30 years ago, Steger and Schurke led historic dogsled trip to North Pole

It is so easy to recall the start of our expedition to the North Pole on March 8, 1986. Eight team members, one woman,  seven men, and 49 huskies.   Sam Cook published an article two days ago on 8 March, 30 years to the day after we left for the North Pole. Thank you Sam for such a good article, published below:

Ely polar explorer Will Steger says he has trouble reading “North to the Pole” these days. The book, co-authored by Steger and expedition co-leader Paul Schurke of Ely, was written after their team’s successful 55-day dogsled expedition to the top of the world in 1986.

  

Monday marks the 30th anniversary of the eight-member Steger International Polar Expedition team’s departure for the pole from northern Canada.

Reading the account of the trip is almost too painful for Steger, now 71.

“It was so difficult,” Steger said in a recent interview in Duluth. “It was moment-to-moment all the time. There was a specific time, about 30 days in, that I thought we weren’t going to make it. I actually thought I had made a mistake on the logistics.”

But after negotiating 40-foot-high pressure ridges of ice, leads of open water and temperatures that plunged as low as 70 below zero, six members of the original team reached the pole on May 1, 1986. Navigating entirely by sextant, the team became the first dogsled expedition confirmed to have reached the North Pole without outside support or resupply. National Geographic magazine chronicled the trip in a cover story later that year.

The expedition, conceived in a tent on one of Steger’s previous Arctic trips with team member Bob Mantell and based out of Schurke’s garage in Ely, captivated Minnesotans. The team built its sleds in the Ely Memorial High School shop. At fundraisers, Minnesotans bought “Zap to the Pole” buttons, named for one of Steger’s polar huskies. In those pre-Internet days, Minnesotans waited with anticipation for periodic media updates based on radio transmissions from the team.

When the team returned to St. Paul by charter aircraft after the expedition, four Twin Cities television stations ran half-hour special programs on its historic accomplishment.

Minnesotan Ralph Plaisted’s team had reached the pole by snowmobile in 1968. But no other expedition has captivated Minnesotans as Steger’s did, said team member Ann Bancroft of Scandia, Minn., the first woman to reach the North Pole.

“Timing is everything,” Steger said. “The pole was still new to exploration, and we took on this challenge that everyone said was impossible. It was real homespun, is what it was.”

The dogs were a big part of the appeal, Bancroft said. So, too, was the epic struggle of the team in the early days of the trip, with brutally cold weather and nearly insurmountable pressure ridges.

“We had all these turning points that could have turned the other way, and the thing would never have happened,” Steger said. “But we had this great magic that was with us. Minnesota caught the fire of that magic.”

Springboard to success

The expedition’s success launched the careers of several team members, including Steger, Schurke and Bancroft. Steger and an international team went on to complete a dogsled crossing of Antarctica in 1990. He traveled by dogsled across Greenland and made several other successful Arctic expeditions. In 2006, he founded Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy (formerly the Will Steger Foundation) to educate the public about climate change that he had witnessed in the Arctic and elsewhere. All of that was made possible by credibility he had established on the North Pole trek.

“It basically made my career,” Steger said.

Schurke, 60, and his wife, Sue, used the polar trip as inspiration to start their Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge and Wintergreen Northern Wear businesses in Ely in 1989, both of which are still operating. Schurke subsequently made five more trips to the North Pole with clients on shorter expeditions and has traveled widely in the Arctic.

“The North Pole trip defined my life and my livelihood,” Schurke said. “Tackling a monumental challenge was daunting and fearsome for us. But our success is now the quiet voice I hear, every time I face new challenges, that says, ‘Yeah, you can pull this off, too.’ ”

After becoming the first woman to reach the North Pole, Bancroft used her experience to complete several other major expeditions and to devote her life to empowering women. In 1993, she skied to the South Pole, and later skied across Antarctica, gaining her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She had been an elementary schoolteacher before the trip.

“That trip gave me the platform from which to speak about things that are important to me,” said Bancroft, 60. “It took me a while to figure that out when I got back — the whole ‘first-woman’ thing. Then I thought, ‘I can’t squander this opportunity.’ I didn’t go back to the classroom. I made my classroom the outdoors.”

