Ripcord Adventure Journal #3

RAJ 1.3

Volume 1 | Number 3 | Second Edition

A Letter from the Editor

Welcome to Ripcord Adventure Journal.

We begin this issue with a call to adventure from Bear Grylls' Mission Survive expedition and survival expert Megan Hine, followed by the Polar Explorer himself, Mark Terry, who brings us on a film-making journey to the icy desert of Antarctica. Our writers have crossed the Himalaya, cycled around the world to make sure it is indeed round, we hear of the legendary exploits of John Rae until we finally land on Kilimanjaro to witness a high altitude rescue.

We aim to be the home of authentic, adventurous travel, which serves as a starting point for personal reflection, study and new journeys.

On behalf of the editorial, writing, and design team, I wish to thank our sponsors at Redpoint Resolutions (Thomas Bochnowski, Ted Muhlner, Martha Marin and Corrine Mehigan), the World Explorers Bureau (Charlotte Baker-Weinert) and Adventure.com who provided unstinting support for the first edition.

Tim Lavery Editor in Chief, Ripcord Adventure Journal www.ripcordadventurejournal.com www.ripcordtravelprotection.com

Ripcord Adventure Journal Copyright May 2015 by Redpoint Resolutions & World Explorers Bureau.

All articles and images © 2015 of the respective Authors.

Second Edition © 2017 Assistant Editor for Second Edition: Méabh Lavery All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although the publisher has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the authors and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

For permission requests, general enquiries or sponsorship opportunities, contact the publisher: Ripcord Adventure Journal: info@ripcordadventurejournal.com

"All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps."

Michael Ondaatje "The English Patient"

RIPCORD

Editor in Chief Tim Lavery

ADVENTURE JOURNAL

1.3

Second Edition

Featuring Megan Hine Fearghal O'Nuallain Ken McGoogan Mark Terry Robert Torkildson Tom Bochnowski

Advisory Board Shane Dallas Paul Devaney Dr Terry Sharrer Charlotte BakerWeinert

Publishers Redpoint Resolutions & World Explorers Bureau

WWW.RIPCORDADVENTUREJOURNAL.COM

Contents A call to adventure Megan Hine

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The world is round Fearghal O'Nuallain

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John Rae: Arctic Explorer Ken McGoogan

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The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

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Book reviews Tor Torkildson

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The Climb for Valor Tom Bochnowski

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Contributors and credits

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A call to adventure

Megan Hine

A call to adventure Megan Hine

I am proud to stand amongst the ranks of mountain and wilderness professionals, the silent corps with the thousand mile stare. Gazing towards future adventures, dreaming of remote places, living and breathing the outdoors. We follow in the wake of the great explorers, the trail blazers, the likes of Shackleton, Hillary, Amundsen, the explorers and pioneers of a bygone era, discovering and settling new lands. Those incredible humans who lit the flame of exploration and pushed the boundaries of human imagination. In all of us there glows a residual ember of this time of exploration, a dull need inside to push boundaries and discover new horizons, to fight for survival. This ember sits waiting for the draft of inspiration and opportunity to fan it into a burning passion.

For some of us this flame burns bright, ever threatening to consume, we need to feed it with experiences and travel, it makes us restless and drives us towards new goals. It pushes us, ever onwards, searching for the next big hit, for moments of pure clarity, those moments of flow where the self and nature are one, the body lost to the rock or to the trail we climb or run. For me I find this in the wildest of places. The endless horizons offer a multitude of possibilities and a hefty dose of adrenalin draw me in. There is nothing more satisfying to me than pushing myself to the edge of what I thought was physically, mentally and emotionally possible.

Like surfing on the peak of a breaking wave, nothing makes me feel more alive or connected to the world.

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I am privileged now to be able to share this with others, to take them by the hand and lead them over the threshold and into the wild. To help them to face their own challenges and to overcome hurdles they never thought possible. Watching people change in the wilderness and build confidence in themselves and their decisions, seeing that spark ignite and their life take on a whole new meaning is such an incredible experience to share.

Somebody expressed recently to me their admiration for my adventures and how they wished they could be more adventurous but lacked the confidence. This struck a chord with me, there must be others, others whose image of themselves and what is ‘normal’ stops them from following their heart. Their dreams weighing them 1

A call to adventure Megan Hine

down, the frustration and failure they must feel in not being able to answer the call. It is so often our own self that limits our possibilities, creating barriers of self-doubt, seemingly impossible to overcome.

Stop waiting, stop dreaming of ‘what ifs’! A whole world awaits you! Adventure isn’t just summiting the towering, snowcapped peaks or kayaking the gnarliest of falls. Adventure is subjective, it is what drives you and what calls to you, it is different in each of us. I love reading articles of passion from people pushing their own personal boundaries and what this means to them. For them their achievements equate to summiting their own, personal Everest. I have as much respect for the first time traveller as the seasoned. For those brave enough to take their first forays to discover themselves and their dream I salute you.

This is a call to all of you dreamers, you ‘wannabe’ adventurers!

Come stand shoulder to shoulder with us, bring your dull ember and let us help you to find the inspiration and opportunity to ignite it into flame. Let us share our knowledge with you, discover new horizons and give you the confidence to believe in yourself and to turn those dreams in to reality.

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"In that instant they felt an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment.

Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition's original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do."

Alfred Lansing "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage"

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"The world is round"

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Fearghal O'Nuallain

"The World is round" Fearghal O'Nuallain

Lessons from 18 months cycling west.

We covered 20km in two hours, grinding into the relentless headwind. Then it happened, we encountered a pack of wild dogs and they attacked. Kicking vainly in the dark at their snarling jaws we tried to out-run them. They appeared unfazed and though we pedalled hard they refused to give up their eyes shining like reflective dots. Time stretched and it seemed like our fate was bound to these feral canines that they’d wear us down and tear us apart in the dark desert. It was lucky that they couldn’t see our faces, if they had they would have recognised that we were spent, totally devoid of energy, and if they hung on, chased us a little longer, they could have had us.

Luckily, they couldn’t, and just when it felt like our legs would burst and our lungs would cease we left the barking behind and the green eyes melted back into the black night. Once safely down the road, we allowed ourselves to stop, listened to racing heart beats and trembled in the darkness. Then we sat staring at the horizon just sitting on the sand berms on the red sea coast looking east and seaward watching the oil rigs in the flare of the distance.

In the footsteps of Eratosthenes

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I was with my childhood friend Simon Evans and we were cycling from Aswan to Alexandria because we’d planned to cycle around the world the following year. We were ostensibly looking for an adventure but I’d kept my reasons for circumnavigating the globe by bike to myself, I wanted to prove to myself that the world was round and cycling west until I arrived back where I started was the best way that I could think of doing that.

We’d come to Egypt, because of a Greek scholar called Eratosthenes who was the first person to figure out that the world was round in

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain the third century BC. He was the first person to see roundness where others saw flatland. Eratosthenes was the first person to suggest that the world was round and proved his theory with some basic trigonometry; using the distance from the Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria to Aswan which currently sits on the Sudanese border and the angles of the sun in each place on the longest day of the year. From these facts he worked out that the Earth’s circumference must be 39,690 km, the actual distance is 40,075 km - Eratosthenes was off by less than 2%. I’m not completely happy unless I’ve seen something for myself, so, when I read about Eratosthenes I had to go and experience each one of those 1,000km of desert and Nile that moved him to think that the world was round.

And that is how we found ourselves sitting on the side of the road in the dark, recovering from shock, in Egypt’s Western Desert. We had started our day at 3am to escape the desert heat but a merciless headwind meant that by 12am we had fallen well short of the truck stop we had hoped to spend the afternoon. We found ourselves on a sandy plain with no shade to offer protection from the midday sun.

We had pitched our tent and spent 4 hours sweating in 40°C shade.

It was our 5th day in the desert and we were dog tired.

At 3pm the sun softened enough for us to venture out of our tent.

We had run out of water early on in the day and we were both grumpy and fatigued from dehydration. We packed up and cycled for an hour and a half before reaching the truck stop where we’d originally planned to hide from the sun at midday. Deserts have amazing sunsets, and Egypt’s eastern desert was no exception. A big smoky disc of orange was burning the horizon as we left the café, a group of truckers encouraging us to stay. Speaking machine-gun Arabic, they gestured to the space for two sleeping bags in their prayer room. There was also cool water from their well, and bowls of stewed fava beans to eat with flat bread. It was tempting, but in our minds we were on an adventure, and we had 80km left to cover that day, so off we cycled, chasing the beams of our head torches back into the darkening desert and towards the pack of wild dogs once again.

Eventually a truck appeared cutting an ephemeral swathe through

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain the night with its powerful headlamps, we flagged it down in resigned silence. As its air-breaks hissed it to a halt I felt broken and beaten by our ineptitude. It was a bitter relief to climb out of the darkness and into a bright womb-like cab. While the driver scolded us for being out in the desert at night, I thought of Eratosthenes. I imagined the land that he had walked, and I imagined what would be left for him to explore if he was alive in the small world that we live in today. As the truck trundled through the darkness I wondered if he’d approve of our quest and what he’d make of two Irishmen sitting in the cab of an old Mercedes truck pulling a Chinese shipping container along the road to Cairo.

The hardest part was letting go, not taking part

“The art is not one of forgetting but letting go. And when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss.”

