where, like exploration, your personal well-being is intricately interwoven with that of your teammates—you run the risk jeopardizing the entire race if you do not let your teammates know as soon as you begin to develop an injury, even something seemingly as minor as a blister. These types of things must always be group knowledge. It’s nothing to be embarrassed

  about; it’s showing consideration for the team before the individual.

  * * *

  Treating Septicemia

  Infections are nothing to fool around with, especially in the middle of the Antarctic wilderness. If left untreated, any infection has the potential to lead to septicemia, also known as blood poisoning or bacteremi
a. Ninnis was lucky the infection in his finger didn’t kill him. Had full-blown septicemia developed, it likely would have killed him.

  Septicemia typically begins with a series of spiking fevers, which can be accompanied by chills, rapid breathing, and elevated heart rate. Symptoms progress to shock, falling blood pressure, disruptions in mental capacity, and the appearance of red spots on the skin. If left untreated, adult respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, and death follow.

  Septicemia is difficult to treat once it sets, so the best medicine is prevention by appropriately treating localized infections before they progress.

  * * *

  Mawson tried to reduce the swelling with a poultice, to no avail. By the next morning, Ninnis’s pain had become unbearable. With life-threatening septicemia—the presence of bacteria in the blood—a real risk at this point, Mawson had no choice but to perform surgery. He sterilized his knife in the open flame of the Primus stove and sliced open the bulging digit. After the green-yellow pus finished spurting out, Mawson wrapped the finger in an iodine-soaked pad. It worked. Once the finger healed, Ninnis experienced no more trouble with it. It may be sobering to remember that all of this took place in the frigid temperatures of the Antarctic, with no running water, soap, or painkillers.

  The group was still crossing the dizzying maze of crevasses and pressure ridges of the Ninnis Glacier in mid-December when Mertz, who had been traveling on skis, pointed out a snow bridge across a nearby crevasse. Mawson was riding on his sledge behind the dogs and made it across easily, his weight evenly distributed. Ninnis, however, was running beside his team of dogs. He had barely set foot on the snow bridge when it collapsed beneath him and he disappeared into the heart of the glacier, along with his sledge . . . and the dogs that were pulling it.

  Mawson and Mertz rushed to the edge of the gaping chasm and stared into the abyss. On a narrow ledge some 150 feet below, they could see a dog, its back apparently broken from the fall. Beneath that was nothing but void.

  Mertz and Mawson called into the depths for hours, but heard no response. As the reality of their comrade’s death washed over them, they were faced with another, starker reality: Ninnis’s sledge had been pulled by the six strongest dogs and had carried most of the team’s indispensable supplies, including the tent and most of the food, and spare clothing. The remaining sledge had only ten days of rations for the two men, and absolutely nothing for the six dogs. They were 315 miles—and almost five weeks—from main base.

  Ninnis’s death is one of those bitter twists of fate that sometimes occurs in the wilderness and that seem particularly common among turn-of-the-century explorers. Mawson, Mertz, and Ninnis had seen themselves through weeks of trials and tribulations, were very close to their turnaround point, and were crossing a glacier as they had done dozens of times before. But this time, fate dealt them a deadly surprise.

  Mertz was hysterical at Ninnis’s death. Mawson was stricken, too, but tried to remain calm. With adversity staring him squarely in the face, his survival instincts now kicked into overdrive. Mawson allowed himself and Mertz time to grieve for Ninnis, but he never lost focus. He soon brought Mertz back to the task at hand and immediately set to sizing up the situation and devising a plan of action. Survival thinking in the face of deep grief is the toughest mindset of all.

  Their equipment was spare, to say the least. They had the cook stove, some kerosene, and extra tent cover material. To make matters worse, they had not cached any food while they traveled west, since they had decided they would return to the main base by a different, easterly route.

  In these dire circumstances, Mawson again demonstrated his innate leadership skills and began explaining to Mertz the difficult decisions that lay ahead. The worst? They would have to eat their beloved dogs, one by one, over the course of the return journey. Coming to grips with this reality was brutally difficult, but making these types of decisions is often the key to survival, and Mawson was not one to dance around a difficult choice. Making tough decisions ahead of time is equally critical in a survival situation, as it gives you purpose and focus. However you must make sure you don’t rigidly stick to them in the face of newer (and better) information.

  Their first destination was a spot some fourteen miles back, where they had dumped a sledge and some extraneous supplies a few days before. Mawson was fueled by a desperate sense of urgency to recover anything they could get their hands on, and surprisingly, he let that urgency get in the way of prudence . . . for a while. He had acted this way before, of course, when he ran out of patience at base camp and vowed to start the expedition no matter what the weather threw at them.