We had a reunion in 2011 to celebrate 25 years since the team reached the North Pole: Left to right: Will Steger,  Brent Boddy, Richard Weber, Bob McKerrow,  Paul Schurke, Bob 'Iron Man' Mantell, Geoff Caroll and Ann Bancroft

Steger expedition team members plan no gathering to mark the 30th anniversary of their North Pole trip departure. Steger will depart Monday on a 50-day, 350-mile solo trek by ski and canoe-sled from Ontario’s wilderness to his homestead near Ely.

The same day, Schurke and a team from Wintergreen will start a dogsled and ski trip across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Traveling over the pack ice on the Arctic Ocean has become more and more difficult for recent expeditions. Although several more teams have reached the North Pole — including the Northland’s Lonnie Dupre, Eric Larsen, Tyler Fish and John Huston — a warming climate has melted much of the polar pack ice floating atop the ocean.

“Actually, almost all the expeditions I did in the polar regions, you can’t do anymore,” Steger said. “Now you can’t reach the pole by dog team ever again because of the water on the Arctic Ocean.”

Physical toll

Challenges the Steger team encountered on its 1,000-mile zig-zag route to the pole were monumental. Team members Mantell, then from Ely, and Bob McKerrow of New Zealand both were airlifted out — Mantell with frostbitten feet and McKerrow with broken ribs suffered when a sled careened into him. They flew out on chartered planes that came in to take out sled dogs that no longer were needed as loads diminished.

The team started the expedition with 49 dogs, and 20 reached the pole. No supplies — or even notes from loved ones — were brought in by those chartered planes.

On day 38, Bancroft fell into the ocean as she approached a lead.

“I shivered for three days,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of dry clothes. I was really vulnerable. The team kept me safe and warm and moving.”

Do or die

At one point more than a month into the trek, the entire team could see that it would have to make faster progress or risk running out of food.

“We made a plan that we had to get to a certain point,” Steger said. “We had 17 days of food, and if we didn’t make it to that point, the others agreed they’d be flown out, and Paul and I would go forward.”

That prospect caused predictable dissension among team members. In one team meeting, characterized in “North to the Pole,” Canadian team member Richard Weber is quoted as saying, “The plan stinks. No way will I get on that plane.”

“Three or four days later,” Steger said in his recent interview, “we hit good ice, and all of a sudden we were in the game again.”

Each team member has images that remain from the arduous trek.

“I never remember being cold,” Schurke said. “We were working so hard that we were often too warm and worried about sweating out our clothing systems, even at minus 70. Mostly I remember the beauty of the frozen sea and the poetry that our New Zealand team member Bob McKerrow often shared during tent time. An experience that was probably pretty brutal now just seems ethereal and sublime.”

Bancroft, too, recalled a sublime moment.

She was riding a sled with Steger near the end of the trip after shuttling part of their load ahead.

“The sled no longer has handlebars,” Bancroft said, “It’s evening. We’re not with the rest of the group. The dogs know where to go. We just hopped on this sled, which is really rare. We’re leaning on each other, back to back, bumping along in our sealskin pants. I just felt like a little Inuit woman, this bony back next to mine, this canopy above us. In all of that work, you have these little moments, a little bubble of loveliness. I’ve got a treasure trove of those.”

Eyewitness Voices: North Pole Expedition Team on Climate Change Impacts ...

In 1986 I was a member of an 8-person expedition to the North Pole using 49 dogs and sledges and we became the first confirmed unsupported expedition to reach the geographic North Pole.

Last year we met in Minnesota to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the event, and also to draw the world's attention to climate change.

Here is what the Will Steger Foundation website had to say about what each of us has observed in terms of climate change in our respective professions.
"We were impressed by the wealth of knowledge team members shared and their own eyewitness stories: Canadians Richard Weber and Brent Boddy talked about a loss of thick, old, multi-year ice, shortened dogsledding seasons and the loss of the summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean; wildlife biologist, Geoff Carroll provided his insight into impacts to Alaska's large land mammals he studies, like caribou and musk ox; New Zealand team member Bob McKerrow, who now works for the International Red Cross in Sri Lanka, talked about communities in the Bay of Bengal being squeezed out by rising water levels; and Bob Mantell talked about the impact of the BP oil spill on communities in New Orleans, where he lives. Paul Schurke joined Will with a call to action to address climate change; and Ann Bancroft acknowledged the impact the expedition had on her career and thanked the team and all of Minnesota for the gifts afforded her and the entire team."
 Visit   the Will Steger Foundation for more information.