Rebecca Solnit

The following year we left our home town, our fully loaded KTM bikes wobbled down the main street to cheers and best wishes from friends & family. I thought that I wanted to cycle around the world to be a hero but really I wanted an excuse to learn life lessons about the connections between the people and places that dot the map of the world. The bicycle is an excellent tool with which to do this; travelling fast enough to register change but slow enough not to pass it by. It is an intimate way to travel.

Long bike rides leave little space for the superfluous things that fill our modern lives as every additional thing adds extra weight to haul.

We fretted about what gear to bring and what to leave behind during the weeks before we left. But it was when I kissed goodbye to my Mum and girlfriend Marina that I realised what I actually was going to miss. Stripping down worldly possessions to only those that will fit into a 100 litre vulcanised bag in a steel trailer is surprisingly easy; if you can’t wear it, cook with it or sleep in it, you probably don’t need it. Human bonds are much harder to break.

There’s no down jacket that can replace the warmth of the familial and familiar. The threads that connect the heart strings to home tugged like elastic at our backs until we were half way round the

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain world in Almaty in Kazakhstan, then pulled us homeward once again.

Learning to live on the road

Our route took us south to Madrid, through a European winter and the first challenge we faced was to learn to adapt to living on the road. Cycle touring is an odd blend of wild and urban. We often spent weeks wearing the same clothes and wild camping and then found ourselves rubbing shoulders with “normal” people in a restaurant or supermarket. This took a little bit of getting used to.

Normally, we spend our lives trying to stay clean, taking care that our nails are clipped and that we change our socks daily. When you sleep in a different place each night and you have to pull all of your worldly possessions behind you, normal practices such as cleanliness become luxuries that are difficult to maintain.

It was a Tuesday morning in December and I was queuing for bread in a supermarket just outside Bordeaux when I learned a lesson about how you are treated if you don’t smell right. I had been on the road for three weeks when I noticed that everyone was looking at me. The queue for bread dissipated as soon as I joined it and the baker grimaced when I gave my order in halting French. It doesn’t seem like a big deal perhaps, we might be covered from head to toe in mud after a rugby match or wear the same boxers for a week on a mountain trek. But what’s a little odd about cycle touring is that you become conscious that your aroma, somewhere between an aged camembert and a well-used sports bag, is at odds with the odours of normal society - the citrus, musk or spice of aftershave, perfume and deodorant.

At first I promised myself that when I get back to normality I would shower every day and always, ALWAYS, wear clean clothes.

As we travelled farther from home, geographically and culturally, those feelings diminished. I ceased to care. We grew more used to being scruffy, to eating with unwashed hands and putting on dirty clothes. Growing into the skin of the outsider, we became immune to the admonishing stares and grimaces of “polite society”. I grew slowly immune, growing comfortable even, to being dirty and

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain having an aged and somewhat complex body aroma.

The overview effect

“..the world teaches us more than books… because it is resistant to us” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Adventure should be a revolutionary experience. Big journeys have profound impacts on those that go on them. Circumnavigating the globe by bicycle under my own steam is a big journey. One that had drastic and far reaching implications for how I thought and behaved thereafter. It taught me that the world is not something that is separate from me. That everything is connected and interlinked and that my actions had consequences.

Everyday this great big planet of ours orbits the sun. The sun rises in the east makes its way across the sky and sets in the west. It is a cycle. Wherever you are this is a truth. It’s been happening for forever, yesterday and every day before that, tomorrow and every day after that, the solar disc will keep arcing relentlessly across the heavens regardless of human whim or folly. Its trajectory sets in motion a routine chain of events. Every hour a part of the world wakes up, another goes to sleep. Every hour a whole north to south tranche of people have lunch, brush their teeth, start work or go to bed. If you followed it you’d hear a constant dawn chorus, a Mexican wave of bird song, as the birds around the world sing another celebration to a new day dawning.

Cycling westwards meant, quite literally, chasing the sun each day.

In the morning I cycled away from the sunrise, feel its first warm rays on my back and bum. During the day the left side of my face got sunburnt, in the evening I chased an always approaching yet never attainable horizon - a flat rainbow of gold, burnt orange and pink. In deserts, on mountainsides and in the outskirts of towns each evening, I'd pitch my tent and watch the sun go down, no closer to it than when I started that morning, knowing that we’d meet again in a few hours and begin the chase for another day.

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain Life on the road is simple, wake early, pack your life into a waterproof bag and cycle until sunset; stopping when the view, your stomach or your eyes compel you. Life on the road is not without physical hardship, the world can be bitterly cold, dry, noisy, dangerous, stiflingly hot, lonely and alien. Nature has shaped the world awkwardly, time and pressure has knotted and folded its skin, burnished and brazed its empty quarters with desiccant and freezing winds and placed stones and sand instead of soil; rocky mountains where a flat fertile plain would be nicer.

Man has done his bit too, filling the world with the concrete urban mazes of cities where the laws of competition subdue man's better nature, carving spiritless badlands; boxes of concrete and glass in its centres and littered its fringes with innumerable plastic bags, rubbish dumps, skinny dogs and snotty nosed children.

Revolution

In the desert state of Xinjiang in Western China we were half the world away from home. The biggest desert is called the Taklamakan.

From space it looks like a tear drop. It took ten days to cycle across; ten days of sleeping beneath a twinkling starry sky, filling up on water and food at settlements that had provided respite for caravans of Silk Road travellers for thousands of years. The desert was empty but not devoid, I had my thoughts for company. Sometimes, I’d record my thoughts on a dictaphone as I cycled along. 50km east of Hami - an ancient Silk Road oasis that Marco Polo allegedly passed through on his travels through China - I recorded, “the landscape is a dusty monochrome of khaki brown. It is flat. The sky is high, wrapped around me like an azure dome. I must be below a flight path as the space above is streaked with a cotton wool like trail in wide arcs. I’m cycling west and these streaks come from the east behind me, swoop over me and it looks like they are diving off into the distance. Obviously, the airplanes are flying, in what appears to the pilots, as a straight line. But they are actually following a curved path that mirrors the curvature of the Earth.”

I had been alone for the previous weeks, grinding west through a featureless landscape. But when I listen back to the recording today

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain

I can tell that I was excited about that insight. It was all starting to make sense; “I’m cycling along on the flat earth in the desert in western China, and the earth’s curvature is staring me in the face.

I’m reminded that what seems like a straight line is actually an arc.

Each morning the sun rises behind me, travels around my left flank then sets before me in an orange blaze.”

This was a practical reminder of the nature of circumnavigation. It is possible for one to travel consistently in one direction, never look or turn back, to eventually arrive back at the precise point where you began. I was in another desert and I was channelling Eratosthenes again. I was beginning to see roundness where before I would have just seen flat lines.

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliot

We completed our travels in May 2010 arriving home after 18 months on the road covering 31,000km through 30 countries. It was then that I re-discovered the extract from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding”. I had first encountered the poem when a professor had recited it on the first day of University, saying that it held the key to the Why? of Exploration. Subsequently I had encountered it often, as many travellers had shared the same quote. It used to bug me that I didn’t get it, what was so profound about those four little lines? It never really made sense to me until I arrived back in my home town in Ireland and found a place that was familiar but was not the same.

You can’t bottle a sunset

“Man follows only phantoms.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Chasing sunsets on a bicycle is the same as chasing sunsets in our everyday lives. Each morning the sun rises, and we spend 16 hours chasing a sunset, a far off mirage, beautiful but distant and

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Guest Editorial Fearghal O'Nuallain immaterial, ending the day exactly where we started, no closer than when we began. Perhaps our sunset is rarely a physical horizon.

Perhaps it is more likely a dream, an aspiration, an ideal.

We are creatures of purpose, so we couch those dreams, aspirations and ideals in pragmatic terms like goals and projects. Chasing is what we do. The chase is thrilling. The chase is what’s important.

The clock is ticking, and unforgiving and you get only one run. One shot, one chance. So, chase, chase for all you’re worth. Choose your sunset, pick a horizon and go for it. Enjoy the feeling of the sun warming your bum on a cold desert morning. Don’t be too perturbed as the harsh midday rays burn your face. And be grateful as you cycle towards a golden horizon tinged with peach and pink.

Do not despair when it turns navy blue and melts into pitch and leaves you blind.

Revel in the fact that you chased your sunset with vigour and spirit.

Because, at the end of your day, that’s your reward. You can’t bottle a sunset. The fluffy pink mother of pearl tinged clouds would not make good pillows, soft as they appear. You can’t take a sunset to bed with you to keep you warm through the cold night. But its beauty is beguiling and the memory of it will fill your dreams and keep you from losing yourself in the dark night.

And that’s the most important lesson I learned from spending 18 months cycling west. That the journey is more important than the destination is an oft-repeated cliché, but not a meaningless one.

Chasing the sunset is important, riding for all your worth towards something inspiring and beautiful is all that there is in life. It matters not that each night, when the sun goes down you're no closer to the sunset. It’s not important that you will never reach that far off great wall of burnt orange. What matters is that you chase it with passion, courage and conviction. What matters is that you give chase for all you are worth.

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John Rae: Arctic Explorer

Ken McGoogan 14

John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

On September 30, 2014, about sixty people crowded into a chapel in Westminster Abbey to witness the unveiling of a modest ledger stone that reads: “John Rae / 1813-1893/ Arctic Explorer.” Installed directly beneath an ornate bust of Sir John Franklin in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist, the red sandstone ledger represents a completion.

