Surviving The Arctic With A Disability

In the moment, signing up seemed like a great thing to do... although I later had a few “what on earth am I doing?!" moments!! In memory of my late Dad, an Arctic Survival Challenge with the Royal British Legion – little did I know just how much of an adventure it would be. Even though I have been back three weeks at the time of writing this post, it continues to help me push boundaries proving that things I thought would be impossible whilst having a disability are absolutely possible! On Monday the 28th of March 2022, I stepped on to a plane that would take myself, my husband and 11 others to a place in Northern Sweden called Raftälven, where we would embark on adventure of a lifetime.

The cabin we stayed in had no electricity or running water. Light in the evening would be from candles or head torches. Water for washing would be collected from the stream and heated by fire. Drinking water was shipped in. Those who are deaf or hard of hearing will know that low lighting levels can cause challenges when trying to hear people speak. This proved true for me, and we hadn’t even got to the survival stage yet. Before then we had 3 days of excitement; cross country skiing, Husky sledding, and a snowmobile adventure. Temperatures were ranging from -6 to -20 during the day.

On day four we gathered everything we needed for the survival phase. Once we were out of the cabin, it was locked and would not be re-opened until the challenge was over.

Night 1

Nordic tents – COLD! The first survival night was to sleep in Nordic tents. There was a stove but, as explained to the team prior to starting the survival phase, it was for light and morale rather than heat. We had to take sentry duty in order to watch out for our teammates and ensure everyone made it through the night.

Night 1 temperature:

-22 degrees. Hearing aids survived. Contact lenses survived. Feet survived (just! I have Raynaud’s and this is a whole other story!!)

Night 2

Natural shelter. We spent the day constructing a natural shelter from trees, big enough for all 13 people. One of the biggest challenges here was ensuring we all fit in, including those team members that were over 6ft. Another stove in the middle – again for morale and not for heat. The day was spent taking shifts, not only had we a shelter to build but we needed to collect and melt snow for drinking water (and cooking our ration packs). We also had to find and chop down standing deadwood trees in order to maintain a fire. I found the natural shelter warmer, perhaps it was the lower ceiling, who knows! Temperatures dropped to -14.6 during the night. Hearing aids survived. Contact lenses froze!! (although my spares didn’t! Phew!). Feet nice and toasty!

Night 3

Quinzhee building. Today was the most dangerous part of the challenge. The Quinzhee took us nine hours to build (a combination of the snow melting and refreezing during the week meant it was like trying to dig out concrete). We had to ensure the snow was the same thickness throughout and had tools to do this. We did manage to put a hole in the quinzhee at one point which almost meant game over (damaging the integrity of the shelter could lead to it collapsing while we were sleeping in there so needed assessing carefully)! However, after an inspection from the experts, it was agreed we could carry on. It was the most exhausting day of the three. The quinzhee was finished just before we lost daylight. Half the team in each quinzhee. We all managed to fit in, even with the two tallest people in ours. A candle was kept lit all night. It is important to keep watch, if the candle goes out and cannot be relit everyone needs to decamp sharp! Thankfully this didn’t happen and the quinzhee didn’t collapse, despite our little sunroof. The final nights temperature dropped to -12.

Afters

Hearing loss is isolating, and I thought I was prepared practically for this on our Swedish adventure - I had boxes of batteries and a way to insulate my hearing aids from the extreme temperatures at night. That wasn’t what I struggled with. Instead it was being the only hard of hearing person in the team and not wanting to be “that person”. I did not ask for the support I needed from my teammates. This led to me feeling like an outsider, not part of the team and alone. Would I do the adventure again? ABSOLUTELY, in a heartbeat. What would I do differently? I’d ask for what I need for me to feel equal, something that I believe is important in any situation, from adventures to the workplace, and that is open conversations and teamwork.

I’m blogging about my adventures and how my disability makes me stronger – Rebecca Bockett-Pugh if you would like to read more.

For CS and Serving personnel who would like support with any disability please look for the RAF Disability and Carers Network on MODnet.

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