WEBVTT - The Turning Point 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.040 The Quest for the North Pole is a production of 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:18.079 I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. It's June and Norwegian 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.480 polar explorer fritch Off Nonson is waking up after another 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.560 frigid night spent on Frontio's of Land. It's an uninhabited 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.639 archipelago north of Siberia in the Arctic Ocean. With his 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:34.560 assistant Yalmar Johansen still snoozing nearby, Nonsense starts a fire, 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:37.519 tosses some meat into a pot to make soup, and 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.960 climbs the top of Rocky Hill to admire the view. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.080 That's when he hears it, the unmistakable sound of dog's bargain. 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:48.960 He's shocked because their last sled dog died months ago. 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.320 The two explorers haven't laid eyes on another human since 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.640 they abandoned their ice bound ship, the From on March. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.840 They had left Norway, and soon after the From was 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.000 stuck in ice. This was by design. Nonson wanted to 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.600 drift to the North Pole on ocean currents, but after 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.920 a year and a half a drift, Nonson realized they 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:17.320 weren't going to make it. He and Johnson tried unsuccessfully 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.640 to ski to the pole. Now they'd retreated hundreds of 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.000 miles over ice and open water to this spot, and 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.880 they had many more to go before rescue could be contemplated. 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.280 So when Nonson hears far off barks, he tells himself 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.559 it's probably just birds. Then he hears the noise again. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.039 Now he's almost certain that dogs and their human handlers 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:43.000 must be close by. He wakes Johnson, but his companion 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.959 doubts this news. Nonson locates what he thinks are dog tracks, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.680 and then he hears an even more thrilling sound, a 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.680 human shout, which he returns with a mighty cry of 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.280 his own. He hurries towards the noise and sees a 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.880 figure he later describes as a civilized European in an 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.600 English check suit and high rubber water boots, well shaved, 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.200 well groomed, bringing with him a perfume of scented soap. 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.560 It's Frederick Jackson, a British explorer task with charting a 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.200 land route to the North Pole. Nonsense, shaggy hairt and 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.960 caked and soot in Walver's grease is much less identifiable. 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:24.799 Halfway through their conversation, Jackson finally places the face. Aren't 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:29.200 you nonsen? He exclaims, and Nonson confirms it. I congratulate 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.000 you most heartily, Jackson says, amid lots of beaming and handshaking. 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.400 You have made a good trip of it, and I'm 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.000 awfully glad to be the first person to congratulate you 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:42.760 on your return. A surprising encounter with any long lost 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.679 explorer is caused for celebration, but nonsense safe return was 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.320 extra thrilling. Until then, the quest for the North Pole 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.519 had been mostly a procession of massive expeditions. Government and 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.640 private investors had funneled their money into ships that carried 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.919 over a hundred crew and luxury is like libraries and 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:06.400 printing presses. Nonsense expedition was the opposite, a custom engineered 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.120 vessel with a small crew and equipment he designed for 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:14.080 polar travel. His success not only astonished people, it also 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.240 ushered in a new era of polar exploration that favored 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:22.239 test and theories over wishful thinking, self organization over government sponsorship, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:27.679 and minimalism over the idea that bigger was better. But 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.519 before Nonsense triumph, British explorers were still trying to reach 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.480 the North Pole the old fashioned way. In the seventies, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.840 polar explorers were professionals backed by world powers and independent 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.440 adventurers with big dreams but little experience. Some failed and 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.400 some died, but others got closer to the mythical point 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.200 on the map than ever before and lived to tell 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.760 about it. The international competition to be the first of 0:03:54.840 --> 0:04:06.160 the poll was on from Mental Floss and I Heart Radio. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.119 This is the Quest for the North Bowl. I'm your host, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.200 Cat Long, Science editor at Mental Floss and this is 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:25.080 episode three, the turning Point. By the second half of 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.880 the nineteenth century, many of Britain's esteemed pioneers were no 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:34.400 longer leading the Arctic charge. Admiralty's second Secretary, Sir John Barrow, 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.680 who had spearheaded Britain's polar exploration campaign for decades, had 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.719 passed away in eighty eight. The fate of Sir John Franklin, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.800 who became the most famous explorer on Earth because he 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.720 and all of his men perished in the Arctic, had 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.080 come to light in eighteen fifty nine. For all the 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.320 British effort put towards navigating the Northwest Passage, the discoveries 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.480 of the last several decades had proven what William Scoresby 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.360 asserted back in eighteen seventeen that it just wasn't worth 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:09.280 it commercially speaking, but the country's huge emotional and financial 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.560 investment in polar discovery made throwing in the tell now 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.240 seem almost disgraceful. As nations like Russia, the US and 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.559 what is now Norway set their sides on the region, 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.880 Britain started viewing the North Pole as a symbol of 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:27.839 its continuing dominance. As Arctic veteran and British Army general 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.160 Edward Saban wrote in the eighteen sixties, to reach the 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.479 Poll is the greatest geographical achievement which can be attempted, 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.039 and I own I should grieve if it should first 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.440 be accomplished by any other than an Englishman, it will 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.320 be the crowning enterprise of those Arctic researches in which 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:47.400 our country has hitherto had the pre eminence. The public 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.760 easily latched onto this idea of a single glamorous spot 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:55.560 on the map. The North Pole was a fundamentally romantic goal, 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:00.400 promising glory to anyone who could achieve it. That's Edward J. Larson, 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.280 a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and the author of An 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.160 Empire of Ice, Scott Shackleton and the Heroic Age of 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:12.240 Antarctic science. Now, the winner might cash in through publishing 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.440 contracts and speaking these in his country, I guess would 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.320 gain prestige in an ever more imperialistic and nationalist engage. 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.560 But no one, and this is important to remember as 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:28.680 distinguishing Arctic exploration with Antarctic, or with African or with 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:34.320 South Pacific exploration. No one expected a conquest of concrete 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:39.480 value because the North Pole was merely a point on 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.520 fifting ice with no appreciable scientific value. Maybe that last 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.279 part is a bit mean. In eighty five, Sir Clements 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.720 Robert Markham, then Secretary and future President of the Royal 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.840 Geographical Society, gave a long list of scientific advancements that 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.200 could only be accomplished by trying for the poll. The 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.880 British citiz sins and key officials were pushing for a 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.479 government sponsored expedition to plant the Union Jack at ninety 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.040 degrees north, and scientific value ranked much lower on the 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.360 list of priorities. While earlier Arctic exploration was all about 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.600 charting the entire Northwest passage, this latest phase focused on 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:22.800 simply getting to the North Pole. Here's Larson again. Once reached. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.040 Some ask even at the time, who would ever want 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.840 to go again. But it was that sort of a 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.480 romantic goal. At a time when machines were replacing men 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.240 as the engines of production, and faceless bureaucrat seemed to 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.640 be taking the place of principal leaders, here was an objective, 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:46.160 a goal requiring invincible will, indefagable drive, and indomitable courage. 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:53.200 In short, attaining the goal was a fundamentally human achievement. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.480 The British Admiralty would need a dauntless, dashing leader to 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.880 be the face of that uniquely human spirit for the 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.600 new mission. They found it in Sir George Strong Nare's 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.920 Nars was a forty four year old career naval officer 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.840 with a dynamite resume and limitless ambition. After enlisting in 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.320 the Royal Navy at the ripe old age of fourteen, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.600 he embarked on a series of voyages that whisked him 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:24.520 through the Mediterranean, South Pacific, Red Sea, Australian Waters and beyond. 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.400 He was captain of the HMS Challenger on its mission 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.480 to study the Ocean. He served in the Crimean War. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.920 He even authored a best selling naval manual titled Seamanship. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.560 Naire's was no stranger to the Arctic either. In eighteen 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.240 fifty two, he joined an expedition to find Sir John 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.319 Franklin and his missing ships. They didn't, of course, but 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.400 they ended up saving a previous rescue expedition which was 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.320 marooned and ice. As the Admiralty prepared to send Nears 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.319 north again, the British public was swept up in a 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.880 nationalistic fervor, much like the feeling in the US during 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.520 the twentieth century space race. The North Pole was the moon, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:09.040 George Naire's was a hopeful Neil Armstrong, and newspapers like 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.400 The Illustrated London News and The Graphic reported faithfully on 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.520 every emerging detail. It soon became clear that while the 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:20.040 government had updated its primary goal, it hadn't updated the 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:25.319 strategy or structure of the expedition at all. This wasn't surprising. 