At the ceremonial unveiling, I was invited to say a few words, mainly because I had written a book about Rae (Fatal Passage). I spoke of how the Orkney-born Scot had finished the work that engaged Franklin. In 1854, eight years after Franklin and his two ships got trapped in the Arctic ice, John Rae solved the two great mysteries of 19th-century Arctic exploration.

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While surveying Canada’s northern coastline for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), Rae discovered both the final link in the first navigable Northwest Passage and the tragic fate of the Franklin expedition, whose final survivors had resorted to cannibalism. By reporting this melancholy truth and defending the integrity of the Inuit who revealed it to him, Rae became one of the most controversial figures in the history of northern exploration.

On returning to Victorian England, he faced a campaign of denunciation and vilification led by Jane, Lady Franklin, the widow of Sir John, and Charles Dickens, the country’s most influential writer. The Orcadian Rae, the greatest rough-country traveller of the age, saw his geographical achievements credited to others. He became the only major Arctic explorer never to receive a knighthood. And even today, after a years-long campaign culminated in the installation of that memorial ledger stone, many who should know better still deny him his rightful recognition.

Born in Stromness, Orkney, in 1813, the son of a prosperous land agent, John Rae spent his youth climbing, fishing, hiking, hunting, and sailing. He trained as a doctor at the University of Edinburgh and, at nineteen, sailed with the HBC as a surgeon. Ice prevented the ship from returning home, and Rae spent a winter on tiny Charlton Island near the bottom of Hudson Bay. He survived food shortages, freezing cold temperatures, and an outbreak of scurvy 15

John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

that killed two men.

In the spring, realizing he was well-suited to “the wild sort of life” available with the HBC, he signed on to serve two years as a Company doctor—and ended up remaining at Moose Factory, the HBC’s second largest fur-trading post, for more than a decade. He mastered canoeing, snow-shoeing, and native methods of hunting, trapping, and catching game. Still in his twenties, Rae became legendary as a survivalist and snowshoe walker. Once, making a long-distance home call, he covered 104 miles in two days -seventy-four on the second.

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In 1844, Rae convinced the governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George Simpson, that he was the man to complete the geographical survey of the Arctic coast of North America—part of the continuing, centuries-old quest for a Northwest Passage. The following year, after wintering at York Factory in Hudson Bay, Rae led a dozen men north in two 22-foot sailboats. At Repulse Bay, he became the first European to winter in the High Arctic (above the tree line) while relying mainly on his own resources rather than on imported provisions.

The explorer tells that story in Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea, republished in 2012 as part of The Arctic Journals of John Rae. In that work, Rae describes how, having spent the winter in a rough stone house, he traveled northwest with five men and two dogsleds, sleeping in igloos as he went. After reaching Lord Mayor's Bay, which John Ross had discovered by sea from the north, he returned to Repulse Bay. With four men, Rae then trekked to the west coast of Melville Peninsula, battling fierce winds, drifting snow, and hummocky ice to come within a few miles of Fury and Hecla Strait, so named by Royal Navy explorer William Edward Parry.

On this expedition, Rae charted 655 miles of new land and coastline.

He demonstrated that “Boothia Felix” was a peninsula, confirmed that no channel or passage led west out of Hudson Bay, and established a reputation as an Arctic pioneer. The chief hunter of every expedition he led, Rae was the first European to adopt the 16

John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

Inuit techniques of icing sledge runners and using igloos for longdistance travel. Ultimately, he traversed 6,555 miles on foot and 6,700 miles in canoes and boats, while surveying 1,165 mile of previously uncharted territory.

The primary source for this period of his life is John Rae's Arctic Correspondence: 1844-1855, recently reissued with a foreword by yours truly. When the first edition of that work appeared in 1953, sixty years after the explorer’s death, explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson hailed Rae as “the most challenging figure in the history of nineteenth-century Arctic exploration.” Recognizing him as “a genius in the art of travelling,” Stefansson argued that Rae's adaptations and innovations constituted a revolutionary advance in northern travel: “Rae was as new as Darwin.”

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In 1848, Rae served with Sir John Richardson as second-incommand of an overland expedition sent in search of John Franklin, who had disappeared into the Arctic with 128 men and two ships (one of which, the Erebus, was found only in 2014). Rae and Richardson travelled down the Mackenzie River and searched the Arctic coast eastward to the mouth of the Coppermine River. The following spring, Richardson retreated to England and Rae tried unsuccessfully to reach Victoria Island by boat.

Arctic Correspondence reveals how in 1851, resuming the search for Franklin, Rae trekked across a frozen strait to Victoria Island. He traced the coastline west and north to Prince Albert Sound and then returned to the mainland (a journey of 1,080 miles). At spring thaw, having designed and rigged two sailboats, Rae sailed east and north along the coast of Victoria Island to Albert Edward Bay. Halted by ice, he hiked still farther north through jagged debris, and “before the day's journey was half done, every step I took was marked with blood.” Later, an Admiralty hydrographer would credit Rae’s detailed survey work to a Royal Navy captain who followed his route years later.

Now, back in the sailboats, Rae tried three times to cross Victoria Strait to King William Island, where Franklin’s ships had got trapped. He was prevented by pack ice. He could not know it, but 17

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John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

he had come within forty miles of solving the Franklin mystery.

While sailing back westward, and completing a voyage of 1,394 miles, Rae found the first relics of the lost expedition—two pieces of wood from one of Franklin's ships. That winter, returning to England, Rae traveled from Lake Athabaska to St. Paul, Minnesota, on snowshoes - a total of 1,730 miles. The last 450, aided by dogs, he covered in ten days.

In 1853, determined to finish charting Canada’s Arctic coastline -which is contiguous with the southern channel of the Northwest Passage -- Rae again sailed north to Repulse Bay. After wintering there, he led a sledge party 500 miles northwest through blowing snow, gale-force winds, and bitter cold. Having reached the west coast of Boothia Peninsula, Rae trekked north with the only two men who could hope to keep up with him -- an Ojibwa and an Inuk. He discovered that, contrary to Admiralty maps, a narrow channel separated Boothia from King William Island. He built a cairn to mark his discovery, and in 1999, travelling with an antiquarian and an Inuit historian, I located the remains of that cairn and erected a commemorative plaque beside it.

This waterway, Rae Strait, would prove to be the final link in the Northwest Passage—the only such channel navigable by sailing ships of that era. Five decades later, when in 1903-’06 Roald Amundsen became the first explorer to navigate the Passage, he sailed through Rae Strait. Nobody would manage to navigate any other route until 1944, when technological advances would enable Canadian Henry Larsen to do so.

Now, in 1854, while returning to his base camp, Rae encountered Inuit hunters who relayed disturbing tales. Back at Repulse Bay, he conducted exhaustive interviews and determined that the Franklin expedition had ended in disaster. The final survivors had resorted to cannibalism. He purchased identifiable relics, among them silver spoons and forks, an order of merit, and a small silver plate engraved with the name of Franklin. Situated hundreds of overland miles from the relevant sites, and with spring thaw melting the ice, he could not hope to extend his search for at least a year.

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John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

Rae decided to return to England. In October 1854, when he arrived in London, the British Admiralty immediately published his confidential report in The Times. It included many grim details that the explorer had gleaned from the Inuit. Some of the bodies had been buried. Some lay in a tent or tents, and others lay under a boat turned over to provide shelter. One man, probably an officer, had a telescope strapped over his shoulders, and his double-barreled gun lay beneath him.

“From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and contents of the kettles,” Rae wrote, “it is evident that our wretched countrymen had been driven to the last resource -- cannibalism -- as a means of prolonging existence.”

In the 1990s, Canadian forensic scientists verified this assertion.

And in 2009, even a Royal Navy historian acknowledged its truth.

Launching into the prologue to a biography of Franklin, Andrew Lambert wrote that in May 1848, British sailors “began butchering and eating their comrades. . . . they ate their shipmates, not one or two, but forty or fifty.”

In 1854, however, Victorian England reacted to Rae’s report with denial, shock, and outrage. Jane Franklin, widow of Sir John, launched a campaign to discredit the explorer. She enlisted Charles Dickens, who in his weekly magazine Household Words chastised Rae for accepting “the Eskimo savage” as a credible witness. Rae stood firm and defended himself with truth. But his awkwardness as a writer, reflected in the organization of his published report, rendered him vulnerable to misinterpretation and attack. Details can be found in The Arctic Journals of John Rae. The controversy played itself out in newspapers and journals. In 1856, Rae received the posted £10,000 reward for having ascertained the fate of the Franklin expedition. But otherwise, leading Victorians challenged, minimized, and obscured his achievements.

They erected monuments to Sir John Franklin and to Francis Leopold McClintock, the first of a long line of figures to elaborate on Rae's findings.

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John Rae: Arctic explorer Ken McGoogan

The base of the Franklin bust in Westminster Abbey, for example, erected by Jane, Lady Franklin, hails her husband for “completing the discovery of the North-West Passage,” and commemorates McClintock as “discoverer of the fate of Franklin.” Neither claim stands up to scrutiny. But now, at least, a ledger stone at the foot of the bust points to the true discoverer of both the final link and the fate: “John Rae / 1813-1893 / Arctic Explorer.”

Books cited: Fatal Passage: The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin, by Ken McGoogan (HarperCollins Canada / TransWorld Bantam, 2001.

Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession and the Remaking of Arctic History, by Ken McGoogan (HarperCollins / TransWorld Bantam, 2005).

The Arctic Journals of John Rae: Selected and introduced by Ken McGoogan (TouchWood Editions, 2012).

John Rae’s Arctic Correspondence: 1844-1855. Foreword by Ken McGoogan (TouchWood Editions, 2014).

Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation, by Andrew Lambert (Faber and Faber, 2009).

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“There were only three names on the map of the region we had brought with us, but we now filled in more than two hundred.�

Heinrich Harrer "Seven Years in Tibet"

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The Antarctica challenge

Mark Terry 24

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Hanging from a ledge of ice, only 200 feet separated me from life and death. I had stepped on a fragile mantle of ice that quickly collapsed beneath my feet. Instinctively, I stretched out my arms at both sides to prevent my fall in the newly-emerged crevice below. I wasn’t sure if the weight of my body would once again crumble the edges of this canyon, but I didn’t have time to take any other evasive measure. My sudden “T-formation” saved my life.

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I felt I had a firm hold of the icy ledges. I took a furtive look down to see a depth that looked to be about 20 meters. I shimmied back carefully. No sudden moves, just slow, measured ones. When I felt my back touch of the walls of the crevice, I dug my heels into the walls of ice to gradually push myself up.

I was close to reaching my goal of being waist-high to the surface when my arms gave out causing me to lose ground and fall back to my painful T-formation and dangle perilously once again. I thought of calling for help, but I feared I did not have the strength to hang in there – literally – by the time they would scale the mountain to where I was. I believed I had one last attempt in me and it was either going to work or I was going to die.

I dug my heels in once more and pushed myself up. My trembling arms did not give the confidence I needed to make it. I began to think what it would feel like to fall that far and how hard the final impact would be. Would I die instantly or injure myself sufficiently to feel the pain as my life slowly slipped away? Before I could indulge any further with thoughts that would have most certainly led to my demise, the icy corner behind my rear end crumbled and I found myself actually sitting on a ledge.

This welcomed icy chair allowed my arms to finally get the relief they were screaming for. I let the blood race back through them and found the strength for the last push that brought me to waist level.

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Once at that height, I could bring my foot to the newly-formed shelf, my former seat, and vaulted myself to the more solid ice which I was walking on just moments ago.

I hastily and carefully scurried far away from the crevice that nearly claimed my life and back down the hill to the shore where my crew was relaxing in the sun, blissfully unaware that I almost didn’t make it back at all.

“Hey Mark! Did you find anything?” said the Production Coordinator when she saw me coming down the hill.

“Yes, a second chance at life,” I said enigmatically. “Let’s get back to the ship. Nothing more to shoot here.”

This wasn’t the first time my polar explorations nearly cost me my life. It comes with the territory as the Arctic and Antarctica remain the most inhospitable places on the planet, which is why so few people live there. Even today, scientists embedded in Antarctica do so for only six months. Wintering in Antarctica is rarely done, except by a few brave and dedicated souls.

I have been stalked by polar bears, attacked by a Weddell seal, tossed around in my ship by Arctic storms and 30-foot swells in the Drake Passage and have nearly fallen through sea ice many times.

I never started out my career thinking these dangerous, yet beautiful, places would be my home and my obsession when I began making documentary films in 1983, but that’s exactly what happened in 2008 when I looked into Antarctica for a possible story.

With the films March of the Penguins and Werner Herzog’s quirky Encounters at the End of the World capturing the imagination of the world, it seemed the time was right for a documentary on Antarctica from another angle. As a broadcast journalist entering my 50th year of life it seemed appropriate to seek out a reason to check off Antarctica from my professional bucket list so I began to investigate what story Antarctica had to tell that wasn`t already told.

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I soon learned that the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization had declared that 2007 to 2009 would be International Polar Year (IPY), a call to the scientists of the world to focus their research on the Arctic and Antarctica. The reason the “year” took place over three years was to provide full and equal coverage of both Polar Regions. This timeframe covered two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009 and involved more than 200 projects, and thousands of scientists from more than 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics.

Among the topics they were tasked with researching the one that jumped off the page to me was Global Warming. Yes, it was still referred to as Global Warming in 2007 but was soon to become an issue more familiar to the masses as Climate Change. This was largely in part due to the high profile the 15th Convention of Parties conference that was about to take place in Copenhagen in December of 2009 known as the United Nations Framework on Climate Change.

This highly anticipated event marked the apex of the environmental issue of global warming. It was expected that international policy would be put in place to solve the escalating crisis once and for all.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… Before committing to a documentary on Antarctica reporting on IPY research there, I had a lot of research to do. The first order of business was to see what other reports were out there and view some of the other televised reports, maybe even other documentaries that have already been made. To my surprise, there was nothing!

There was plenty of coverage on IPY research coming out of the Arctic as that polar region is relatively more accessible. Seeing not even one article online from any media source fuelled my desire to launch this production. I was confident I had a “scoop”, to use the old newspaper term, and that if I acted fast enough, I could be the first to showcase the all-stars of polar science in Antarctica as well as profile the rapidly-changing face of the world’s most mysterious land.

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I began researching how to get to Antarctica and soon found that it was not going to be easy. There are no airports in Antarctica – or roads or stores or homes. It is the only continent on earth that is protected from civilization and reserved strictly for scientific research. It’s the only continent on which man has never lived.

There are no residential land claims, no commercial enterprises, no natural resource mining, no military occupation, no recreational or park areas, just a few scientific research stations scattered mainly around its coasts.

The continent is protected by a document called the Antarctica Treaty, created the year I was born and available for signature Dec. 1, 1959, it came into force June 23, 1961 when 12 countries signed it.

The 12 countries were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are 50 countries now and I feared I was going to have to get permission from each one to visit Antarctica.

Visas are not required to land in Antarctica – there are no passport offices there to process them. Instead, I was required to seek permission directly from the scientific organizations stationed there.

If they agreed to my visit, I would be given papers to show the captain of the ship that would provide passage from Argentina to the west coast of Antarctica.

I had tried the British Antarctic Survey first. While they weren’t able to accommodate a visit to their station during the dates I was planning on visiting – December to January, 2008-2009 – they did offer a visit to their Cambridge, UK, headquarters and access to some of the best polar scientists in the world.

My next step was the Russians. They seemed enthusiastic for the visit and connected me with lead scientist Dr. Yeugeny Karyagin at the Vernadsky Research Base operated by the Ukranian Akademik Antarctica: Dear Mark:

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We look forward to seeing you and your crew here at Vernadsky Station. We have a lot of climate research to share with you. Please come on December 31 and we can celebrate the New Year with you.

Dr. Yeugeny Karyagin, Base Commander I remember thinking it was odd for a scientist to go by the title of Base Commander. I instantly imagined soldiers with guns in lab coats running across the frozen tundra, their tanks outfitted with labs and research equipment, but the most important element of this correspondence was the permission it granted. I had finally secured the necessary document to grant me access to land on the continent and conduct the interviews for my documentary. Now I just had to plan the route.

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Getting to the closest piece of civilized land to Antarctica seemed unnecessarily complicated: three connecting flights from Toronto, first to Houston, then to Santiago, Chile, then to Punta Reina, Argentina, then finally to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, capital of South America’s Tierra Del Fuego and nicknamed La Fin del Mundo (the End of the World). The various flights represented 24 hours of travel with lay-overs and we had to time things perfectly because the ship that would then takes us across the Drake Passage to Antarctica left only once a month. There was no room for error.

There were a few small cruise ships taking passengers to Antarctica in 2006. They accommodated about 60 people and their passengers were an eclectic mix of scientists and wealthy adventurers checking off their own bucket lists. I found that Quark Expeditions out of Toronto had a vessel leaving Ushuaia at exactly the right time for me to rendezvous with the scientists at Vernadsky Station on New Year`s Eve. I met with them and tried to negotiate a reduced fee for myself and my crew. Travelling to Antarctica carries with it the highest price tag of any equivalent trip and I had not yet begun to raise development and production funds.

I offered to provide them photography and HD video footage for 29

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them to use for promotional purposes. I also gave them prominent logo exposure and a special thanks mention in the film`s tail credits.

In return, I was granted a very generous 40 per cent discount on all fares for me and my crew.

Things were starting to fall into place. I knew I had the paperwork to actually go to Antarctica as well as how much my travel was going to cost. I now had to complete the rest of the budget and begin beating the bushes for a television broadcast partner to help fund the production.

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From the beginning of this project, I had only one cinematographer in mind: Damir Chytil. I hadn`t worked with him since the 1990s when we made a documentary for Paramount Pictures called Clive Barker: The Art of Horror. At the time, he was known as the “Danger Man” going to death-defying lengths to get that spectacular, jaw-dropping shot. More importantly, he had accumulated through this reputation an extensive amount of shooting experience in the Arctic, often under severe weather conditions. Clearly, he was the right man for the job.

I renewed my acquaintance with him and when I told him about the project he enthusiastically accepted. Going to Antarctica was also on his professional bucket list. He recommended a sound recordist with whom he had worked in the Arctic, Stephen Bourne. Thinking it wise to pair colleagues who had worked together in the unforgiving environments of a polar region, I arranged to meet Mr. Bourne at a nearby Tim Horton`s coffee shop for the job interview.

