Wired Women: Antarctic Explorers
March 21, 2001 -- Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen just spent 94 days pulling 250-pound sledsacross 1,717 miles of the most inhospitable landscape in the world.
We’re talking the distance from LA to Chicago, dragging somethingthe size of Arnold Schwarzenegger, in average temperatures of -30Fahrenheit. On skis.
But when they were airlifted out of McMurdo Station Feb. 19, Arnesen andBancroft — exhausted and triumphant — had become the firstwomen in history to cross Antarctica on foot.
They did it after two years of intensive training, with major corporatesupport, under the guidance of a savvy marketing team — and with the helpof every high-tech, frost-resistantgizmo and gadget known to modern woman.
Gritty, Gutsy and 21st Century
For while Arnesen and Bancroft may be as gritty and gutsy as their historicpredecessors, they’ve also got a 21st-century advantage: They’re a coupleof wired women.
In addition to food, fuel and clothing, the two women hauled with them acollection of high-powered, lightweight equipmentthat tracked their location and transmitted voicemail.
It included an ApplePowerbook computer, an Iridium satellite telephone (on loan from the U.S. Army), asolar panel, a couple of Motorola TalkAbout radios, and several GlobalPositioning Systemgadgets. Total weight: under 15 pounds. Total value (retail): $25,000.
And well worth it. In 1993, when Bancroft led an expedition to the South Pole, she hauled along a 30-pound radio to keep in touch with her sister, stationed in Chile to receive the transmissions. The system stalled, the messages were garbled, and the inefficiency factor was high.
This time, the two adventurers left daily voicemail — viasatellite — with their support staff in Minnesota, which passed theinformation along to fans in 100 countries, including 3 millionschoolchildren. Photos of the trek were broadcast around the world. The expedition got more than 20,000 e-mail messages.
To top it off, Arnesen and Bancroft made the rounds of late-nighttelevision last week.
A Different Kind of Celebrity
But a gig on the Letterman Show is not exactly what Arnesen and Bancrofthadin mind when they decided to conquer the frozen tundra.
The two women grew up on opposite sides of the globe but were kindredspirits nonetheless. As children, both read the story of Sir ErnestShackleton’s legendary and disastrous attempt to reach the South Pole in 1915, and both vowed—independently—to ski across Antarctica someday.
They grew up, went to college and became teachers—Bancroft, now 45, anelementary school teacher in Minnesota and Arnesen, 47, a high schoolteacher in Norway. And both led successful expeditions to the South Pole —Bancroft in 1993; Arnesen became the first woman to make the trip solo, in 1994.
They corresponded by snail mail in 1993 but didn’t meet face to face untilOctober of 1998. The rest, as they say, isadventuring history.
Next Project
The two are already looking to the future: they’ve helped establishBancroft ArnesenExplore, a for-profit company dedicated to supporting and promoting women’sexpeditions. Its first project will help send 16 Maryland high school girlstoclimb Nevado Chinchey, a 20,408-foot peak in the Peruvian Andes in May.
“[The company] represents our ongoing effort to inspire people to pursuetheir dreams, no matter how different or how difficult it may seem toachieve those dreams,” Bancroft said in a press release.
Not to mention it’ll help the two women come up with the bucks tosupport their next major adventure, wherever it happens to take them.
And don’t you worry: they’ll let you know, well in advance. They have everyreason—and every tech tool they’ll need — to keep in touch.
A teacher and a journalist, Dianne Lynch is the author of Virtual Ethics. Wired Women appears on alternate Wednesdays.