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“Men wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long
months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in case of success."
Thousands of men
(and three women) replied to Ernest Shackleton’s advertisement, which
(the story goes) was placed in a London newspaper in 1913, ahead of his
Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance.
Polar
expeditions have moved on in terms of technology and equipment, but the
motivation and commitment to research that fuelled Shackleton and his
team seem not to have altered.
“There’s a cocktail of
motivational forces at work”, commented Expedition Leader Pen Hadow
from the team tent, huddled over the sat-phone at the end of another
long, cold day. “You can sum it up by saying we feel a commitment to
represent the Arctic Ocean as an eco-system and the three of us have
the skills that allow us to gather the information that will enable
people to be better informed about the state of the region and its
future”.
But given temperatures of -40 degrees centigrade
with a wind chill factor in the minus seventies, does the motivation
that fuelled the team from their warm UK base in the planning stages,
diminish?
Photographer Martin Hartley who’s been crawling
into a frozen sleeping back that becomes a wet sponge overnight for
longer than he cares to remember, remarks “I’m getting extremely
frustrated with the stupidly cold temperatures that are making my life
a misery, day after day. All I can think about, 24 hours a day, is
getting a new sleeping bag on the next re-supply”.
But Hadow
says he’s speaking for all three team members, himself, Hartley and Ann
Daniels, when he concludes, “We’ve absolutely no regrets about being
here. Given that it’s so awful, our commitment to the research and our
motivation is in fact what keeps us going”.
With a team currently preparing the next re-supply, Hartley should get his new sleeping bag within the next few days.
Click here to hear Pen Hadow talking about what it takes to be a Polar Explorer.
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