I was a little nervous in hiring anyone I hadn’t worked with previously as the world of show business is often populated by unreliable , ego-centric personalities and I couldn’t afford to bring a “flake” on this once-in-a-lifetime mission. His resume seemed accomplished, including his Arctic experience, and Damir had vouched for him, still, the all-important face-to-face was needed to confirm or reject his addition to the crew.

I got there early so I would have the opportunity of seeing him come in and see how early or late he might be. He was right on time 31

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and the first impression was good. He was a burly bearded man looking every bit the part of a northern frontiersman. I could easily picture frost on his snow goggles and whiskers. He seemed to be a kind soul, a married man, father of two and was quite thrilled about the opportunity. He also had his own equipment which would spare the budget rental fees. I was convinced and welcomed him to the project.

The last member of the team represented a flexible position. The First Assistant Director (commonly referred to as the 1st AD) would also wear the hat of the Production Coordinator in the field.

If we had to, we could do without this role and I would assume the tasks, but since I was venturing into unfamiliar territory, it would be best if the paperwork of logging timecode, transferring media to hard drives, getting releases signed, etc., were handled by a dedicated crew member.

For this position I also had one person in mind. A fixer from Alaska named Jackie Pearce. She had helped me on a previous location scouting mission in the Kenai Peninsula and her familiarity with icebergs, glaciers, and arctic eco-systems was impressive and hard to forget. Her friendly personality coupled with her extraordinary organizational and detail-oriented skills made her a deeply comforting member of the team. And on top of all that, she was a successful travel agent organizing tours of the majestic land that Alaska is.

I wasn’t sure how she would respond to a request that would take her away from her business for nearly a month. She would clearly be the one person on the expedition who had travelled the farthest, virtually from one end of the earth to the other. As I explained the project, I didn`t even get to inviting her before she cried “Can I come! Can I come! Please! Please!� Well, that was easy.

I warned her that her addition to the team was conditional upon my being able to raise the required financing to cover all costs. She understood and was confident in my ability to do so. Much more confident than I was.

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We began our historic journey in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, meeting at Pearson Airport to travel together on our various flights to Argentina. We had a lot of equipment and Damir was wise enough to bring a carnet with him. This is a document that itemizes each piece of equipment identifying it as ours for border crossings.

Our sound man thought he could get away with his relatively smaller equipment kit without the expense of a carnet.

And this represented the first of many challenges we had to face on this production. He was stopped by US Customs and was told some of his equipment - boom mike and Dolby recorder - could not enter the US as they believed we may sell it during our two-hour lay-over in Houston. They were about to include the other equipment when our fast-thinking Production Coordinator stepped up and claimed the extra baggage as her own. Since she had already cleared Customs, they let her take “her” bags that Steve was kind enough to carry for her.

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As a result, we managed to salvage most of the expensive gear, but had to surrender the boom and recorder to Steve’s wife who drove to the airport to claim them. All this commotion caused us to be late and we ended up racing through the airport in a desperate attempt to catch our first flight. Making this flight was crucial since our connecting flights were so closely booked together that if we missed one, we would have missed all of them. And if we missed all our flights, we would surely miss the boat leaving Ushuaia for Antarctica and the entire expedition would have been a bust.

With much of the heavy lifting done, I sat down to the unenviable task of finalizing the budget. Travel by air and passage by ship was in the neighbourhood of $50,000, approximately half the budget.

Other soft costs would have to be factored in to qualify the film for television broadcasts. Items such as production liability insurance and Errors and Omissions insurance are required by broadcasters in Canada and elsewhere and their respective costs are in the tens of thousands of dollars.

I figured I could raise at least half the budget through a pre-sale to foreign and domestic broadcasters. I had a good connection with 33

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

Bruce Cowley, director of programming at documentary, a new digital channel recently launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Earlier that year, I helped him bolster his Canadian Content points with a sale of a crime investigation series I helped produce in 2007. The CBC had committed to 100 per cent CanCon for its network and digital channels and acquiring series that had a C Number issued by the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) attached to it, helped meet this quota.

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I began the arduous process of preparing a broadcast pitch package: a binder containing key information required by broadcasters to decide whether or not to commission a project before it’s made.

Once completed, I needed to create the first-glance sales piece commonly referred to as a ‘one-sheet’ with which to introduce my project to prospective buyers. The one-sheet has on its front the poster of the film with a credit block listing the key personnel. On the back is a summary similar to the synopsis but with a much sexier style. Here`s what I had for The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning before anything was shot: One of the most beautiful places on Earth may also be the most deadly.

Serving as a yardstick for the world’s dramatically evolving environmental issues, significant changes to the climate in Antarctica are having measurable effects to its own geography and wildlife. As a result, ice thousands of years old is melting and making a direct impact on the world’s sea levels and weather conditions.

This one-hour documentary seen through the HD lens of awardwinning cinematographer Damir Chytil, CSC, will provide audiences with a rare and breath-taking glimpse of the Earth’s most unexplored continent.

This documentary will look at these environmental issues through the experiences of a dedicated group of international scientists.

Suicidal penguins, world flooding, marine life decline and grass

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growing in the world’s largest desert are some of the dramatic discoveries made this year that this film will profile.

It takes a special kind of person to give up the comforts of civilization in order to save it.

Will these scientific sleuths discover what’s needed to help mankind before it’s too late?

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This is….The Antarctica Challenge.

Yes, I can appreciate how this might sound to the scientific or academic mind, the primary audiences of the film, but this is precisely the style that industry stakeholders have come to expect in the business of show business. I began my campaign of pre-sales with a flurry of emails introducing the project with this one-sheet to broadcast in Canada and abroad. Since this is the norm for independent producers, broadcasters are often deluged by such electronic pitches therefore getting a reply of interest is genuinely a good sign.

I emailed the one-sheet to Bruce with a cover letter that was more personal than most. To my surprise, he got back to me almost immediately! We arranged to meet and whenever that happens getting some kind of deal is virtually assured.

It was the summer of 2008 and the monolithic structure of the CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto sparkled more than usual that day. I got my visitor`s badge at security and Bruce came down to meet me. He escorted me up to his office all the while speaking excitedly about my project. I began to think I didn`t have to do much selling but was eager to present a case that would yield the highest broadcast license fee possible. I brought out my pitch binder and started to go through it page-by-page. Before I could do that, however, Bruce simply picked it up and turned each page glancing at them briefly as one would scan a coffee table book on photography.

When he got to the last page he snapped it shut and handed it back to me. “Looks good!” he said simply. “We’re definitely interested.”

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Music to my ears. However, the CBC was not prepared to advance the funds, but would commit to a fee that would be payable upon delivery - satisfactory delivery. This meant that they would pay a pre-set amount, but only if they liked it. Knowing Bruce and my own filmmaking abilities, the risk was marginal, but still, I had to find alternate sources of financing in advance and use this conditional pre-sale as a revenue guarantee.

Accepting this deal, I was now able to upgrade my sales package with the CBC and documentary logo. This is an important element of pre-sales as other broadcasters are more comfortable signing on once they see that one of their colleagues has done so first.

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I called Jackie to secure the flight arrangements for the four of us. I was using my credits cards to pay for this as I was feeling confident with the CBC deal in place. I also needed to act quickly as flights in and out of South America during the Christmas season get booked quite quickly. She was able to secure seats on all the flights – except one. The final connecting flight from Punta Reina to Ushuaia. She could get three seats on the last available flight, but not four. Panic began to set in. This could set off a chain of events that would result in missing our window to get to Antarctica altogether. We stayed on the phone frantically checking the websites of competing airlines looking for an alternate collection of connecting flights. No luck. As expected, December flights are booked as much as nine months in advance leaving very few seats even in September. After four hours on the phone we decided to give up. I was prepared to cancel the entire project and just before I did, Jackie squealed on the other end of the phone.

“Someone just cancelled!” she exclaimed.

One person, one seat. She booked it immediately before others on waiting lists could see it was available. One of the many advantages of being a licensed travel agent, she was able to have access to airline seating charts before the average person would know of any change.

This was the first of many signs that assured me this project was meant to be. These signs became increasingly significant as obstacles threatening to thwart the production became increasingly significant 37

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

as well. Another early sign was an email I received from Telefilm Canada.

It was an invitation to attend MIPCOM, the world’s largest television market. It takes place every October in Cannes, France.

Having attended the market the last seven years, I didn’t think I would be able to go this year since I was in pre-production on The Antarctica Challenge, but the email I received informed me of an offer from Telefilm to offset my registration costs and share a booth in their pavilion. With the CBC behind the project, I took this as a sign to go. I was confident presenting this film to the international community of television buyers would yield some quick territorial pre-sales and maybe even get picked up by a distributor.

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In speaking with the conference organizers, I inquired about getting some advance press in their trade publications and on their website.

They asked for my press release, CV and related information and when they read it, they asked if I would be interested in making a film at the conference that year.

It turns out they were introducing a program that would showcase half a dozen of what they determined were the most promising new directors that year. After announcing them, they would be asked to make a film without preparation, in three days, during the conference. MIPCOM would provide a crew to shoot, but the rest would be up to me. Not convinced this endeavour was the best use of my time, I thought the exposure it would bring me during the market would enhance my sales for the film so I graciously – and with some reluctance - accepted.

