These solo adventurers, self-sufficient and moving through a minimalist landscape, report a sense of existential plenitude as they go deeper into the journey. Kagge wrote of his endeavour: ‘It is an absurd thing to do, but love makes you blind. I fell in love with the idea of skiing into a white nothingness, with everything I would need for an entire expedition on my sledge, and, as I wrote in my diary, to be able to feel that “Past and future are of no interest. I am living more and more in the present.”’15 For Ousland, the experience created ‘a state of meditation where you reach levels inside you that you did not know existed’ and Arnesen reported ‘the feeling of being at one with nature – of knowing why I was there, what life is, who I am’.16
For others, historical concerns are paramount. The centenaries of the polar journeys of Shackleton, Amundsen and Scott provoked, unsurprisingly, a flurry of expeditions, some of them recreating aspects of the original events. In 2008 the Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition arrived at the Pole, all of the members descendants of the Nimrod expedition during which a team led by Shackleton made the decision to turn around fewer than 185 km (100 nautical miles) from their goal. The expeditioners’ aim was to complete ‘unfinished family business’.17 Most of the focus, however, was on Amundsen and Scott. The BBC television documentary Blizzard, screened in 2006, staged a race with teams using replica clothes, equipment and food, in Greenland rather than the Antarctic in order to incorporate dogs; the Norwegians won. As the southern summer of 2011–12 approached, numerous teams began to converge on the Pole, many hoping to arrive in time for an official ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of Amundsen’s first arrival, held on 14 December 2011. Extreme World Races had begun organizing races at the South Pole in 2008–9 (the experience of the British team in the first event was filmed for the BBC documentary On Thin Ice), and held a Scott-Amundsen Centenary Race in 2011–12. Contestants left from the coast of Dronning Maud Land in East Antarctica, racing for first arrival at the Pole. The Norwegian team won. A more official Scott-Amundsen Centenary Race, launched by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, saw two teams – unassisted and unsupported – following the original routes, arriving in time for the official Scott centenary ceremony on 17 January 2012. Both teams were composed of British servicemen, raising money for The Royal British Legion. The ‘Norwegians’ won.
High Latitude Antarctic Tourism: South Pole Inn, Anascaul, Ireland. Tom Crean, Antarctic expedition veteran and member of the support team for Scott’s polar party, established this pub on his return to Ireland.
Not all centenary events were races; some were more concerned with honouring the details of the original events. Sørpolen 2011, a Norwegian expedition, aimed to replay Amundsen’s daily progress, obviously without the aid of dogs. Logistical difficulties delayed the start, however, and two members had to be flown for the last 50 miles (80 km) in order to reach the Pole in time for the official centenary ceremony. They then skied north and retraced the last few miles to the Pole, joined by the Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg. The remaining two members duly arrived just before midnight, ‘local’ (New Zealand) time, having skied the entire way.18 Another Norwegian expedition attempted a re-creation following the original route using replica dress and gear; the leader, Alse Johansen, also chose to be flown the last leg rather than miss the centenary. More than 100 visitors – as well as station personnel – were present for the official ceremony, which included the unveiling of a bust of Amundsen made from ice.19
The Scott centenary events were necessarily more subdued. A re-enactment of Scott’s journey – or rather, a selected part of it – using period dress and equipment had been made a few years before the centenary in 2006, by a guided group raising money for charity. As they walked only the last 270 km (170 miles) of the journey, a stretch for which Scott’s team relied solely on man-hauling, dogs and ponies were not required. The lighthearted aspects of sledging in Edwardian costume, however, would have been inappropriate for the actual centenary of a tragic journey. The ceremony marking the arrival of the British party was smaller than the Norwegian ceremony and – with its connotations of memorialization – more ‘heartfelt’, according to one observer.20 In the summer of 2013–14, two British adventurers man-hauled Scott’s original planned route to the Pole and back – the first to complete the journey. This was the longest distance covered by an unassisted polar expedition in history (although it was not technically unsupported, since they were forced to call in supplies at one point).