  To make it back to the dump site as quickly as possible, he (on the sledge) and Mertz (on skis) rushed down any slope they encountered, with blatant disregard for the same risks that had taken Ninnis’s life. And as surprised as I am that someone as dogged and meticulous as Mawson let his guard down so early in the return journey, I also understand why he did it. It was a classic example of how people in survival situations often throw their hands in the air and say, “Screw it,” throw caution to the wind, and put themselves in greater danger by pushing too hard.

  Mawson and Mertz made it back to the site safely, however, and picked up a few potentially useful items and disposed of everything else they deemed extraneous. From then on, Mawson became the Antarctic’s version of MacGyver. He began improvising immediately. With no tent, they needed shelter against the brutal Antarctic wind, so he set about making one by cutting one of the wooden runners off the discarded sledge, sawing it in half, and lashing the two pieces to a pair of snowshoes, thus fashioning a rudimentary frame for their tent material. There was no food for the dogs, so Mawson again put his creativity and ingenuity to work, salvaging from the dump site two old wolfskin mitts, a pair of reindeer-skin boots, and a piece of rawhide strapping. Mawson carefully sliced each into pieces and fed them to the ravenous dogs. The gloves were, after all, just animal hide, and therefore completely edible.

  Progress from the dump site was steady in the days that followed. But, without adequate food, the dogs weakened quickly. It wasn’t long before the first one was unable to proceed. Mertz could not bring himself to do the deed, so Mawson shot old George through the head with his .22-caliber rifle. They fed part of George to the other dogs and saved the rest for themselves, but not before Mawson fashioned two spoons out of a piece of spare wood.

  As resourceful as he was, Mawson made a serious mistake when shooting George. It would have been a better choice to suffocate the dog by simply kneeling on its chest, thereby preserving the nutrient-rich brain for him and Mertz to eat. Putting a bullet through George’s brain removed that possibility—and wasted a bullet.

  Mawson used the sacrifice of the first dog as an opportunity to realistically weigh his and Mertz’s chance of survival. Always planning, he reduced their food intake from thirty-four to eight ounces per day, hoping that the dog meat would give them enough energy to complete the journey. They scorched the stringy meat in a pan and choked back the musty meal.

  Not long thereafter, Mawson and Mertz dug into what they believed to be the choicest part of the dog: the liver. What Mawson didn’t know was that the liver of the Greenland husky—just like those of polar bears and bearded seals—was capable of storing enormous quantities of vitamin A, in concentrations toxic to humans. So, with each bite Mawson and Mertz took of the dog liver, they were slowly poisoning themselves.

  This was perhaps the most significant bit of bad luck to strike the two men on their long journey home. There is little evidence to show that hypervitaminosis had become public knowledge at that point in history. If it had, Mawson, one of the most meticulous and well-prepared explorers the world has ever seen, would certainly have known about it. Yet he didn’t, and as a consequence, only one would survive the journey back to main base.

  In the mind-numbing days to come, Mawson and Mertz fought their way back across the frozen landscape. Their compass was useless, so Mawson
estimated their westerly path by the north-south alignment of the windblown ridges in the snow. As they traveled, they did what so many people do in desperate situations: they obsessed about food and made plans for their return. Mertz fantasized about butter, chocolate, and tea, all the while repulsed by the idea, and taste, of dog. Yet as torturous as it may seem to obsess about creature comforts in a survival situation, this kind of psychological exercise is vital to motivation. And motivation is a key element in the struggle to survive against all odds.

  * * *

  Hypervitaminosis

  Hypervitaminosis, also known as vitamin overdose, tends to result from an excess of fat-soluble vitamins, the sort that are stored in the liver and fatty tissues of the body. These vitamins, including the vitamin A that Mertz and Mawson were consuming in massive amounts, remain in the body far longer than water-soluble vitamins.

  Both Mertz and Mawson began to demonstrate some of the classic symptoms of hypervitaminosis A, which would worsen as their journey back to base camp continued. These symptoms include blurred vision, headache, fatigue or dizziness, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, irritability, hair loss, skin that is yellowing, itching or peeling, and cracking at the corners of the mouth.

  * * *

  And so they trudged along. One by one, the dogs died off, their carcasses not much more than fur-clad skeletons. Eating their meat was like chewing leather; Mawson and Mertz looked forward only to the relative tenderness provided by each dog’s liver, each bite of which brought them one step closer to the grave. Though he was certainly as repulsed by the taste of dog as Mertz was, Mawson remained undeterred. He did his best to use every bit of the animals, even boiling their paws into a thick soup.