Travelling to Cannes on a tight budget is never advisable, but even more so when attending a week-long sales market. Buyers are expected to be wined-and-dined, and they are, so it doesn’t bode too well for the seller who offers a Danish pastry at Telefilm Pavilion at 9:00 am. I booked a cheap flight and arranged to “couchsurf” at a nearby apartment. It was a short train ride from the Palais (the market’s convention centre) on the famous Rue de la Croissette. My only payment for this accommodation was a bottle of Canadian wine – a rare novelty in France – and some late-night 38

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

chit-chat with my curious host.

I arranged all my meetings - 25 of them! - beforehand, all by email and phone, making sure I would meet them at their booths so I wouldn`t have to pick up the tab in some très cher bistro. Most of the meetings went as expected – sounds like an interesting project; we’d love to see a screener when it’s finished. Fair enough, but I needed someone to jump on board now. I may have covered the flights, but I still had to pay for the ship, equipment rentals and other production-related expenses that were due sooner than later.

At the end of the first day, I was pretty tired. A little from jet-lag after arriving the night before but mostly from the hectic pace of the many meetings I crammed into that first day. You always try to get as many meetings as you can that first day when they're wallets are still full. I went to a reception around 5:00 pm. These are always good to go to on a tight budget as the catering is both sublime and extreme. You can starve all day and make up for it at one reception.

When I arrived, I saw a lot of press in attendance. No jokes about the media gathering at the watering holes of open bars, they were there because MIPCOM was announcing its Six Most Promising Directors of the Year – and I was one of them.

I hadn’t checked my email all day so I missed the memo about the purpose of the reception. I simply heard there was one. Lucky for me, I went to the one expecting me.

I was introduced and one of the first questions I was asked was what I was planning to shoot that night. That night!!! I reticently remembered they were expecting me to make a movie during the market, but had no idea the shoot was to take place at the Opening Night Party. Now, you don`t have to have attended a festival or a film market in Cannes to know what the parties are like. Extremely lavish, crowded with celebrities, red carpets everywhere – even leading you to the bathrooms – Cirque de Soleil performers entertaining anyone sober enough to look overhead, and bathtubs of champagne.

I was introduced to my cameraman and sound person, both local pros, so I had to switch to my shaky French.

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“Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire?” my cameraman asked. What are we going to shoot?

“Money shots,” I said. Without any pre-conceived notion of a script or concept – after all, that was the purpose of the exercise – I surveyed the festivities and concluded the one thing everyone had in common was money. They were either buyers or sellers sipping champagne side by side.

I recruited teams of volunteers to act out skits lampooning sales meetings: stealing credit cards, renewing old acquaintances with complete strangers, compromising creative to make a sale, excessive celebrations of handshake deals, etc.

The performers were not professional actors, of course, but they were accomplished actors, just the same. Everyone attending these markets are amateur actors to some degree. They come with a script to either pitch a project or reject them and when the desired result is not achieved, they easily slip into improv mode. As a result, my cast of highly-skilled amateur actors resulted in an engaging threeminute short film scored to the music of the John Kander and Fred Ebb classic from the movie Cabaret, Money, Money.

As it turned out, the assignment was more of a challenge than we had thought – only half of the selected directors were successful in completing a film. With that out of the way, I was able to focus on the real reason I was there. My meetings the rest of week went better than expected as my reputation for being one of the top directors to watch came with a lot of industry trade media coverage, paving the way for enthusiastic one-on-ones with the buyers.

One of the most promising was National Geographic Television. I met with three representatives during my meeting in their pavilion for about 20 minutes, about four times longer than the average meeting at MIPCOM. My main contact for follow-up was Ceire Clark, a young programmer at NatGeo`s UK headquarters in London. Although there was no commission offered on the spot, there was a very positive suggestion that there would be one, subject to providing some additional material on the project.

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I left Cannes with empty pockets, but with a briefcase full of business cards from broadcasters who were genuinely keen on acquiring the project if they liked what they saw in the end. I also had Ms. Clark waiting for samples of my previous work, a list of the scientists I plan to profile in the film and a summary of the climaterelated research and discoveries the film would showcase. It was beginning to look like this project had a life of its own.

Having limited access to the scientists embedded in Antarctica, my list of scientists to interview for the film was limited to the Ukrainians at Vernadsky Station. Checking the route our ship was going to take along the Antarctic Peninsula, I saw we were going to pass by a British research station so I contacted the Communications people at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge.

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The BAS is a branch of the Natural Environment Research Council.

It has, for more than 60 years, undertaken the majority of Britain's scientific research on and around the Antarctic continent. BAS employs more than 400 staff and supports three stations in the Antarctic, at Rothera, Halley and Signy, and two stations on South Georgia, at King Edward Point and Bird Island.

Our planned route, which, I should point out, is always subject to change based on Antarctica`s highly unpredictable weather conditions, would bring us near the Rothera research station providing us an excellent second science base location for the film.

The first person I spoke with was Athena Dinar, Senior Public Relations and Communications Manager. As I expected, she was quite keen on a feature documentary film that would showcase her organization’s scientists on international television. She said arranging interviews in the field may prove problematic as many factors come into play that may make a shoot impossible: weather, sensitive tests and experiments, ship landings, schedules of the researchers, and other similar unpredictable conditions.

Instead, she suggested I come to Cambridge and interview some of the scientists – leading world experts in their respective fields – who had just returned from extended stays on the continent. That 41

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sounded like an excellent idea! Not only could I start production with a relatively easy and inexpensive shoot, but I could also work in a meeting with my new friends at National Geographic to hand over the additional material they requested in person.

Athena worked out a shoot schedule for me that included interviews with Peter Convey, senior research scientist; geophysicist Julian Scott; meteorologist Jonathan Shanklin; and climatologist John King. I quickly called Ceire Clark at NatGeo to tell her I would be passing by to drop off the material she had requested. Her excitement was quite encouraging and we booked a lunchtime meeting at her London office the day before my shoot in nearby Cambridge. I was additionally excited now that I had a few more names for her, all of them Brits. Surely, that would go over well with the UK programmers for National Geographic Television.

I would need a cameraman while in Cambridge and in a quick Google search I found an experienced shooter named Marcin Styk living right in town. And, as a bonus, he was a Canadian citizen!

This would come into play later as an important factor in applying for the film`s tax credits.

Taking the night flight to London, I arrived at Heathrow Airport at 11:00 am and grabbed a hansom cab directly to my noon meeting with Ms. Clark.

I must say, when I arrived, it was not what I expected. The neighbourhood was not a business district, as we would expect in North America. Cobblestone streets seemed lined with more pubs than offices, but I found the address at Shepherds Building East in Richmond Way. The UK headquarters were equally unassuming.

Walking through the open corridors, there was none of the usual security and pass cards I’ve come to expect visiting North American television offices. The main corridor emptied into a large, rustic open space with a coffee bar in the middle of the room. Secondhand couches were scattered throughout the room making it look much like a common room in a student dormitory.

Ms. Clark greeted me and took me to the bar to get us some coffee.

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The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

I felt instantly comfortable and uneasy at the same time. I sank into the couch fearful I wouldn’t be able to get back up and thought I was going to have a friendly face-to-face rejection. An in-person “thank you for your interest in National Geographic, unfortunately…” Why else meet in the noisy café?

As it turned out, I was wrong. She reiterated her enthusiasm for the project and was excited by the names of the scientists with whom I had scheduled interviews. She was also impressed with the scientific data I planned to report in the film. All seemed in order; so how much of a commission would they be giving me? Not so fast, she said in so many words.

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Now they wanted to see samples of my previous work and some actual footage of my expedition. As well, she said that they would like to have input into the style of the film and I told her I would be happy to oblige; but if this was going to be an acquisition of a finished product rather than a commission of a project yet to be made, the final decisions would remain with me. She acknowledged that, but again assured me a decision to “get on board” with me before we left would be forthcoming.

I awkwardly climbed out of the couch, thanked her for her time and left. I found another cab and went straight to the train station to catch the afternoon train to Cambridge.

It was well before rush hour in London so traffic wasn’t that bad. I arrived at the train station in plenty of time and boarded my train to Cambridge. It was about an hour’s journey and I was surprised how quickly the industrial areas lining the train tracks turned to pastoral settings. When I arrived, I walked to the little Bed and Breakfast I had booked online in Toronto. It was a typically charming home, as you might expect, and my room was cosy – but more decorated for a clientele that seemed to be little old ladies: doilies everywhere, a ceramic teapot, lace curtains, an enclosed wrought-iron fireplace the size of a briefcase and a single bed with a huge embroidered duvet and way too many pillows.

I quickly unpacked and freshened up and made my way to the 44

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The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

British Antarctic Survey for my first day of shooting. According to my map, it looked like a relatively short walk and with nary a car in sight, I thought it best not to wait for a cab and start my journey on foot. Surely, one would come my way eventually should I decide I was running late or getting lost. Well, those two things did indeed happen and still, no cars in sight. The weather had become cold and the light drizzle had turned into a windy downpour of freezing rain.

The cliché of British weather came to mind as I tried to find my way with shards of flying ice blinding my every glance. Perhaps a prelude of things to come in Antarctica!

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After a two-hour ordeal, I found the remote compound of the BAS. It looked like the Pentagon dropped in the middle of the Baskerville moors.

