Pole to Pole 2000 team members from all over the world are jumping on planes to come to our training site in Western Canada. Here we will test, train, and improve our mind body connection so that we can drive to the limits of exhaustion, be clear speaking, transcend pain, and learn quicker! Some of the team have never skied before; they are from places that have no snow, South Africa and Brazil. In one month they will be skiing for ten hours a day, hauling a 100 lb sled at minus 30 degrees across the roughest frozen ocean imaginable!! We will report on the saga of their pains, fears and learnings.
 

February 27, 2000.

The intense Pole to Pole 2000 "Boot Camp," is taking place in 100 Mile House, British Columbia. Team members from 5 continents today started training for our upcoming epic journey. The day started with fitness assessments at The Hills Health Ranch, site of the training. Each member was tested for strength, flexibility, endurance and body fat. The team then met for a heart-to-heart session of the why's, the fears and the intentions of everyone involved in the journey. Next came ski training on the Hills ski trails and, as the snow started to fall, the team headed at 8.30pm to the gym for a final round of exercises. Hills fitness trainers are working with each team member to develop a training plan that will enable them to rapidly increase their performance prior to the rigorous arctic journey.
 

Day 2. Swinging through the trees

High in a spruce tree I was hanging from a nylon rope as Naoki and Mercedes made their way towards me, balancing along a wooden plank, an airy 30 feet from the snow. We are working on team building skills, helping each other to handle a number of hairy situations, in practice for the future hairy situations we will encounter!! The team does surpassingly well, and we all walk away with big smiles on our faces.

Day 3. Making friends with our sleds

We met our sleds today, our companions for the next several months. We will be hauling up to 140 lb. in the arctic on these soon. Our training involved loading them with logs and hauling the logs back to camp to be used as firewood. On the soft warm snow they slid pretty well, even so most of the team had sore hips this evening from using muscles never used before. Most of the team then went off to the gym for a workout before bed.

Day 4-5. Handling rescue situations.

Our handling of rescue situations and first aid procedures is definitely slow and confused. The language barriers and the complexity of the procedures create difficulties. Some of the team are pretty frustrated and discouraged by the tasks required and are feeling the weight of the task of traveling from Pole To Pole that they have set themselves. We share our feelings and are reminded that first aid is not easy in any language!!

Day 6-7. Hauling sleds across frozen lakes.

Our first journey takes us across a series of frozen lakes and through pine and spruce forest, our tents, food, sleeping bags on our sleds. At night we cook over a fire and melt snow for our soup and drinks. Language troubles which created such difficulties with our handling of rescue situations dissolve as we sit around the fire and relax. The team comes back excited and wanting more time out.

Beating drums, hot flesh, cold river.
By the light of a huge fire we climb into a low traditional native Indian shelter made of willow branches for a sweat lodge. Red hot rocks are placed in the middle of the shelter, the door closes and the singing of traditional Indian songs begins. The cramped shelter gets burning hot, the drums beat and I feel cleansed inside and out. We take turns to talk; our connection with nature; the diversity of cultures; our loved ones; and offer blessings to others. Climbing out on the snow I walk to the frozen creek, my bare toes becoming numb, and step into the water through the hole chopped in the ice. I can almost hear the water sizzling off my hot body.

Day 8. Rest day.

Martyn writes: It is now a week that the team has been training. My heart has been in my mouth all week as this group of young strangers, brought together by a common intent, learn the technical skills required to travel on the extremes of the planet together. I have watched as they explored how to operate as a team. Would they do well? Would they get along? I have been alternatively nervous, and delighted by what I have seen. Each individual is very different, more so than I thought they might be, and the language is difficult for some of the team, but their basic motivation is the same. I was really moved when each one spoke about their reasons for coming; of their genuine concern for the state of the world; and their belief that individuals can cooperate together to help was truly sincere. Half of the team have never skied before or winter camped and I was delighted to see how fast the team learnt about skiing, sled hauling, winter camping, and handling living in snow. The learning curve is fast and the team is up for it so far. To sum up my week: Yahoo!!
 

8th March. From Heidi.

The banging on our cabin door started at 6 AM. "Help! Help! Two people are missing!!!" With our minds moving slowly and in a rush of gloves and boots we headed over to the other log cabin where our search party was meeting. Scott, our first aid instructor, had told us the day before to stay alert for our final project, a simulation to test our first aid knowledge. This was it! Most of us had no idea it would occur before the sun had risen. We organized and set out with our sleds and skis in search of Dave and Kevin, two of our group members that had gone for a walk and been missing for the past 6 hours. Having found them, we worked as quickly as possible to move them to our camp where we warmed their frostbitten toes and fingers...