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.080 Most expeditions from the era followed a certain predictable pattern. 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:34.640 There's a series of absolute, catastrophically mismanaged and or fatal 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.680 expeditions to the North Pole or attempts on the North Pole. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.600 That's p J. Cappellotti, a professor of anthropology at Penn 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.280 State Abington's and the author of the Greatest show in 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.840 the Arctic. The US Army had one, the Navy had 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:49.880 one in the U s Navy had one. The British 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.920 Nari's expedition in the middle of the eighteen seventies have 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.440 been pretty much of a disaster. So these big national 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.200 expeditions were turning out to be complete flops. The because 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.640 they were big, they were unwieldy, overplanned, staffed with the 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.199 East you know, dozens and dozens of crew members and 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:12.000 so forth. Nares Expedition, which was formally christened the British 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.400 Arctic Expedition, would consist of two similarly sized ships. Nares 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.200 would command the flagship, a one d and sixty foot 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.400 steam sloop named the HMS Alert, and Henry F. Stevenson 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.960 would captain the HMS Discovery, a one hundred and sixty 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.640 six ft steam whaler. Anticipating ice flows battery, the ships 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.319 builders had outfitted their holes with sturdy wooden beams and 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:43.559 iron plating. Each ship would house thirteen officers, which comprised captains, lieutenants, surgeons, 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:48.199 and scientific leaders, basically anyone allowed to give orders. The 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.599 rest of the men on board followed those orders. In 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.240 addition to able seamen, stewards, and cooks. This group also 0:10:55.320 --> 0:11:00.640 included carpenters, Cooper's furnace stokers, and ice quartermasters. There was 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.800 even a rope maker. Altogether, one and twenty people would 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.839 set sail for the poll, just slightly smaller than the 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.840 number that perished with John Franklin a few decades earlier. 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.920 With that catastrophe still fresh in memory, the Admiralty might 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.959 have tried to risk fewer lives this time around, but 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.160 people were reluctant to entertain the idea that the Naires 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:28.040 expedition would be anything besides a smashing success. Naire's downplayed 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.920 the hazards in a lecture at the Winchester Guildhall weeks 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:35.360 before departure. According to the Paul Mall Gazette, he claimed 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.760 that the danger of the present expedition became mere child's 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:45.439 play when compared with what previous explorers had undergone. Naires 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.720 may have had enough experience to feel like he could 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.319 speak so confidently, but the same couldn't be said for 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.959 his officers, who had limited Arctic experience at best. This 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.480 might have been okay if they had taken the advice 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.400 of previous explorers and or study the time tested techniques 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.000 of Inuit. In the North. They didn't do either. For example, 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.400 Innuit favored loose fitting, fur lined sealskin for apparel, complete 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.640 with hooded parkas that prevented heat from escaping around their necks. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.800 NAR's and his crew donned form fitting flannel and woolen 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:20.160 clothing that was a huge pain to strip off when 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.040 it got wet and froze, which happened often. There wasn't 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:29.760 a hood in sight. Hudson's Bay Company surveyor John Ray, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.240 who had spent years exploring the Canadian Arctic, tried again 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.240 and again to share innuitat wisdom with the explorers Before 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.200 their departure. He told them that sheltering in snow instead 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.360 of intense would better insulate them from the cold and 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.880 also keep them from having to lug tense and heavy 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.800 betting around. They didn't listen. Ray even shared his Innuit 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.520 inspired design for a lighter, more streamlined sledge that was 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.240 less likely to sink or get stuck in deep snow. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.280 There's expedition still did for the heavy, clumsy sledges used 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:06.520 on past Navy trips. One person did act on at 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.400 least one of Ray's recommendations and brought snowshoes, even though 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.720 other so called experts had assured everyone that they wouldn't 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.880 be necessary. When the other crew members spotted the snow 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.719 shoes on the ship, they burst into laughter. An a 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.600 side note, back in the eighteen fifties, Ray had learned 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.320 from the Inuit the fate of the doomed Franklin crew. 