Weber skis to the South Pole again

On Nov. 16, 2011, a team of five adventurers flew to Antarctica. The team was led by Richard Weber (left).

The unassuming 53 year old Canadian must now be the world' leading polar traveller having been on over 50 expeditions to the Arctic, 17 trips to the North Pole and has also skiied to the South Pole at least twice.


I have known Richard since 1985 when we did a 1500 miles ski trip in the Arctic, and again in 1986 we were members of an unsupported expedition to the North Pole (Canada) my good friend from trips in the Arctic in 1985 and to the North Pole in 1986,

On his latest expedition to the Antarctica,his team included Chris de Lapuente (Britain); Kathy Braegger and Ruth Storm (USA); and Michael Archer (New Zealand).


  The team started skiing from the Ronne Ice Shelf at a location called the “Messner Start,” 900 km from the South Pole. After Braegger and de Lapuente dropped out due to sickness and infection, after 38 days, Weber, Archer and Storm reached the Pole. Storm returned from the Pole by aircraft.


After a frustrating period waiting four days for wind, Weber and Archer started their kite-skiing journey 1130 km back to the edge of the continent. Both spent ten days kiting and another three days waiting for wind. Most kiting days they covered about one degree of latitude (110 km). Their best day was 240 km.

They reached Hercules Inlet on the 57th day, January 17, 2012.

Weber reports, “Traveling across Antarctica is in many ways boring - endless white, no wildlife, the Messner Route has almost no mountain scenery. Yet, Antarctica is so vast, huge, pristine (except for the U.S. base at the South Pole), and snow surfaces are always changing. From the start to the South Pole the climb is almost 10,000 feet but it is mind boggling to think that all that climbing is on top of ice.

Misha Malakhov (left) and Richard Weber (right) on the first unsupported expedition to reach the North Pole and return to land.


“The kite-skiing was often frustrating because of a lack of wind and the fact we did not have all the correct equipment. At the same time, when the wind was good, flying across the surface of Antarctica was an amazing, exhilarating experience. We are a couple of men aged 50 plus, with limited kite-skiing experience, yet we covered over 1130 km in ten days of kiting. This year other kiting expeditions completed amazing treks, thousand of kilometers in short periods to time. No question: kite-skiing will become more and more popular in Antarctic and other parts of the world where conditions are right.

Weber concludes, “I feel that I am incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to traverse this unique landscape at the bottom of the world.” More info.

Richard Weber the world's leading polar traveller.

An unassuming 53 year old Canadian must be the world' leading polar traveller having been on over 50 expeditions to the Arctic,  17 trips to the North Pole and has also skiied to the South Pole.

I have known Richard since 1985 when we did a 1500 miles ski trip in the Arctic, and again in 1986 we were members of an unsupported expedition to the North Pole.

We met in Minneapolis/St. Paul in May this year and I had a chance to catch up with him, and talk about his travels during the past 25 years.

"One of the best parts about any polar expedition is walking where I have never been before and in some areas where no one (or at least very few) people have gone before. The Arctic ocean is special because every day is a new unknown challenge. The only thing that is sure each day is the unknown. Though I am now a bit tired of it." 

Richard, lives with his wife, Josée Auclair and their two boys, Tessum, age 22 and Nansen, age 20 near Alcove, Quebec. Richard started skiing at the age of two, he became a member of Canada's National Cross Country Ski Team in 1977. He retired in 1985 with twenty national titles. Richard has a bachelor degree in mechanical engineer from the University of Vermont. Richard has co-authored two books about his adventures.

Richard, together with wife, Josée, operate “Arctic Watch Lodge”, the world’s most northerly lodge located on Somerset Island in Nunavut. Arctic Watch is unique place to see arctic wildlife, including the best place in the world for beluga whales.

Misha Malakhov (left) and Richard Weber (right) on the first unsupported expedition to reach the North Pole and return to land


Togethet they did the first and only confirmed journey to the North Pole and return using only human resources. Richard, again with companion Misha Malakhov became the first to reach the North Pole and return to their starting point on land, with no outside help, no dogs, air planes, or re-supplies.