Ultimately, this little simulation was an incredible opportunity to see how we worked together as a team under severe pressure. The whole situation took me off guard and I was surprised at how quickly we reacted. Though we didnt do everything perfectly, and Kevin may have lost a toe or two had the situation been real, I feel that we learned a lot from this experience.
 

10th March

Hauling our sleds up through the forest we travel towards the alpine area of Big Timothy Mountain. We are each carrying about 50 pounds on the sleds, enough for a few nights out. The team is traveling fast, our new Fischer skis gliding well. We are also testing out our Salomon boots, and we expect blisters!! Mercedes notices her heals are getting hot so we look at the next rest break. Two bright red blisters on each heal. Mercedes is not bothered by them and one bursts while she is throwing snow balls at Naoki. We joke that she has three weeks for that skin to become tough. After five hours and 15 km of uphill travel we stop for camp as darkness and snow falls. We make a snow kitchen, so we cook on waist height platforms and sit to eat. Under the light of a crescent moon, Laurie Dexter, who has crossed the North Pole and lived in the far north for 30 years tells us stories of polar bears, and the techniques of moving in cold weather. We plan an early start, Dylan, Heidi and Jessica up at 6.30 to melt water for breakfast. The night is not cold, minus 7 degrees Celsius.
 

Devlin - March 11th 

Grateful for the chance to rest, we woke to our rest day. The team was a little stiff and looking forward to the schedule of massages and hydrotherapy. The staff at the The Hills Health Ranch, our training base, are all professionals and it wasnt long before we were lying in the hot tubs having warm jets of water soothing our strained muscles. Next it was the full body massage which was most relaxing, with some of the team close to falling asleep. I can sense the tiredness in us all. After a tremendous lunch with enough food to feed an army, it was time for a meeting with our North Pole leg leader, Laurie Dexter. Two main items on the agenda were polar bears and to set out a daily routine. Polar bears are big. They are the largest of the bears at about 700 kilograms, are very inquisitive, and have no problem eating people. This makes them a threat as we will be passing through an area known as Polar Bear Pass, an area with the second highest concentration of polar bears in the world. We mainly worked on strategies to deal with passive encounters as well as aggressive ones. There is nowhere to hide on the northern sea ice so we must be able to defend ourselves. Despite all of this, most of us are very keen on seeing one. The daily routine is simple really, but what complicates the issue are the variables. It is not so easy to put up your little tent if you are in a white-out and the temperature is -30 Celsius. All the same we will be just fine as we are all supremely focused on our goals and will not give up. So, what does the team do to relax you say? For most of us, exercise is relaxing so you would probably find Mercedes in the gym, Jessica out running and myself (Devlin) and Jay out snowboarding. On the other side we do have other stuff to do so you would find Renaud and Naoki on the computer sending e-mails and Dylan writing in his journal or studying for his Morse code exam and Heidi doing, well, Heidi stuff.

Rest day?? We think so!
 

14th March. Naoki - Japan.

We got up 7am. And we went to ski tour for 4 hour around the Hills. It was very special difficult day, because the condition of snow was really hard, icy and fast. We all fell many times. Jessica even got a scrape on her face and holes in her pants. This is very bad! After lunch we went to the creek. We had physical testing where we had to run with our backpacks and skis through snow and ice, creek, cold water, up to the mountains. We sometimes got wet, me especially! I was almost swimming in the icy creek. It was very cold and hard. Even though our feet were cold, we were sweating a lot. It was one of the hardest days yet
 

March 17th - Mercedes from Argentina writes:

The morning started at 6 am. It was a snowy and windy day. When I stuck my head out of the tent the landscape was shocking. The mountains were magnificent and the trees were towering. It was lightly snowing and foggy. The beauty of it all made me feel as if I were in paradise. I remembered how badly I felt yesterday, my blisters hurt very badly, the cold was getting to me, and I was tired. But at the time these things didn't seem to matter because I could only feel the peace of it all.

We finished packing up at about 9 am. We started to feel cold and tried to jump up and down and rub our hands to get warm, at least until we started skiing. We skied the whole afternoon, around the slope of the mountains and across narrow paths between burned pines and steep hills. Some of the team members fell many times, like me, others did very well and improved their telemarking skills. It was very funny! We had lunch in an abandoned cabin on the trail and this time I started to feel quite tired. Each step of the way, my sled felt heavier and heavier and it kept flipping over, almost as if it were playing with me!

At night, we started our public presentation seminars with Hugh Culver. It was very intensive work since the following two days would determine our presentations for the next 9 months. It was a long and hard day, but it only makes us stronger and more confident as a team.
 

March 19th - Devlin

Today was an intense one. We had done most of the foundation work for our public presentations yesterday and today was about refining and some practice. We kicked off with us practising our story telling. This was one of our most powerful sessions with the whole team sharing incredible insights into the morals and lessons behind their stories. We also had the chance to offer some positive feedback as well as advice. It became very evident that we are a talented bunch of young adults who share a real passion for the project.