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.839 It seemed they had even resorted to cannibalism. Well true 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.280 that offended Victorian sensibilities so much that Ray became a pariah. 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.040 That may have played into nares reluctance to heat his advice. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.280 On May seventy five, the Alert and the Discovery set 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.959 sail from Portsmouth Harbor with great fanfare, and the public 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.920 prepared to follow what they expected to be the greatest 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:56.480 adventure story ever told Beneath its confident surface. However, the 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:01.240 expedition was a disaster in the making, as the Canadian 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.400 historian Pierre Berton writes in his book The Arctic Graill. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.719 Badly and hastily organized, with a smugness and an arrogance that, 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.080 in hindsight seem almost criminal. This band of amateurs set 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.760 off blithely, as so many had before it, without any 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:21.320 real idea of what they were facing. It wouldn't take 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.600 long for them to find out. The two ships sailed 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.960 up Kennedy Channel, with Canada's Ellesmere Island to the west 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.480 and Greenland to the east. They followed the path blazed 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.960 by American explorer Charles Francis Hall in eighteen seventy one 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.640 and hope to put the question of the open Polar 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.400 Sea to rest once and for all. As we've discussed 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.160 in previous episodes, this was a theory that a warm 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.280 ocean circled by a ring of ice surrounded the North Pole. 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.480 If a ship could break through the ice, they'd find 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.120 a navigable sea to take them to the pole. Nares 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.680 was smart enough to doubt this theory, and once the 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.680 ships were through the Kennedy Channel they saw massive ice 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.600 flow was over thirty ft tall, and a maze of 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.280 craggy ice that seemed to reach the horizon. The commander 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.720 realized immediately that no ship could sail to the pole. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.640 Stevenson stationed the discovery in Lady Franklin Bay and started 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.120 preparing to spend the winter there. Nares, farther north than 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.360 Robeson Channel, needed to find somewhere safe to pass the 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.000 winter and fast before the ice froze around them. They 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.080 sailed northwest and ended up anchoring in an inlet near 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.600 the northern edge of Ellesmere Island, about five miles from 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:37.160 the pole. As the puffin flies just beyond their insulated refuge, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.640 thirty thousand ton ice chunks formed a fifty foot Wallnar's 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.840 first mate, Albert Hastings Markham, later described the vista as 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.800 a solid, impenetrable mass that no amount of imagination or 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.560 theoretical belief could ever twist into an open polar sea. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.720 They spent the long winter reading and playing parlor games 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.840 they construct at an observatory for skygazing, and even staged 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.680 plays in the Royal Arctic Theater in English polar traditions, 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:12.120 started by William Edward Perry in eighteen nas recalled owing 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.240 to the large size of the lower deck, we are 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.960 enabled to erect the stage there with a temperature of 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.480 fifty degrees, an advantage appreciated by both actors and audience. 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.400 A representation held on the upper deck with a temperature 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:29.000 of about twenty degrees below zero, leads everyone to long 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.800 for the finale. At an early hour. In spring eighteen 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.960 seventy six, two dogs led teams from the alert tried 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.920 and failed to reunite with the discovery. NAIs felt like 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.400 the dogs couldn't handle all the ice hammocks. In reality, 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.560 the untrained men and bulky sledges were probably more at 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.800 fault than the animals. How hard is it to drive 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.280 a dog's lad? Anyway? Here's Russell Potter, an expert on 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.960 Arctic history at Rhode Island College and the author of 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.240 Finding Franklin, The Untold story of a one heard in 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.520 sixty five year Search. I worked some years ago up 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.560 in the Arctic with a guy he was actually the 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.399 safety officer on the Nova show we did about the 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.920 Franklin expedition, and he's a dog driver and a guide. 