Richard has trekked from land to the geographic North Pole seven times, more than anyone in history. He has spent an unprecedented amount of time travelling on the Arctic Ocean, more than 600 days and nights.

Richard and Josée have designed and developed a line of speciality polar equipment and food, including boots, ski bindings, sleds and clothing. His web site is http://www.weberarctic.ca

Richard Weber's Polar Record
1978-2011 Participated in / lead and organized more than 50 Arctic Expeditions

2010 North Pole
Richard led a four-man team from Ellesmere Island to the Geographic North Pole with one re-supply. The team set a speed record of 41 days. Richard’s son Tessum becomes the youngest person to ski to the North Pole.

2008-2009 South Pole Quest
Richard led a three-man team, unsupported, from Hercules Inlet to the Geographic South Pole, a distance of 1130 kilometres in 33 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes. This is a world record, more than 5 days faster than the previous record.



2007 North Pole Quest
Richard guided two British adventurers from Ward Hunt Island to the North Pole with one re-supply. This was Richard’s sixth trek to the North Pole. He is without equals in the domain of North Pole travel, completing six treks to the North Pole.

2006 North Pole Classic
Richard guided Conrad Dickinson to the North Pole with no re-supplies. This was the first expedition to reach the North Pole on snowshoes. This was Richard’s fifth full North Pole expedition.

1995 Weber Malakhov Expedition
First and only confirmed journey to the North Pole and return using only human resources. Richard, again with companion Misha Malakhov became the first to reach the North Pole and return to their starting point on land, with no outside help, no dogs, air planes, or re-supplies.

First unsupported expedition to reach the North Pole and return to land

1993-2005 Weber Malakhov North Pole Dash
Richard and Josée lead commercial North Pole Expeditions. More than 100 People have made the trek, skiing the final 100 kilometres to the North Pole. In 1993 Richard and Josée pioneered the first commercial North Pole expedition. Today numerous companies take more than 100 people annually to the Pole. First commercial "North Pole Expedition"

Richard near his home in Quebec.

1992 Weber Malakhov Expedition
First attempt to journey to the North Pole and return using only human resources. Richard, along with companion Misha Malakhov became the first to reach the North Pole with no outside help, no dogs, air planes, or re-supplies. They established a record of 108 days for the longest unsupported polar journey and they are the only people to have reached the Pole three times. First unsupported expedition to reach the North Pole

1989 Global Concern Expedition
Richard guided the environmental group Global Concern, which launched the first hot air balloon from the North Pole. First hot air balloon flight launched from the Pole

1988 Soviet Canadian Polar Bridge Expedition
Richard was Canadian team leader of this Soviet Canadian transpolar ski expedition that crossed 1800 kilometres of Arctic Ocean from Northern Siberia to Ellesmere Island National Park Reserve in Canada, via the North Pole. Richard became the first person to reach the Pole from both sides - Canada and Russia. First surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean on skis

First person to reach the North Pole from both sides of the Arctic Ocean

Richard (l)  at the North Pole with one of his many clients.

1986 Steger International Polar Expedition
Used dog team and skis to reach the North Pole without re-supplies. Richard, along with team mate Brent Boddy, became the first Canadians to reach the North Pole on foot.
First confirmed expedition to reach the North Pole without re-supply
First Canadian (with Brent Boddy) to cross the surface of the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole

Arctic Watch Lodge
In 2000 Richard Weber and Josée Auclair purchased the bankrupt whale watching camp, Arctic Watch located in Cunningham Inlet on Somerset Island, Nunavut. Richard and Josée updated the facilities and equipment. Arctic Watch is entering its 12th year of operation as the world’s most northerly fly-in lodge. Arctic Watch is unique as it is the only place in the world where a tourist can visit a remote arctic setting and be comfortably accommodated. It is presently one of the largest tourist operations in Nunavut. A visit to Arctic Watch is an all-encompassing arctic safari. Visitors to Arctic Watch see thousands of beluga whales, muskox, arctic foxes, birds, and archaeological sites. They can travel the land and water by foot, sea kayak, raft, mountain bike, and ATV. (All terrain vehicle). Guests can climb mountains, hike through canyons, across tundra, and around waterfalls. Experience immense vistas, and 24 hour sunlight. The accommodations are the most comfortable remote facilities in the High Arctic. The web site is http://www.arcticwatch.ca/


Richard at the 1986 North Pole expedition reunion in May 2011.