Many of the centenary expeditions and events were facilitated by Antarctic tourist companies. By the first decade of the twentieth century South Polar tourism was a well-established industry, catering to a steady niche market. Tourists had been coming to – or at least over – the Pole for decades. The earliest tourist flight occurred in 1968, when the Admiral Richard E. Byrd Polar Center, based in Boston, sponsored a flight over both poles, with 67 tourists on board. Pan American Airways made a similar bipolar overflight nine years later, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. These were one-off events, although the Magnetic South Pole near the East Antarctic coast saw a series of tourist overflights on Qantas aircraft in 1977, initiated by the Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith.21 Commercial summer flights over the coastal areas of the continent by Qantas and Air New Zealand became regular over the next few years, until the 1979 Mount Erebus disaster, in which all 247 occupants of an aircraft were killed when the plane they were in crashed into the mountain, put a stop to them for some time. Meanwhile, Antarctic cruise-ship tourism – continuously active since the late 1960s – had begun to burgeon. This was limited, obviously, to the coastal regions of the continent, mostly the spectacular and relatively accessible Antarctic Peninsula.
Four men recreate Scott’s trek to the South Pole to raise money for cerebral palsy research.
Anne Noble’s Wilhelmina Bay, Antarctica (2005) points ironically to the paradoxes of tourism in a place that is renowned for being ‘untouched’ by humans.
Tourism to the South Pole remained a much more difficult prospect. In order to fly economical numbers of tourists and cargo into the continent’s interior, operators needed to use long-range aircraft with wheels (rather than skis), which can be flown intercontinentally from locations at the bottom of South America or South Africa. Given that just a tiny fraction of the Antarctic continent is exposed ground, and most of that is mountainous, ice runways were an obvious solution.22 In the mid-1980s the tour operator Adventure Network International (ANI) began looking for possible sites for a ‘blue-ice’ runway – usually found in the lee of mountain ranges, where wind scours the snow away and enables a wheeled landing. Settling on a place in the Patriot Hills, southwest of the Antarctic Peninsula at around 80 degrees latitude (roughly 1,000 km from the Pole), ANI began flying in paying customers in DC-4 aircraft in the summer of 1987–8. Some of these were mountaineers aiming to climb Antarctica’s highest peak, Mount Vinson. Others had their eyes on the Pole, where they were flown by ski-equipped aircraft in early 1988 – the first tourists to do so. The following year the company offered its first guided journey to the South Pole, with a group of eleven people leaving from Hercules Inlet, on skis with support from snowmobiles. By 2005 ANI could boast of having ‘supported virtually every expedition that has crossed the continent on foot, by vehicle or by aircraft’.23 While there are other outfits offering trips to Antarctica’s interior and to the Pole, ANI – since 2010 operating out of Union Glacier rather than the nearby Patriot Hills – has dominated South Polar tourism.
Ilyushin aircraft carrying Antarctic tourists approaches a blue-ice runway.
In the early twenty-first century if you are looking to travel to the South Pole, there is a range of options available to you, depending on your fitness level and motivation. You can find them easily, outlined in the chapter devoted to the South Pole in the Lonely Planet travel guide to Antarctica, or on a tourist operator’s website. For the ‘true adventurer’, ANI offers traverses leaving from locations at the inwa
rd edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf. They cost around U.S.$65,000 (not including travel to and from Punta Arenas, Chile) and require months of training. For those looking for a ‘serious challenge’ but unable or unwilling to attempt this distance, there is the slightly cheaper option of ‘Ski Last Degree’, a distance of 111 km (60 nautical miles), which typically takes six days to cross. For ‘polar enthusiasts’, the option of camping at the South Pole overnight is available, at a site just 1 km away (half a mile) from Amundsen-Scott Station. ANI’s promotional material here treads a line between maintaining a sense of intrepidness without the suggestion of privation. Prospective customers are offered ‘a taste of polar exploration’ as they ‘camp overnight in an expedition-style tent’, but are expected to be ‘surprised how comfortable Antarctica can be!’, with meals and recreation taking place in a heated tent. You can also fly from the ANI camp at Union Glacier to the Pole – a four- to five-hour flight – and return the same day; a tour of the scientific base is included.24
Ilyushin aircraft deposits excited tourists on a blue-ice runway.