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.400 And I said, well, what do you do to train 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.280 dogs to pull? And he said, you don't. You just 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.600 took them up in the pull. But having them pull 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.840 in an organized way, you know, the traditional innud way 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:26.320 as leads that are made out of sauce and sealskin, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.560 making sure the leads don't get tangled, figuring out who 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.160 the lead dog is going to be, keeping your dogs 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:36.160 in order while you travel. That takes a fair amount 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.520 of practice. You can't just learn it like you riding 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.320 a bicycle or something. You would have to spend some months, 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.480 if not longer, sort of apprenticing to people who know 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.359 what they're doing, and eventually you get the hang of it. 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.160 But most explorers are in the Arctic to get someplace 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.920 or discover something, not to learn the art of dogs letting. 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.680 So few did, and their preference for manpower over dog 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.520 power was baked into British polar culture. I think there 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.440 is an aspect to it that is particularly British, the 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.560 idea that somehow if you were to use any labor 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.359 other than human labor, you would be cheating right that, 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.720 And that's certainly going native as some people would have 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.119 regarded it at the time, will be regarded as a 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.760 as a failing of some kind. So they did on 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.000 some of the Franklin searches, and Franklin himself brought some sleds, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.359 but the idea of pulling them was to have men 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.159 pulled them instead of dogs, which was of course a 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:34.760 much worse way of traveling. On April three, Albert Markham 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.240 and another officer named Pelham Aldridge led to more teams 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.879 without dogs to explore the region. They promptly fell victim 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.680 to just about everything John Ray had tried to help 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:50.600 them avoid. Without snowshoes, they slogged through waste high snow, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.320 which soaked their clothes and gear. They're sleeping bags froze 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.720 into solid slabs. Their supplies were saturated with water and ice, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.880 adding weight to their all atty heavy loads. Miserable, yes, 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:07.280 but those issues were nothing compared to scurvy. Scurvy is 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.120 caused by a lack of vitamin C, which humans can't 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.400 produce on their own. As long as you occasionally eat 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.040 fresh fruits and vegetables, you're probably consuming enough vitamin C 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.040 that you never have to worry about developing it. Positions 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.040 in the nineteenth century didn't yet understand that scurvy is 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.359 caused by a vitamin C deficiency, since vitamin C was 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.480 only discovered in the twentieth century, but they did know 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:34.680 that eating fresh fruits and veggies seemed to cure it. Unfortunately, 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.600 for polar explorers, fresh produce was almost impossible to come 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.920 by on long journeys, so the Admiralty issued lemon or 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:46.560 lime juice rations to all sailors. The nearest expedition did 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.440 have lime juice on board, but the sledging parties didn't 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.640 bring any with them since it would freeze and break 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:56.000 its glass containers. Instead, each man had only about twelve 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.760 ounces of salted meat per day to see him through 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:03.800 all that grueling aabor, and nothing to prevent scurvy. Just 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.760 as naval officials had reassured nars as men that the 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.160 snug clothing, heavy sledges, and lack of snow shoes would 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.360 all be fine, so too did they wave away worries 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.960 about the potential for scurvy. When several members of the 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.200 sledging team started to feel under the weather, Marcom and 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.320 Aldrich chalked it up to fatigue. But fatigue is an 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:29.080 early symptom of scurvy. Others are joint pain, bruising, and irritability, 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:33.520 which could all be explained by their general situation. Severe 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:38.320 symptoms are a little more telling, spongy, blackened gums, teeth 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.600 that loosen or fall out, and healed wounds that start 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:47.400 to bleed again. Markham headed north and Aldridge continued westward. 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.520 As their men became more debilitated, each officer faced a 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.040 grave emergency. If they didn't turn around and get some 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.359 lime juice into their men, they would die. On May twelve, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.160 Markham's stuck the British flag into the ice at eighty 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.520 three degrees twenty minutes north, still four hundred and sixties 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.480 statute miles from the pole, and high tailed it back 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.600 to the alert. Aldridge traveled another two hundred statute miles 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:18.000 west before turning back. Most of the men survived thanks 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.960 to the heroic efforts of Lieutenant A. A. C. Par 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:26.000 and some quick thinking on Nares's part. On June seven, 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.439 Par left Markham's party and traveled alone for forty miles 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:33.080 in twenty three hours to get help. Nara's deployed men 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.680 and dogsleds to rescue them and soon send a party 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.359 to Altridge's crew, assuming they were in a similar bind. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.080 They were. Four men were lying on the sledges and 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.639 the others were dragging them through the snow. The rescuers 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.600 delivered everyone back to the alert, where scurvy was ripping 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:53.200 through the remaining men. Nara's realized it was time to 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.119 pack it in unless you lose the whole crew. He 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.440 used gunpowder to break up the ice around the ship 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.200 and set sail towards the disc every In mid September, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.520 the Discovery was also battling scurvy and two men had 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:10.200 died on a sledging trip. Fortunately, the Inuit hunter, interpreter 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.719 and dog driver Hans Hendrick, a veteran of several British 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.480 and American polar expeditions, was a part of the Discovery's crew. 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.000 He had rescued the others by hunting seals and doling 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:27.119 out raw meat, which contains some vitamin C. This was 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.199 another helpful hint that white explorers could have picked up 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.679 from Innuit who staved off scurvy despite having few greens 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.280 in their diet. Their traditional foods included raw meat, and 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.639 they sometimes ate predigested plant matter from the stomachs of 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:44.760 caribou they killed. The crews of the Alert and Discovery 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.719 were too depleted to do much beyond staying alive long 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:51.439 enough to get home, and Nares knew it. Without reaching 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.280 their goal, the two ships charted a course towards England. 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.760 They arrived there on November two, eighty six to a 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:03.800 mixed reception. Banquets were held, medals were awarded, and Queen 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.440 Victoria even sent a congratulatory message, but the media lambasted 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.480 the expedition for falling short of its single goal and 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:16.040 embarrassing the nation on a global stage. The Admiralty agreed 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.440 and actually launched an investigation to find out why scurvy 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:23.160 was such an issue. They eventually came to the conclusion 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:26.280 that in future expeditions there should be less rum and 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:32.160 more lime juice. Objectively, the expedition wasn't a complete disaster. 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:37.439 It had surveyed land and recorded new scientific data, established 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:40.120 that Ellesmere Island was part of Canada and thus part 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.040 of the British Commonwealth, and set a new record for 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.040 northern progress. If the government and the press had both 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:49.959 set different expectations from the beginning, it could have been 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:54.520 considered victory. Alas there's his failure to achieve his one 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:57.080 note goal of reaching the North Pole made the whole 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:02.399 effort seem like a failure overall. The Royal Navy relinquished 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:06.600 its hope articulated by Edward Sabin, that British adventurers would 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.640 stand atop the world. In fact, Britain did a complete 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:14.040 one eighty and focused its attention on conquering the South Bowl. 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:17.240 That left a door open for other nations to succeed 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:39.440 in the North. We'll be right back. While Britain was 0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:42.960 busy dealing with the fallout from Nares's expedition. A teenaged 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:46.120 fritsch Off Nonson was honing his skiing skills in Norway. 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:51.560 Nonson was born outside Oslo, then called Christiania, in sixty 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:54.320 one to a successful lawyer father and a mother who 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:58.879 raised capable, outdoorsy kids. By the time Nonson enrolled in 0:24:58.920 --> 0:25:02.320 the University of oz Low in one, he was sort 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:06.720 of an ubermanch physically and mentally. He could skate, swim, 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.359 sketch and ski better than most, and he showed a 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:17.520 special aptitude for learning science. While studying zoology in college, 0:25:17.560 --> 0:25:20.680 he spent months on a ceiling ship in Greenland, embarked 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:23.880 on long ski trips. Has served as the Bergen Museum's 0:25:23.920 --> 0:25:28.440 zoological curator. Here's a portrait of nonsense, in Capalotti's words, 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:34.240 very cultured, educated, well read, multiple languages, all of that 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:36.960 on the one hand, and on the other hand, this 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:40.720 almost primitive human, which again is the other half of 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:46.200 the Norwegian character, living outdoors, playing outdoors, surviving out of 0:25:46.280 --> 0:25:50.280 doors in all seasons at all ages. This is somebody 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:52.159 who strapped on his first pair of skis when he 0:25:52.240 --> 0:25:54.800 was two, and later in life would sort of laugh 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:56.640 at people who were trying to learn how to ski. 0:25:57.440 --> 0:26:01.680