Left to right back row. Bob McKerrow, Will Steger, Paul Schurke, Richard Weber. Front row:Geoff Carroll, Brent Boddy, Ann Bancroft and Bob "Ironman' Mantell.

The 1985 training trip for the North Pole the following year. L to R. Bob Mantell, Paul Schurke, Bob McKerrow, Richard Weber and Will Steger

Twenty five years later: Photographic comparisons.

This is the first reunion I have participated in my life. I have avoided them like the plague. However, haven come together as a team in 1985 and again in 1986, we bonded together through minus 70 degree temperatures and incredible hardship. So for me, going to Minnesota, USA for the 25th anniversay of our 1986 North Pole expedition, starting on 15 May, was a real joy. . Here are classic before and after photos; 1986 and 2011.

Back row: Bob McKerrow,Will Steger, Paul Schurke, Richard Weber
Front row: Geoff Carroll, Brent Boddy, Ann Bancroft, Bob Mantell.

Note that in both photos we are in identicle positions, and the hair a little greyer.

Pictographs, people and canoes in Ely Minnesota

Our last day canoeing on various lakes in the Boundary Waters north of Ely Minnesota was magnificent, and it drew to a close nine days of the 1986 North Pole expedition reunion which included getting together informally and canoeing and partying, four days of which were public exhibitions, displays and lectures.

L to R: Geof Carroll, Ablai McKerrow and Jeff Blumenfeld on the lake where we found pictographs. Photo: Bob McKerrow

In the morning we headed into Ely to pick a second canoe and this turned into a trip down memory lane as we went to Jim Brandenberg's studio white wolf, Patty Steger's mukluk store,  and to Jason Zabokrtsky who owns Boundary Waters Guide service and The Ely Outfitting Company. We also egged Geoff on to buy a pair of men's underwear with a rather provocative slogan on them.  I am sure Maria, his lovely Innuit wife be in for a surprise when he returns to Point Barrow Alaska.

On the town with Jeff Blumenfeld, Paul Schurke, talking to  Jason Zabokrtsky, the leading outfitter in Ely. Photo: Bob McKerrow 

Paul Schurke knows all the lakes, rivers, camping sites and places of historical and spiritual interest. On Friday he took us to one lake north of Ely, where we paddled to an amazing campsite with a spectacular view over the lake. There he told us of the political history of the region. In 1926, the Superior Roadless Area was designated by the U.S. Forest Service, offering some protection from mining, logging, and hydroelectric projects, although logging would not cease completely until 1979. The Wilderness Act of 1964 made the BWCAW legal wilderness as a unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System, while the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act established the Boundary Waters regulations much as they are today with motors allowed only on a few large entry point lakes.


Because this area was set aside to preserve its primitive character and made a part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, it allows visitors to canoe, portage and camp in the spirit of the French Voyageurs of 200 years ago.

Left: Here Geoff, Jeff and Paul showed their skills by making a fire ready on a large flat rock they had placed on the ground, and gave Ablai the honour by lighting it.

Within the BWCAW are hundreds of prehistoric pictographs and petroglyphs on rock ledges and cliffs. The BWCAW is part of the historic homeland of the Ojibwe people, who traveled the waterways in canoes made of birch bark. Prior to Ojibwe settlement, the area was sparsely populated by the Sioux who dispersed westward following the arrival of the Ojibwe.

French explorers were first known to travel through the Boundary Waters area in the late 1600s. Later, during the 1730s, the region was opened to trade, mainly in beaver pelts. By the end of the 18th century, the fur trade had been organized into groups of canoe-paddling Voyageurs working for the competing North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies, with a North West Company fort located at Grand Portage on Lake Superior. The US-Canadian border, the northern border of most of the BWCAW follows one of the primary voyageur route

Ablai, Jeff Blumenfeld, Geoff Carroll and Paul Schurke reflect on life around the fire, as they cook lunch. Photo: Bob McKerrow

We canoed from our lunch site down to the end of the lake, and portaged our canoes onto Hegman Lake, I was paddling in the front of our canoe, and Paul, said, " Bob, paddle over to those rock walls to the side of the lake." As we got closer, I spied some paintings of the rock wall. I was entranced.