My cameraman was in the lobby waiting for me. We were soon greeted by Athena who brought us to our first lab for an interview with Dr. Peter Convey. He introduced us to Antarctica’s largest land animal, a common flea. This creature, unlike penguins, is native to the continent. He also showed us some startling footage of a “greening” Antarctica – vast land masses with no snow and ice and with a new green vegetation growing over the now exposed rocky terrain. He also explained that penguin populations were notably declining due to a complicated chain of events starting with warmer temperatures and ending with a diminished food supply. I was fast building a shot list for my own expedition.

Our next interview with Dr. John King took place in another lab, this one with more computer monitors than test tubes. Dr. King is a specialist in climate variability and change in the high latitudes of the Antarctic Peninsula. He too, offered some fascinating research on how wind and weather patterns were changing, bringing more open water to the frozen shores contributing to the melting of the land ice there.

My own research revealed only that warming temperatures were causing the catastrophic ice melt in Antarctica. This was the first of many other dynamic impacts the warmer climate was to have on Antarctica, I would soon learn. A natural segue from Dr. King’s 47

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

interview was one with Dr. Julian Scott who told me with great alarm that an enormous glacier in Antarctica – the Pine Island Glacier - was on the verge of collapsing. When it does, it would contribute a significant amount of fresh water suddenly – not gradually – to the Southern Ocean resulting in a disastrous increase in world sea levels.

All this environmental calamity was causing significant concern in me. Not only was the data startling and terrifying, but more than that was the lack of reporting on this information. Nowhere could I find any media coverage of these findings, perhaps because there seemed to be no immediate threat to populated areas. It would be too late to report on the flooding and tsunamis after they hit. It seemed crucial to release this information now before the emergencies came to pass.

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My initial overview of the state of affairs in Antarctica seemed bleak. Was there no good news? Was this mysterious continent, known only for penguins and the South Pole, going to have an ecological disaster on a scale unprecedented in man’s history? And were we going to pay the price when Antarctica had its fatal meltdown? It was beginning to look that way, according to the scientists conducting research there. No-one else seemed to be interested in Antarctica; so we only had the word of the scientific community to go on.

I was more encouraged than ever to make this film knowing that my documentary might be the only evidence available for people to actually see what was happening there. When I returned home in early December 2008, I checked the Internet once again for Antarctica media coverage related to International Polar Year – as before, nothing from Antarctica. We were leaving the day after Christmas. I dusted off some credit cards I keep aside for emergencies and completed the “financing” of the Antarctica leg of our shoot.

Preparation was extensive and a little out of the ordinary. I packed the usual equipment for a production - cameras, hard drives, laptops, tripods, etc. – but also some unusual gear: hand-warming 48

The Antarctica challenge Mark Terry

pads, parkas, UV goggles, strap-on metal “ice teeth” for my boots, food rations in the event we get stranded, a compass and a bottle of champagne to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my crew.

Yes, it seemed that I was prepared for this exciting, yet dangerous journey and with no other broadcast journalist or documentary filmmaker making the trip ahead of me that year, I was truly going where there was no path and, unbeknownst to me at the time, about to leave behind a very unique trail.

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.”

Robert Louis Stevenson “Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes”

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Book review: Heart of the Himalaya

by Pat and Baiba Morrow

Tor Torkildson 50

Book Review: Heart of the Himalaya Tor Torkildson

Whether you are an armchair explorer, old Himalayan hand, a techie or simply enjoy fine photography and a good story, ‘Heart of the Himalaya,’ by Pat and Baiba Morrow, is a book that will thrill you and make you want to travel there.

For over 30 years Pat and Baiba have weaved their way through and across the Himalaya region exploring, developing lifelong friendships, inspiring and supporting humanistic and environmental causes, with wide open eyes, cameras and zeal. Pat and Baiba have made nearly three dozen journeys to the region and have spent time with and documented the people of Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan, northern India and China’s Xinjiang Uygur and Sichuan provinces.

They have also spent time with other cultural groups, including Hunzukut, the Balti of Pakistan, Kirghiz, Uighurs, and hill tribes of Nepal and Sikkim.

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Pat and Baiba Morrow have climbed Mount Everest (Pat was the second Canadian to climb it in October 1982 and would later go on to become the first person to successfully climb the Seven Summits), bicycled, trekked, and have often spent lengthy periods hunkered down with locals or on extended remote journeys. During these amazing trips they have amassed an archive of over 22,000 photographs, sound recordings, and unique videography.

During one of these trips in the winter of 2003, Pat and Baiba, on location in Ladakh to make a documentary film, mentioned the Ladakhi infatuation with hockey to a friend. The friend suggested they contact the NHL Players Association Goals and Dreams Program in Toronto. Several emails later, and a shipment of hockey gear was on its way to the children of Ladakh. The Canadians call it ‘hockey diplomacy.’ The conditions in Ladakh are perfect and ideally suited to adopting Canada’s favourite winter pastime. Pat and Baiba Morrow eventually returned to film, “Hockey Night in Ladakh.”

With their long-time friend and Bungalo Book publisher, Frank B. Edwards, they have created a cutting edge “Coffee Tablet” eBook.

In this book the reader can simply click on an icon, embedded in the book, and watch a video clip, view a photography gallery, or listen 51

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Book Review: Heart of the Himalaya Tor Torkildson

to an interview. This multimedia feature is something new and exciting in the publishing world and enhances the experience for the reader and makes for a thoroughly engrossing, almost intimate experience.

‘Heart of the Himalaya’ uses extensive archives that document the Morrow’s unprecedented explorations into ancient cultures, esoteric rituals, lofty summits and the most sublime landscape on earth. I applaud Pat and Baiba Morrow’s achievements and I have been inspired by them for years; their journeys often fuelling my own to that sacred part of the world.

‘Heart of the Himalaya’ is the real deal, created by an extraordinary couple in an extraordinary format and I wholeheartedly encourage readers to pull out their iPads, settle into a comfy place, and prepare for the journey of a lifetime!

“…the facts of history all appeared to me like specimens in a herbarium, permanently dried, so that it was easy to forget they had once upon a time been juicy with sap and alive in the sun.”

André Gide “The Immoralist"

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The Climb for Valor

Tom Bochnowski 54

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The Climb for Valor Tom Bochnowski

Giving until it hurts Eddie Tusker isn’t kidding when he says climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro forces you to get your ass in shape. As a former Army Ranger with a passion for personal tests, I have to admit I’m proud to have joined the ranks of those who know the feeling of euphoria that comes with arriving at the top of that magnificent mountain. But for me, reaching the top of Kili wasn’t just about challenging myself physically and mentally. It was about putting my money where my mouth is in my professional life that continues to be dedicated to providing vital support services which allow others the freedom to engage in their travel adventures. And what happened up there will speak to me for the rest of my life.

The Climb for Valor was no ordinary journey of ambitious strangers. As my friend and colleague Eddie Tusker and his renowned Tusker team led our special fundraising climb, there was an infectious feeling as Special Forces soldiers, along with widows of Special Forces soldiers and a select number of civilians, including myself and Dr. Avi Patil, united from day one.

We had come together for a common cause - to raise money and experience a sort of symbolic suffering in tribute to the families of those who suffer from the loss of their loved ones who have fallen whilst serving their country. Climbing Mt. Kili is no easy feat. It’s literally suffering every step of the way to the top. Together we were prepared. We were in motion. And when day two took an unexpected and critical turn, we came together, and we saved lives.

On the second night at 13,000 feet, I could hear one climber coughing repeatedly. It’s a frightening sound in that environment when it doesn’t stop and the climber indicates he can’t breathe.

Eddie Tusker and Dr. Patil worked together to assess the situation.

With only 60% oxygen level, it was clearly High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) – fluid in the lungs. Thankfully Tusker carries oxygen and a Portable Altitude Chamber which we used to stabilise the patient, since descent in the middle of the night was not possible.

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The Climb for Valor Tom Bochnowski

I immediately got on the satellite phone, personally calling and activating our emergency response network. Soon after, another climber had serious facial swelling, the result of an allergic reaction.

Both situations were immediate and life-threatening. We were calm and we were all in sync, but the seriousness of the situation and the brutal truth about how fast Mt. Kilimanjaro can turn from inspiring to breath-taking – literally – was very real. That sudden reminder that lives can be lost during the greatest of adventures led to an adrenaline rush I’ll never forget.

At first light, while the rest of the climbers continued to ascend, we worked through various scenarios and identified the best options for a safe and secure helicopter landing. Avi focused on the patients while our team coordinated the patient treatment and evacuation plan. Together with Eddie and his Tusker team, we cleared camp and moved rocks to create an improvised helicopter landing zone.

As the helicopter landed and the dust flew up in my face, I’ve never been more proud of a project that I’ve worked on so hard to ensure it never fails. Both evacuations were necessary and successful, leading to restored health at home. With that knowledge, we got back to the adventure at hand and the final push to reach that summit.

Like so many of the best adventures, this trip and our commitment to Eddie Tusker’s annual Climb for Valor began with a challenge and a handshake. As promised it delivered once-in-a-lifetime, breath-taking and awe-inspiring moments.

Our collective faith in the adventure travel industry, and the power of adventure travel to change lives, has been energized; outcomes are not always foreseeable but are alleviated with proper forward planning. And the principles of the military remain key to my Ripcord partner, Ted Muhlner, and me. It has always been our duty to care from the very beginning. People who sacrifice for our freedom, and our health and well-being, should always come first.

This is only the beginning...

