WEBVTT - Triumph by Snowmobile 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.040 The Quest for the North Pole is a production of 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:12.680 I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. It's April and an 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.279 insurance salesman from Minnesota named Ralph Plistead is looking down 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.400 at his feet. He's standing on an ice flow in 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.239 the Arctic with ten thousand feet of frigid water below, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:30.240 and the ice is getting softer. Plystead looks around. Miles 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.400 of ice covered oceans surround him in all directions. He's 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.240 only days into his attempt to reach the North Pole, 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.280 and things look as grim as they've ever been. Plistead 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.480 and his team of amateur explorers have endured fuel shortages, 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.840 howling storms, and forgotten supplies, but now just a few 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.680 inches of precarious ice separates them from a watery grave. 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.000 For days, they probe the ice with chisels. They hope 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.639 for sure footing and an extrusion that will connect them 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:05.319 to another flow. Finally one appears placed It and his 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.640 men scramble onto their snowmobiles, preparing to ride over to 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.720 the fragile surface. Like Daredevil's Plastad doesn't want to do it. 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:18.319 It's a preposterous plan, but there's no other choice. The 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.840 flows finally touch the men rev their engines and surge 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:28.240 forward incredibly impossibly, it works. Three of the four, including 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.600 ply Stead, make it across. Then they hear a crack. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.160 Pl Stad looks back. There's his friend, Walter Peterson, caught 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.160 in the lead between the ice flows and he's sinking. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:45.320 Pliestad bolts across the surface, feet meeting ice the consistency 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.560 of a slurpie. He reaches out for Peterson, grabs his 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.840 snowmobile and pulls as hard as he can. Today, four 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:58.960 will survive or two will die. How had they even 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:02.640 gotten to this point? Ralph Plystead was no one's idea 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.400 of an action hero. In his late thirties with a 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.320 Wilford Brimley esque mustache, ply Stead was just an insurance 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:14.280 salesman from Minnesota. And insurance salesman, while members of a 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:19.760 noble profession, aren't necessarily equipped for Arctic expeditions. Would he 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.960 be able to save his friend? And what was really 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.520 behind this unlikely mission to reach the North Pole? In 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:38.680 this episode, we'll find out from Mental Floss and I 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.240 Heart Radio. This is the Quest for the North Pole. 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.960 I'm your host, Cat Long, science editor at Mental Floss, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:03:01.120 and this is episode eight Triumph by Snowmobile By the 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.200 time Ralph Plistead was sinking into the ice, it had 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.440 been fifty nine years since Robert Pierry and Matthew Henson 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.640 claimed to conquer the pole in nineteen o nine. After 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.640 that momentous adventure and ensuing controversy with Frederick Cooke, which 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.519 we laid out in our previous episode, a parade of airships, 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:24.640 airplanes and submarines had traveled to the Pole. The airship Norga, 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:29.280 led by Roald Amondson with American aviator Lincoln Ellsworth as navigator, 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.720 an Italian engineer Ambaritoe noble Ay as pilot, flew over 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:38.960 the North Pole. In a few days earlier, American aviator 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:41.880 Richard E. Byrd claimed to have flown his plane over 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:46.680 the North Pole, but skeptics later questioned his veracity. In 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.680 ninety eight, the US nuclear submarine Nautilus made the first 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.760 underwater cruise to the geographic North Pole, gliding under the ice, 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.520 and the following year the American nuclear sub Skate pushed 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.240 through the field to become the first to surface at 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:07.000 the pole. But those were explorers and vessels. Trekking to 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.960 the North Pole over miles of ice was still a 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:15.560 romantic mission one that attracted adventurers with iron constitutions, men 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.600 who had made a life and career of pushing the envelope, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.680 Men who were completely and utterly unlike Ralph Plystead, who 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.160 had never even been to the Arctic, and after he 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:30.640 had gotten there, remarked, boy, it's cold up there. Plystead 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.040 was determined to succeed where many had not. He had 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.960 read National geographic issues cover to cover and knew the 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.000 accounts of Peary and Henson by heart. What Plistead lacked 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.719 in personal polar experience, he made up for an enthusiasm. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.440 And while men like Robert Peery were driven by a 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.840 need to make history, Plistead was driven by a dare 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.279 maid in a bar. Granted, Plistead wasn't a guy you 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.040 typically find lounging around the house on weekend. As a 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.920 naval officer, he had served in the Pacific Theater during 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.280 World War Two before returning to Minnesota to begin a 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:11.840 series of odd jobs. Ply Stead was a born salesman. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.520 He went door to door with a variety of goods 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:19.200 like fly spray and cattle vitamins. Then he began selling insurance, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.240 which was his true calling. Pretty soon he owned his 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.720 own company. He was also an avid outdoorsman who had 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.840 a special affinity for skidoos. This brand of snowmobile was 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.560 starting to gain popularity after being introduced in nineteen fifty nine. 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:39.400 They were particularly suited for snowy Minnesota. Minnesota has a 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:44.680 thriving snowmobile culture. That's Bill Conberry, the director of research 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.640 for the Minnesota Historical Society and an expert in the 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.440 state's history. Although in the nineteen sixties, when had got 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.760 his first snowmill built, the consumer culture of snowmobil ing 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.320 had just started. But today a lot of Minnesota's own snowmobiles. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.760 It becomes the merry away they get around in the wintertime. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.880 It's a major source of recreation, and Minnesotan's pride themselves 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.720 on their ability to endure extreme cold temperatures, and certainly 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.640 ply Stead fits in that category. Ply Stead was such 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.080 a fan of snowmobiles that in he drove one all 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.200 the way from Ealie, Minnesota to White Bear Lake, just 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.839 north of St. Paul, a distance of two fifty miles. 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:28.159 Oh and it was about thirty degrees below zero during 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.000 the trip. The coldest I've experienced in Minnesota is thirty 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.840 five below, and I tell you it's impossible to breathe. 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.680 It hurts to breathe. When you go outside, your your 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:42.160 limbs get frostbite almost immediately. And the idea of bundling 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.320 up and hopping on a snowmobile, which was not you 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.440 couldn't say the snowmobiles of the nineteen sixties were overpowered 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.360 by any stretch of the imagination. Had a little fifteen 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.680 or sixteen horsepower engine, that top speed it could go 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.720 was maybe twenty or if you really pushed at thirty 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:02.600 miles an hour, so fourteen of enduring colder temperatures, then 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:07.440 really most of us can even imagine. And Plista did 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.320 it NonStop. An achievement like that can really bolster a 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.360 person's confidence. So when Plistood was seated in the Pickwick 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:21.119 Bar in Duluth, Minnesota, on May five six, he thought 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.480 he knew what he was talking about when he assisted 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.120 snowmobiles would be a feasible way of traveling in the Arctic. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:32.280 Plistead had a verbal sparring partner that evening. His name 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.560 was Art alfter Hyda, a local doctor. The men had 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.920 originally been discussing a seal hunting trip using dog sleds, 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.840 which Alfterhida had used in previous trips. But the more 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.160 Pliestad bragged about the virtues of snowmobiles, the more confrontational 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:53.000 alfter Hyda gut. If what Plistad was saying was true, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.160 he argued, then a snowmobile should be something that Plista 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.680 could drive straight to the North Pole. Remember that no 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.080 one in history had ever driven a motorized vehicle to 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.480 the North Pole. In fact, no person had even been 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.600 able to prove they had trekked to the North Pole, 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.600 but Plastad might not have been aware of that at 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.360 the time, and after crowing about his skidoo, Plistead really 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.200 had no choice but to defiantly insist that, yes, it 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.720 would absolutely be possible to drive one all the way 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.040 to an incredibly remote part of the world, which I 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.200 think of this kind of the equivalent of, well, if 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.160 you love her so much, why don't you marry her. 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.320 It's like going to the North Pole on sort of 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.960 a middle school there, be careful what you promise. After 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.960 a couple of drinks. Right then in there, Pliste had 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:44.440 made a decision. He would embark on an expedition that 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:49.560 traditionally had a formidable casualty rate Afterhido would be coming 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:55.160 along with him his role medical officer. As newspaper stories 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.240 began to surface in November ninety six, plist had described 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.560 his trip and scientific terms. He'd collect data on everything 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.439 from human tolerance to extreme weather conditions to polar navigation. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.760 They were lofty goals, and in reality, Plistid and his 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.960 men would be so preoccupied with merely surviving that none 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.040 of this research would be completed. And maybe deep down 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.679 Pliston knew there would be limited value to his observations. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.280 The prize was being first. The thing about PLI said, 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.840 is that he was a huge fan of National Geographic 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.200 and he had soaked up the stories of Robert Peary 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.600 and Admiral Bird and Matthew Hanson. He knew those stories 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.200 backwards and forwards, and I think he romanticized those stories 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.760 in an important way. And he certainly understood cold although 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.400 he really didn't understand the conditions of the North Pole. 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.960 But I think he knew just enough to be dangerous 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.439 to think, well, if these guys could do it overland, 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.880 and I can certainly do it on a machine. Plistid's 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.880 adventure had attracted the attention of CBS. The network entered 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.200 into a deal with him to chronicle his trip for 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.360 future airing on the channel, with regular updates on their 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:12.520 radio news broadcast. CBS even dispatched correspondent Charles Corralt to 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:17.040 shadow Plistad's crew and write about their progress, like a 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.000 kind of Arctic Dirty Dozen. Plistad recruited friends who could 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.600 each bring a special skill to the table. In addition 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:29.320 to after Heida, Placetad enlisted Donald powellc an engineer who 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.720 could operate the radio, Gerald Pitzel, a high school geography teacher, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:38.040 and Blair Woolsey, a dentist by trade, would assist with navigation. 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.040 Walt Peterson was a mechanical engineer who would tend to 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.040 the skidoos. John Al's dad was a survival expert from 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.560 the Royal Canadian Air Force. Photographer Robert Clemens came on 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.360 assignment for CBS, and Well And Phipps, a Canadian pilot, 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:59.840 would provide air support and deliver supplies. Plistad designated himself 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:05.000 the expedition's cook. Today, so many polar explorers are trying 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.920 to do it like unsupported solo. They're kind of putting 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.800 these artificial limits on themselves to show that they can endure, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.760 you know, this amount of pressure to reach their goal. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.560 But Pli said, is like, I don't want to make 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.400 this more difficult than I have to exactly. I mean, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.520 there's this aesthetic of deprivation that a lot of explorers 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.240 live up to that it's kind of a test of 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.160 their discipline to be able to go without the creature 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.480 comforts of life. And that didn't fly with Ralph, Plie 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.600 said at all, not even a little. He wasn't going 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.760 to do this if if he couldn't be comfortable, and 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.440 so all along the way he received packages that dropped 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:47.080 from the air of cigarettes and beer and scotch. Some 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.760 of these men didn't even have much experience outdoors, much 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.880 less in the Arctic. Pitzel said as much in an 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.640 interview with the Montreal Gazette, labeling them all a bunch 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.200 of amateurs. Well, you know, these guys, they're mostly middle 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.240 aged men in their late thirties and early forties. Their 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.440 mechanics and engineers and teachers, kind of people with everyday 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.480 backgrounds who got into this expedition simply because they were 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:15.040 friends with Ralph Weistead. The men would have to train 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.000 for a journey demanding physical and mental fortitude. Since none 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.520 of them had passed the psychological evaluation, they just have 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.680 to make do with the physical part. They hoped their 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.480 weekends spent ice fishing on frozen lakes would prepare them 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.960 so to train and prepare for this trip, they slept 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.400 outdoors in sleeping bags. They camped out on frozen over lakes, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.520 particularly relaxed lake. They went through exercises like building up 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.320 fake ice riches to navigate and to to figure out 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.760 how they were going to move their snowmobiles over them. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.760 They did this all, you know, basically thinking, and they're 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.960 not entirely wrong. There a Minnesota winter was you know, 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.400 at least good conditioning for the kinds of experiences they 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.040 were going to experience in the Arctic. Do you think 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:07.920 what they did to prepare was enough? I would say 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.600 that they came back thinking. The answer to that was no. 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.960 The ice conditions in the Arctic circle where nothing like 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.600 any of them had experienced, and so they couldn't read 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.160 the ice, which is very dangerous. Of course, if you 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.440 if you drive a snowmobile over it thin patch of 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.679 ice in the Arctic, that's almost certainly a fatal experience. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.960 The more they practiced that spring of ninety seven, the 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.400 more crowds began to form around the lake. There was 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.360 a real curiosity over what would become of this motley 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:41.640 crew once they started towards their destination. Newspapers in Minneapolis 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.679 and St. Cloud followed the expedition's progress and setbacks, and 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.320 Playstead became a local celebrity. Even if Minnesotans had their 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:52.800 doubts about whether the team would make it to the poll, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.800 they went along with the narrative swept up in the 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.360 age old battle between man and nature. I think couple 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.199 of wire services at the time did an article or 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.240 two about him, and and it was carried in all papers, 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.400 like all across the country. I mean, it kind of 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.719 to me felt like these audiences, like kind of the 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:17.400 late sixties, are perhaps looking for something to believe in collectively. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:19.120 I mean, it was a pretty rough time in our 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.760 country at that point, and maybe they needed this kind 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:24.640 of thing to latch onto. That's a great point, and 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.960 I think, you know, part of the context that people 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.000 need to understand is what was going on in the 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.160 United States and in the world in the late nineteen sixties. 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.760 America was mired in Vietnam, the civil rights movement was 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.440 was kind of falling apart. On April fourth of nineteen 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.160 sixty eight, a Place is still up in the Arctic, 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:47.080 Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated. This is a very 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:51.760 turbulent time, but there's also a backdrop of these new 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.720 adventures in outer space. The Apollo program was going in 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.000 nineteen sixty eight and nineteen sixty nine, and so Americans 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.560 were kind of mired in problems on the ground, but 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.360 looking up the skies with some hope. And that was 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:09.440 kind of the context that that drew a lot of 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.360 attention to route Place Stead. It's kind of funny that 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.000 even as late as nine, it's still a race, right, 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.360 This is still an extreme endeavor a Place Stead when 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.720 he returned, noted that even in the late nineteen sixties, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.840 hundreds of mountain climbers were scaling Mount Everest every year, 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.080 but almost nobody went to the North Pole. So this 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:35.000 was terra incognita. This was essentially an unconquered horizon for 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.680 human beings. And you brought up the space race, to 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:39.640 which of course was happening at the same time, And 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:44.040 there's so many parallels between the two One thing that 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.080 kind of struck me is that not only are there 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.560 parallels between the Space Race and play Stead's expedition, but 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.600 he actually used foods, apparently that the Pillsbury Company in 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.960 Minneapolis had developed for the space program. Do you know 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.680 anything about that? I am so curious about this. Think 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.640 about what it takes to eed food in outer space 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:06.840 for a minute. You know, you can't eat things with crumbs, 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.640 You can't eat things that are liquid e or gooey, 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.280 because that stuff floats around and it gets in your controls. 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.480 And so NASA was looking for some sort of compact 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.440 way to keep their astronauts fed in a way that 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:23.360 wouldn't muck up their systems. And Pillsbury, a Minnesota company, 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.880 a company that was headquartered in Minneapolis, was working on 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.720 the creation of what they called space food sticks. They 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.320 didn't really have a good name for this in the nineties, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.280 but we would call this an energy board today, basically 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:41.640 a compact, edible stick of food that could be tightly 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.960 packed and contained and carried into outer space. And Plist's 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.400 expedition provided a great opportunity to test out these new 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:54.240 food sticks, so plies that took along a supply sponsors 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.120 wound up donating over one hundred thousand dollars to his 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:02.040 nonprofit company, pla Stead Polar Expedition, Inc. But not everyone 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.400 was enamored with Plista's plans. Campbell's Soup declined to send 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.360 him free cans. Pepsi also rejected his request for ten 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:14.879 cases of soda. He did manage to convince Bombardier, the 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:20.120 manufacturer of skadoos, to donate ten vehicles, but Bombardier had 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.240 one condition. Plistead would have to let Jean Luc Bombardier, 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.000 the nephew of the founder, accompany him, along with technician 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:34.440 Pierre Toroin. Plistet added some rather clever touches. For one, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.680 he made sure the park is worn by the men 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.840 were different colors so they could be easily identified on 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:44.199 the ice. The custom outfits cost eleven thousand dollars and 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.280 were made by sid Lanhum of the Chippewa Trading Post 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.080 and Grand Rapids, who worked from sketches created by after Heida. 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.480 The park has had both an inner and outer shell, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.360 so the men could remove the outer layer for physical 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.840 jobs like clearing a trail, and keep it on while writing. 