We were all stunned by the pictographs, the spirituality it generated, the sense of history and for me, trying to sense who these people were and how they lived. Paul, with over 40 years of local knowledge told us the history of an Indian chief who lived in the south, whose tribe was starving. He had a dream of a land with plenty of lakes full of fish, and forests where many types of animals lived. Like Mosses, he led his tribe to this part of the land.

Jeff Blumenfeld gazes at the Pictographs on Hegman Lake. Jeff Blumenfeld

Paul (l) and Sue Schurke (r) sitting on a rocky promontory near White Iron Lake where they have their home, dogsledding lodge and 70 plus Greenland huskies. I first met Sue and Paul when they visited me at Anakiwa in NZ in 1983 and did two arctic expedition with Paul in 85 and 86. They opened their marvellous home and Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge to us and provided wonderful hospitality and nmemorable canoe trips.

The last night at Paul and Sue Schurke's home on the Boundary waters, was a memorable one where the remnants of our North Pole Expedition, together with Jeff Blumenfeld and Ablai, had the last supper for a while. The sunset from the balcony farwelled us.

I left Minnesota yesterday with such feelings of camaraderie and amazed by the individual acheivements since our expedition in 1986, and with many new friends.  This group of eight explorers have neen to the North Pole over 30 times, to the South Pole four, and numerous trips to Greenland, Arctic Canada, he Russian Arctic and Himalayas. In their own way, and own time, they have become advocates for climate change, vulnerable peoples, promoting peace between nations and  in the words of Ann Bancroft "I believe that in honoring our women leaders, and by supporting a girl's ambition and hope, we are validating ourselves. "  Others are doing important wildlife biology and conservation in the Arctic regions, but above all, they are curious explorers of the remote regions of the world and preserving them.

Special thanks to Bill and Duffy Sauer, their daughter Lisa, for taking charge of airport pick-ups and accomodation.
To Will Steger's sisters and Ann Bancroft's family who were so kind and helpful, and to the Mother of them all, Lois Schurke at 90 years of age, who gave us laughter and inspiration. With deep appreciation to Gail & Marlin Olson for putting up Brent, to Bob & Lana Doolan for looking after Bob Mantell, and Wendy & Seth Webster for accomodating Geoff and Quinn. Thanks to Greg and the team at Wilderness Inquiry for the canoe trip down the Mississippi ad the BBQ.

And of course, to all the Minnesotans that backed our 1986 North Pole Expedition, and who are still backing us now, such as Tom, who gave us all a ride from Ely to St. Paul/Minneapolis airport. Thanks to you all.

Tom (far right) and his amazing  twin cab pick up that took took five of us, and our gear to the airport. Thanks Tom. Thank you Minnesota. !

This photograph will be a lasting memory for me sitting round the table at Wintergreen on White Iron Lake: Left to right: Paul and Sue Schurke, Geoff Carrol, Jeff Blumenfeld, Ann Bancroft, Will Steger, Bob McKerrow and Richard Weber. Photo: Ablai McKerrow

POLAR EXPLORERS TO TREK 500 MILES BY DOG SLED

A few people have asked me about our 1986 North pole expedition. Here is an article from the New York Times.

POLAR EXPLORERS TO TREK 500 MILES BY DOG SLED
By CHRISTOPHER WREN, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: February 25, 1986

One of five teams of dogs that started out for the North Pole. Photo: Bob McKerrow

In early March 1986 when the dormant winter sun first glimmers on the horizon, 58 hardy travelers will set out from the northernmost point in North America for the North Pole.

The grueling 500-mile trek from Ward Hunt Island in subzero cold will take seven men, one woman and 50 sled dogs through a maze of ice ridges and across channels of open water that appear and vanish as the ocean currents shift the polar ice.

In a throwback to the early years of Arctic exploration, the expedition is making the trip without outside support along the way, except for emergency two-way radio contact.