Thereafter it was more grinding debate about this multi-faceted aspect of our journey. Things covered included being able to say what we wanted in short time allowed as well as how to make it relative to our audience and have some interaction with them. With so many important issues to discuss it is difficult to do them justice but we can only do our best.

All in all, it was an intense but productive day that will be invaluable to our journey.
 

March 24 - Jessica

What an exciting day!!! We kayaked a great river with canyons, rapids and small waterfalls after two days of training and learning new kayaking skills.

It was an amazing rush! A couple of the team members have been kayaking for a long time, so they were of big help to the rest of us who had never kayaked at all. Our instructors were also amazing, we learned sooo much in just three days and were finally tested on the river all day. We went through a few rapids that seemed to be huge to those of us who had never paddled before, and at the end, we were tested with a massive gorge. Most of us ended up being turned upside down after we hit wave after wave coming at us from all directions, and swimming through this beautiful gorge. I was able to make it through safe and sound, with energy to spare. It was awesome to be out on the ice cold water under the warm sun all day. The way home was a quiet one as we all relaxed and realized that in just one week our incredible trek commences.
 

March 25 - Mercedes writes:

Today was an exciting and very different day. We spent the morning and afternoon with Chris Griscom, author of 7 books on the mind body spirit connection and founder of the Nizhoni School for Global Consciousness. She is a very magnetic and calm person. We did exercises to explore these subtle and very powerful connections; how to listen to our bodies messages, and use positive energy in our body. It is amazing how sometimes even if you don't understand or believe if you open up your spirit, you can feel the sensations inside you. This is something that the entire team will need for the next month, we will need to use our minds to control our bodies.

After dinner we had an incredible experience within the team facilitated by Chris...each person had a few minutes to talk every team member. We talked what love most and least about that person...it was a very open time, we talked about what we hated in each other, what bugged us, what was driving us crazy! My eyes welled up with tears of love at times. It helped the team be more comfortable together. It was a wonderful exercise.
 

Renaud - March 26

The countdown is getting faster, in 5 days we'll be gone from The Hills, our training camp, and heading to the Magnetic North Pole. We worked the physical and technical abilities during the previous weeks and this week-end was focused on mind and energy. On such a difficult subject, the reactions are very different from one to another and it's once more a good way to learn about each other. To me it was altogether interesting to see some other ways of thinking, good to speak about personal subjects, but also very difficult to stay focused when I did not really feel much or agree with what is being taught ! Anyway, we're all different and there are a lot of people around the world with different experiences. I consider all of them with a lot of respect as long as their goal is to speak about their truth and not to pretend it is the only truth. I feel this is the way things have gone this week-end and it was still a good time. However I must admit I enjoyed taking a break and going in the evening to the cinema and watch a movie: "American Beauty". Go and watch it, it's really a good one. It's about changing and enjoying our life and our environment ...not too far from what we are doing and what we want to speak about to all of you!!!
 

I'm Jay Choi, Pole to Pole Challenger from South Korea.

We had a small presentation to give today. The audience included 15 and 16 year old students. I was so nervous to stand up in front of so many people. They were all looking at me, and waiting for me to say something. I was really confused and I don't even remember what I said now. However, we are all going to prepare for presentations, learn skills, and practise. I hope we do well. I'm learning many new things and everyday I feel like I'm growing.
 

Renaud Richard, France - My backcountry ski trip.

Just imagine big hills surrounded by huge 3 to 4 hundred years old trees, and many areas where trees have been cut and replanted : that gives a lot of colors and different shapes to each hill. Add a pretty road full of packed and fresh snow that follows the valley and you might have an idea of what we experienced! For the camping, two night outside which were not too cold: -7°C for the coldest. It might seem cold but check the gear we have in the sponsor list, they make good stuff. Actually I hope so because North Pole will be much colder and longer!!! I'll tell you some more after the Pole when I will have all my toes and fingers with me attached as usual. That will mean this gear is good and we know how to use it with an accurate knowledge of our bodies.

By the way, next time you go winter camping try something we did with my friend Dylan, the Canadian guy: once the tents are ready, you have eaten, and the night has fallen, go and have a ski tour in the middle of the forest without using your headlamp. You will see how nature is powerful and beautiful! Trees look like giants planted in a thick layer of pure white snow under the stars, and if you stop moving you will hear the silent they offer to the planet.

Just one detail: don't get lost ! Because even if we have practised on first aid and looking after cold people, we might be too far from where you are to help you !!!

And, Dylan, I hope you don't mind me sharing all this stuff with other people?! If you do: too late, man!