Mountaineers approaching Mount Vinson base camp (Vinson Massif behind).
Given the extreme and remote conditions, South Polar tourism seems to have run remarkably smoothly, with one tragic exception. In 1997 a six-man private expedition travelled to the Pole to skydive, using an ANI chartered plane. A tandem pair – the first such jump at the South Pole – landed without incident; a third parachutist deployed his reserve chute only just in time to land safely. Three others did not deploy their parachutes at all and died upon impact. Considerable speculation has gone into the source of the tragedy. Befuddlement from hypoxia is one prominent possibility; the solo jumper who survived experienced some confusion reading his altimeter on the way down. Although the skydivers jumped from around 2,400 m (8,000 ft) above the plateau, the Pole itself sits at 2,800 m (9,300 ft) above sea level. The thinner air through which the men jumped meant that the fall rate was significantly greater than it would have been had they jumped from 8,000 ft above sea level. The barometric pressure over the polar regions is slightly less than at lower latitudes, increasing the fall rate even more. The skydivers may not have mentally adjusted for the difference, particularly given that the blank white icescape would have provided few visual clues. Their deaths account for half of all fatalities at the Pole itself and had a significant impact upon the station’s residents. As one remarked: ‘Most people who have heard of this station don’t think of it as someone’s home – it’s a station or a research facility or just a tourist attraction. But we were home, and our home had been hit by tragedy.’25
Approaching the South Pole via 150 km ‘NGO access route’. Even at the Earth’s southern extreme you need to follow a ‘groomed path’, to avoid entry into the Clean Air Sector or the Hazardous Zone associated with the buried original station.
‘Ski Last Degree’ tourists wave to their aircraft.
Antarctic tourism raises considerable concerns, not only for reasons of safety, but environmental impact. In the early 1990s the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators was formed in order to specify guidelines for tourism in the region. ANI was a founding member, and prides itself on its environmental credentials: unlike Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the company flies its human waste out of the continent for disposal, and dismantles its camp at the Pole at the end of every summer.26 One of the greatest concerns about Antarctic tourism – the massive growth in numbers since the 1990s – has less relevance to the South Pole. Total Antarctic tourist numbers peaked at around 46,000 in the summer of 2007–8, and although they dipped with the global financial crisis that occurred around this time, they remain in the tens of thousands. The vast majority of these tourists travel to the continent’s coastal areas on cruise ships; only around 100 of them annually visit the South Pole by various means and operators.27 Although in the early 1990s one of the pioneers of blue-ice runways raised the spectacle of a Boeing 747 disgorging hundreds of tourists onto the ice, the high cost of polar tourism – even a South Pole overnight stay costs around U.S.$50,000 – has kept numbers steadily low.28
Tourists travelling to the Pole by ski must carry all their own food, as well as rubbish and human waste.
The gift shop at the end of the Earth.