The American explorer Adm. Robert E. Peary reported that he discovered the North Pole on April 6, 1909. His claim was challenged by a rival, Frederick A. Cook, who said he reached the North Pole nearly a year earlier on April 21, 1908. Inconsistencies cloud both accounts, though Admiral Peary's is more generally accepted.

The North Pole has now been visited by airplane, snowmobile and even submarine. While the newest explorers would be the first confirmed travelers to arrive at the Pole on their own without mechanical means, the trek is as much a test of science as it is a test of their courage.

Each of the explorers will live for two months on a daily diet of 7,000 calories, three times the intake of a regular adult. The diet is deliberately high in fat as part of an experiment on the health effects of cholesterol.

''This pole trip is probably the ultimate in self-reliance,'' said Will Steger, the leader of the Steger International North Pole Expedition. Mr. Steger, a 41-year-old former science teacher who lives in a log cabin near Ely, Minn., has logged 12,000 miles of Arctic travel. He said the trip to the North Pole left little margin for error.

''The average person who'd go up there probably wouldn't last a day,'' Mr. Steger said at his base camp on Baffin Island in Canada's Eastern Arctic. ''The eight of us doing it are specialists. We've looked at the obstacles and we've developed systems to overcome those obstacles safely.''

The five Americans, two Canadians and one New Zealander have a 60-day ''window'' to reach the North Pole before the ice starts breaking up, meaning that they have to average about 15 miles a day. While the distance is 500 miles on the map, detours could double it. For that reason, Mr. Steger said, ''I wouldn't want it any warmer than 40 below.''

The expedition spent two months training on Baffin Island before setting off to the North Pole. Photo: Bob McKerrow


Three Major Obstacles

Mr. Steger foresees three obstacles. The first are the ''pressure ridges'' formed of ice thrust upward as plates of pack ice collide and buckle. He expects to confront ridges as high as 30 to 40 feet. His team must hack trails over them that five dog teams hauling two tons of supplies can follow. ''We look at this in a way as a road construction project,'' Mr. Steger said.

Another obstacle will be ''leads,'' or patches, of open water formed in ''shear zones'' where ocean currents crack and separate the ice. The leads can range from a few feet to several miles wide. The expedition is carrying a small boat to scout a way around the water, but may have to wait overnight for it to freeze. There is another risk that unstable ice could break up under the travelers, even while they sleep.

The last difficulty is finding the northernmost point on earth, which lies beneath a layer of moving ice. A point marked as the North Pole one day could be 10 miles away the next, putting an exhausted team in danger of missing its objective. The magnetic North Pole on which compasses rely lies south, and limited visibility or a storm would obscure a sextant reading from the sun.

Paul Schurke (l) and Bob McKerrow (r) taking a noon sunshot with a sextant on the training trip. Photo: Bob McKerrow


A reporter who traveled with the team for two days on a rehearsal run across the ice of Baffin Island's Frobisher Bay confronted more basic problems. In extreme cold the simplest tasks, from boiling water to erecting a tent, become clumsy, even painful. The enemy is not so much the cold as the bitter wind, which deadens exposed flesh like an overdose of Novocain.

The previous year, five of the expedition did a 1500 km training trip from the MacKenzie River delta in Canada to Point Barrow Alaska. Taken on that trip. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Carelessness Can Be Disastrous
Carelessness can prove disastrous. On one training trip, matches used to light the stoves that cook food and melt ice for drinking water were mislaid briefly.

''Moving along on a day when it's 40 or 50 below, your attention funnels down to a fingertip or an earlobe that's been bitten by the wind,'' said Paul Schurke, another Minnesotan who is a coleader of the expedition with Mr. Steger. ''We're working on taking an inventory of each other throughout the day, tuning in to each other's level of alertness.''

Even in rough pack ice only a few feet high, sleds career, snag and tip, making them hazardous to ride. The dog handlers run or ski alongside to keep the weight to a minimum. ''If you're not alert or agile, it's easy to get your leg pulverized under the sled,'' Mr. Steger warned.

But such travel can also be exhilarating because of the dogs, which, once harnessed to a sled, pull so relentlessly in the white Arctic silence that a metal anchor must be thrown overboard to bring them to a halt. Left to themselves the dogs will trot for hours without coaxing. At night they sleep contentedly in the snowdrifts.