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The 2015 Climb for Valor group began their ascent on February 17, and finished their descent on the 25th. Like all great adventures, this special fundraising climb for the Duskin & Stephens Foundation, was more about the journey than the destination.

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Adventure travel can take your breath away and inspire. Soaking-in the view, we were in awe and reminded of those who made the biggest sacrifice. “The loss of "Big Mike" Duskin and Riley Stephens and the thousands like them in our country is felt every day by boys and girls who now live without fathers, wives without husbands, siblings without brothers, and parents without sons,” Bochnowski explains.

“Life takes a dramatic turn when a mother or father doesn't come home. Families struggle, and despite paying the ultimate sacrifice, they are too often forgotten.”

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We were in motion with our goal in sight. “Rather than simply writing big cheques to a variety of charities, Eddie Frank and I are also driven to be involved in causes in a very hands-on way. This includes travel philanthropy - engaging in travel as a means to demonstrate commitment and as a method of giving back. Looking up at that mountain, I wouldn't have it any other way,� says Bochnowski.

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Climbers include two wounded vets as well as three widows of fallen soldiers.

“We joined Tusker Trail in support of the Climb for Valor up Mt. Kilimanjaro to benefit the Duskin and Stephens Foundation,” says Bochnowski. For the first-ever Climb for Valor, Frank himself led the 10 dedicated climbers up Mt. Kilimanjaro. “When Eddie asked we didn't hesitate. We made this climb a symbol of what these families have endured.”

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“Climbing Kilimanjaro is a celebrated adventure travel endeavor. It’s estimated that more than 40,000 men and women between the ages 25 – 75 attempt the climb each year. Reaching the top of Kili is on many a sophisticated and established traveler’s bucket list, but climbing for a cause makes the experience that much more powerful.” Tom Bochnowski.

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Pofu Camp ~13,000 ft. – afternoon prior to evacuation. Eddie Frank has said it perfectly. “No adventure is a true adventure without serious challenges.” Around 2:30am, on day 4 of a 9-day trek at 13,000 ft., one climber began to experience uncontrollable coughing. Working together with Eddie Frank, former Army Officer and Redpoint Resolutions VP Tom Bochnowski, and Dr. Avi Patil (Redpoint wilderness medical expert and Stanford Medicine-affiliated physician) began life-saving emergency medical response and evacuation services.

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“Thankfully Tusker carries oxygen and a Personal Altitude Chamber which we used to stabilize the patient throughout the night, since descent from that location at night would have put the patient at greater risk. We put the climber on oxygen and inside the altitude chamber – an airtight bag that, by means of a foot pump, increases the pressure in the bag to that of a lower altitude. It’s a life-saver when you can’t evacuate someone immediately. Pressure was maintained by foot pump, operated personally by Tom, Eddie, myself, and our guides Shabani, Simon and Kombe – all trained by Eddie as High Altitude First Responders,” says Redpoint’s Dr. Avi Patil.

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Bochnowski describes that following morning, “At first light, while the rest of the climbers continued to ascend, we worked through various scenarios and identified the best options for a safe and secure helicopter landing. Avi and the Tusker team focused on the patients while our Redpoint team coordinated the patient evacuation plan. We heard the sound of the helicopter and thought we were set, but it flew right by us at first.�

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Fellow climbers Tom Bochnowski and Dr. Avi Patil worked hand in hand to ensure the successful helicopter evacuation of the two climbers. “Together with Eddie and his Tusker team, we cleared camp and moved rocks to create an improvised helicopter landing zone. I used an orange signal flag to help wave the helicopter in. On the helicopter’s next pass, we made it work,” Bochnowski explains.

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According to Tusker’s Eddie Frank, “We only have one or two evacuations a year and they occur because of life-threatening emergencies. Emergencies that are immediate and now. There is zero room for hesitation or error. Redpoint Resolutions founders Ted Muhlner and Tom Bochnowski are two guys who understand commitment,” he explains.

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After stabilising the first climber with HAPE during the night, a second climber showed signs of extreme allergic reaction to an unknown element. Early the following morning, Redpoint evacuated both climbers off the mountain and transported them to a local hospital for treatment. “When Ted Muhlner and I say we’re going to do something, we do it. We take great pride in supporting Eddie Frank in his efforts to provide the best care for his climbers and trekkers. Ted and I come from the military, where your word and your handshake mean everything. Both evacuations were necessary and successfully led to full recoveries.”

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Redpoint’s Stanford Medicine-affiliated physician Avi Patil, who was also climbing, assisted with critical medical decisions that helped prevent a bad outcome. “The teamwork and the level of care and commitment provided to my climbers and me during these recent evacuations has only further cemented my team’s partnership with Redpoint and their Ripcord Travel Protection program,” Eddie Frank.

“These days I split my time between emergency rooms at both Stanford and the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center while also serving as a member of Redpoint’s team, staying on call and making critical decisions related to medical services and evacuations for our clients.

There is never a dull moment responding to diverse emergencies,” Avi69 explains.

“After the evacuations, we came back together for a common cause - to raise money for the Duskin & Stephens Foundation and give a united tribute to the families of those who suffer from the loss of their loved ones who have fallen while serving our country. Climbing Kili is no easy feat. It can be a slow, steady, painful trek to the top and come back down safely,” explains Bochnowski. “Some places are so powerful you just stand in awe and can’t say much,” he continues, “this space is very meaningful to Eddie and it was important for me to experience the spiritual heart of Kili..”

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“Eddie was right about riding the electric buzz towards the summit.

We were clearly proud to be part of something much larger than ourselves or even Mt. Kilimanjaro,” says Bochnowski. “The Climb for Valor and our partnership in adventure travel celebrates the freedom travelers have to enjoy their personal passions and adventures worldwide,” Bochnowski says. “We are grateful this freedom exists and we strongly support those who have sacrificed so much for our country, including veterans, first responders, and their families.”

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Contributors Credits: All articles and images are the copyright of the their respective authors. Ripcord Adventure Journal is grateful to all our writers and photographers for permission to publish their work.

Images on pages 1, 55, 61, 66, 73, 76, 77 and 82 courtesy of Mark Terry; pages 9 and 11 courtesy of Megan Hine; pages 13, and 20 courtesy of Fearghal O' Nuallain; pages 28 and 29 courtesy of James Grieve and the John Rae Society; pages 6 and 136 courtesy of Pat and Baiba Morrow; pages 142 and 143 Š Moizhusein | Dreamstime.com; pages 148 - 159 courtesy of Thomas Bochnowski and Ripcord Rescue Travel Insurance.

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Editorial Team Editor in Chief Tim Lavery is the founder of Ripcord Adventure Journal and the World Explorers Bureau, the agency for world-class adventurers and explorers.

Series Editor Shane Dallas is a professional adventurer, travel blogger and speaker with an unquenchable passion for travel.

Design & Quality Lead Paul Devaney is a freelance consultant in UX/UI Design and Development.

Paul has a strong background in aerospace and as a mountaineer.

Technical Editor Dr. Terry Sharrer is a former Curator at the Smithsonian and current editor of the online publication, Tagline (Medical Automation).

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Mark Terry Mark Terry is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and a Fellow of The Explorers Club. He has been a filmmaker and broadcast journalist for more than 25 years, specializing in science and nature documentaries.

He holds the rare distinction of having made a film on every continent on earth. Perhaps best known for his polar documentaries, The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning and The Polar Explorer, winners of 30 international film awards collectively.

He was the first filmmaker to cross the Northwest Passage via the Prince of Wales Strait and was present in Antarctica to report the first recorded measurement of the ozone hole decreasing in size on January 9, 2009.

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Fearghal O' Nuallain Fearghal has a passion for geography and adventure. An experienced educator, writer, and active geographer he has captivated audiences with stories about cycling around the world, walking across Rwanda, tramping through a Transylvanian winter and hiking, hitching and biking across the Balkan peninsula to explore an ancient Roman road.

Fearghal founded Revolution Cycle with inventor Simon Evans to complete the first Irish circumnavigation of the globe by bike. The expedition covered 31,000 km over 18 months, passing though some of the highest, driest and intriguing places on the planet.

Fearghal’s most recent journey followed the Via Egnatia - an ancient Roman road - across the Balkan peninsula. Following the footsteps of crusaders, legionaries and Ottomans he hiked, biked, & hitched, over 1,000 miles from Istanbul to Albania.

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Publishers

Ripcord is the adventure travel arm of Redpoint Resolutions, a travel risk and crisis response company specializing in comprehensive global travel solutions. They serve government agencies, corporations and organizations that require employees to travel or live abroad. The company is owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians who practice wilderness medicine and understand the challenges of medical and security emergencies in remote environments.

Ripcord’s global intelligence, evacuation services, essential benefits and 24/7 operations center has your back no matter where your adventures takes you.

The World Explorers Bureau (WEB) is a speaking and events agency that represents 70+ explorers and extreme adventurers, men and women who have lived with cannibals, dived the deepest seas, rowed the oceans, cycled the globe, lived underwater, climbed the highest mountains, explored unmapped caves, walked, skied and cycled to the Poles, walked in space and continue to explore the unexplored.

WEB Speakers inspire audiences around the world with captivating tales of their adventures encapsulating themes which include pushing boundaries, leadership, teamwork and motivation.

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Contributors

“Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to face many a danger, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.�

Annie Besant

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Published by Redpoint Resolutions & World Explorers Bureau www.ripcordadventurejournal.com