This exclusivity is in itself key to the success of South Polar tourism: mass numbers would detract considerably from the sense of isolation and adventure that still draws people to the place. The comparatively small number of visitors gives something of the sense of ‘firstness’ that attracts South Polar travellers: those on the first tourist flight paid an extra $10,000 to land a quarter of an hour ahead of the next.29 In the second decade of the twenty-first century tour operators still present arrival at the Pole as ‘a feat that very few people have achieved’.30 One researcher notes that, even among cruise-ship travellers, the word ‘tourist’ is avoided. Instead, the journey is an ‘expedition’:
tourists are regarded and treated as expeditioners, people who are not merely sightseers but intrepid travellers venturing into the pristine icy waters and the unexplored continent beyond … To experience travel that is uncomfortable, risky and potentially dangerous is to give people the legitimate right to place themselves appropriately within the hierarchy of travellers.31
Danger, risk and discomfort are relative, however. In his description of life at the Pole, Nicholas Johnson recalls seeing a group of people at the station bar who had skied the ‘Last Degree’. ‘So they paid to ski across a piece of map?’, he asks a local. ‘You got it’, she replies, ‘Then they get a free cup of coffee, a hero shot at the Pole, and a boot in the ass to get out.’ Johnson notes that ‘While tourists on plane flights are generally either ignored or treated to hair-trigger courtesy, Polies are more enthusiastic about cross-continent expeditioners who actually work for their glory.’32 Amundsen-Scott Station caters, nonetheless, to non-heroic tourists, offering a visitors’ centre and gift shop where they can buy mementos of their journey.
And even for those who traverse, there are degrees of achievement. Some authorities, such as Headland, do not recognize the ANI journeys that leave from Hercules Inlet or the ‘Messner Start’ as full traverses; while ANI considers these departure points to be at the edge of the continent, they are at the inward end of a large ice shelf, which for Headland is ‘well inland’.33 Then there is the distinction between independent adventurers, who almost always use ANI for logistical support, and those who pay to be guided across the continent. A good example can be found in an account by Joseph Murphy of the earliest guided expedition, which included Murden and Metz, the first women to reach the Pole – presuming, that is, that their traverse, which left from the inward edge of the Ronne Ice Shelf, ‘counts’. According to Murphy, the two women became agitated upon hearing their upcoming experience described as a ‘tour’: ‘I’m not going to spend $70,000 for a tourist trip … I thought it was an expedition – not a tour! … If it’s just a commercial tour, I don’t want to go!’34 In her book To the Poles without a Beard, Hartley is also acutely aware of expedition hierarchies, reporting her sense of rejection when she overhears her guide remarking that an independent women’s team behind them deserves the real glory. ‘I was on a “commercial” expedition, if you like’, Hartley reflects, ‘I was paying to be guided to the Pole’. Yet, while ‘pathologically against’ being referred to as an ‘explorer’ and preferring the term ‘extreme tourist’, Hartley maintains the significance of her traverse as a ‘personal journey’.35
From a number of perspectives, the concept of South Polar tourism is absurd. Apart from the scientific station and a collection of markers, there is little to see. Being able to buy a souvenir in the gift shop is a mixed blessing – although it might have a certain kitsch cachet, it brings the sublime and the ridiculous a little too close together, reminding you that you are, indeed, a tourist. The two defunct polar stations, which might give a sense of heritage, are now gone. Unless your journey has been arduous and
impressive, the locals may well be dismissive of what, for you, is a significant personal experience. You can be confident of your operator’s environmental credentials in this famously pristine icescape, but your carbon footprint in travelling so far from home is not insignificant. Surrounding you is a white plateau, stretching in all directions; there are no natural sites to attract the eye, or to which you might make a short excursion. The temperatures make being outdoors for very long a trial. Experiencing cold that intense is of course noteworthy in itself – but then, the average temperatures of a South Pole summer (the only season accessible to tourists) could be experienced in winter in parts of Russia or Canada for far less money.
Despite all this, the South Pole retains its allure as a travel destination. In the early twenty-first century, it seems, it still means something to stand at the Earth’s axis, to get off the turning planet for just a night, or even an hour; to be simultaneously on the map’s edge and at the world’s centre.
Skiing to the South Pole.
CHRONOLOGY
1773 A voyage led by British naval captain James Cook makes an inaugural crossing of the Antarctic circle
1774 Cook’s expedition achieves a farthest south of 71°10´
1820 Three reported sightings of the Antarctic continent: by a Russian exploratory expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen; a British naval voyage led by Edward Bransfield; and an American sealing voyage led by Nathaniel B. Palmer
1821 American sealing captain John Davis makes what is probably the first landing on the continent
South Pole Page 15