''The worst punishment you could do to our dogs is to leave them behind,'' Mr. Steger said. ''They live to pull. They live to travel on expeditions.'' The howls emitted by several dogs who were left behind on the practice trip proved his point.

Mr. Steger bred some of the the expedition's dogs in Minnesota. ''I took the size of the Eskimo and the spirit of the Alaskan dogs and mixed in a little wolf for endurance, intelligence and spirit,'' he said.
Another 35 dogs have been leased from two Arctic communities. The Eskimo dogs, at about 80 pounds, are a little heavier, shaggier and wilder than the American dogs. All those making the long trip are male - to minimize distractions.

Mr. Schurke, who has worked with dogs for eight years, called the relationship between man and dog synergistic. ''You draw a lot of energy from your dogs beyond the pulling power on your sled,'' he said. Dogs to Be Airlifted Out

Each dog team will haul a 16-foot wooden sled with 800 pounds of provisions and gear, most of it food. Once a sled-load of food is consumed, the sled will be left behind. The Peary expedition killed and ate its spare dogs, but Mr. Steger said he would not consider doing that. So, in the only departure from the self-reliance of the expedition, a plane will fly in after three weeks to carry out half of the dogs.

Dogs in the Arctic are usually fed frozen seal and other game, but on this expedition they will eat a special diet of dry meat rations developed for military dogs performing under great stress.

The humans will also be on a special diet of 7,000 calories a day, prepared in two bland meals a day of butter and peanut butter, cheese, fatty meat pemmican, noodles and oatmeal.

''Seven thousand calories is marginal, just enough to get you through,'' said Mr. Steger, who consumed 10,000 calories a day on a solo trip through the Western Arctic last year. ''We have no outside source of heat, so we're depending on our body heat to keep us warm.''

Fat accounts for 70 percent of the diet, and Mr. Schurke said the serum cholesterol level of team members was being monitored as an experiment. He and Mr. Steger have been on high-fat diets before, and when they underwent medical tests at the University of Minnesota before leaving on this trip, Mr. Schurke said, their cholesterol levels were found below the minimum for their age groups, suggesting that they had burned the excess cholesterol.


World class skier Richard Weber cooking pemmican in the tent. Photo: Bob McKerrow


Bob McKerrow, the New Zealander, pointed out that other medical tests had focused on the negative aspects of fat and cholesterol. ''I believe that we'll be better off with a high-fat diet,'' he said. ''Sugar carbohydrates are very fast release, but we want the slow-release effect that can keep us going for 24 hours.''


Bob McKerrow checking emergency radio equipment on a training expedition. Note his seal skin boots ( Mukluks) made by Inuit women at Frobisher Bay. Photo: Bob McKerrow


The team is leaving salt and sugar behind. ''Extra salt means drinking extra water. Extra water means extra fuel, and we can't carry it,'' Mr. Schurke said. The disciplined Mr. Steger also ruled out candy bars, over the protests of some members, arguing that the prospect of such a treat ahead might distract team members and contribute to an accident.

The sleeping bags, parkas and long underwear of the dogsledders are insulated with synthetic fibers developed by Du Pont, which is an expedition sponsor. But team members are sticking with beaver-skin mittens and floppy sealskin or caribou-hide mukluks. ''My alertness resides in my fingers,'' said Mr. Schurke said. ''If my fingers are warm, my head is where it should be.'' First Woman to Pole

Ann Bancroft, a 30-year-old physical education teacher from Minnesota, could become the first woman to reach the North Pole unaided, but the prospect, she said, ''is not something I dwell on a lot.'' On the recent trip she kept up with the men in moving her dogs and sled through the rough ice. ''I think if I pace myself and go steady, I can chop all today,'' she said.

The team members play down the notion that they may become the first people to prove that they got to the North Pole. Some scholars question whether Admiral Peary could have covered more than 30 miles a day in his final dash as he claimed, or whether he found the North Pole using limited navigational readings. Others have wondered why Dr. Cook referred to islands and other landmarks that do not exist.

Mr. Steger, who has studied the journals of the early Arctic explorers, avoided speculation about who reached the North Pole first. ''The main thing is that we do the trip unsupported,'' he said. ''This controversy will never be solved.''

The expedition at the North Pole, 1 May 1986.