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.080 He also made sure the scadoos were a ligned with 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.000 styrofoam to keep them afloat in case they broke through 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.760 the ice. Plistad had other help too. He consulted polar 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.720 research scientists in both Washington and Ottawa to formulate the 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.800 best way to make the eight hundred mile journey, although 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.800 he stated he got far more help from Canadian officials 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.120 than the Pentagon. I went to the Pentagon last year, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.920 and the only thing they know about is Vietnam, Pliston 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.400 told the Montreal Gazette. If you're not going to Vietnam, 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.239 you are not going anywhere. He also sought advice from 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.199 at least one hundred and fifty experts in Arctic adventuring, 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.399 from those of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow, Alaska, 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.840 to the Sea Ice Branch of the U. S. Navy 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.359 Ocean A Graphic Office. The most useful advice may have 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:54.119 come from Donald Alford, a glaciologist at Montana State. I 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.240 think your total food and fuel estimates are a bit low, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.080 he began. The most priceless possession up there is a 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.520 warm sleeping bag. Until you've been in a sleeping bag 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.840 for five days at minus thirty fahrenheit, listening to the 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.840 wind blow. You can't imagine how it takes the edge 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:17.560 off one's enthusiasm. Even though he'd be using sixteen horsepower snowmobiles, 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.919 Plistead still planned on bringing along dogs to warn his 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.879 team of approaching polar bears. The skadoos could go thirty 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.639 miles an hour while pulling sleds containing all of the 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.960 donated equipment and supplies they'd need. Each skadoo could tow 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.720 five hundred pounds, and the sleds had watertight plastic bags 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.600 in case they had to be moved over water. Blistead 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:41.560 pitched the tents in his living room so they could 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.720 dry out after their weekend practice runs, but his family 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.919 was used to the inconvenience. His wife Gail had to 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.200 walk around them, and their children, eighteen year old Jackie 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.399 and eleven year old Stephen, sometimes slept over at a 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.480 neighbor's house. When Plistead had his teammates over for meetings. 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:05.240 It was time to begin. On March, ply Stead and 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.960 his team flew from Montreal to Eureka, a small weather 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:14.400 station on Ellesmere Island in Canada. From Eureka, Plistad intended 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.080 to travel along Nonsense Sound to the Arctic Ocean, then 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.040 head west to cross the ice towards the North Pole. 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.600 His route was similar to Frederick Cook's on his eight 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.400 polar journey. Upon arrival at the Pole, Plistead's party would 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:35.960 be transported back to civilization by airplane. On March, the 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:41.880 journey began, and on March things began going wrong. Let's 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:58.840 take a break here. Straddling their skidoos, with hundreds of 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.720 miles of icy terray between them and the North Pole, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.520 the men sped towards immortality and ran into problems. Ignoring 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.000 Pitzel's navigation, Plies Diad gauge their direction by using an 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.680 iceberg as a point of reference, but too late they 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.959 realized they had circled the iceberg and were now heading south, 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.240 a major obstacle, and arriving at the North Pole, they 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.760 had lost twelve miles. By the second day, Clemens, the 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.680 CBS photographer, had already had enough. He seemed to see 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.440 the gravity of the situation when his camera lens froze 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.439 over and began screaming that he would be returning to 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.119 base camp by himself. The others talked him out of 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:44.360 what would have been a dangerous solo trip. That night, 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:46.960 the men set up camp and radioed back to base, 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.720 where operators could pass along word of their progress to 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:55.560 their wives and families, and Pliestad could request supplies. Moving, 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.640 even if the men were going in circles, was tolerable, 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.800 but i at night the environment's reluctance to accommodate human 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.399 occupants became stark. Plisted stuff the men into a single 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.240 dinner tent and cooked up a nice beef stew, but 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.200 there was so little space inside that one team members 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:18.600 what clothing might be draped over another person's leg or arm. 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.439 The zippers lining the entrance froze with the flap open, 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:26.080 blasting them with frigid air. By April first, they had 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:30.440 traveled one hundred miles north. The odometers on their skidoos 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.800 read one seventy five miles owing to the detours after 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.880 exiting nonsense sound. What lay ahead was treacherous sea ice 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.320 broken into hummocks and ridges, none of it ever meant 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:47.040 to be traversed by man or machine because of the currents, 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.720 which carried ice flows two or three miles an hour. 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.679 The men would move even while camped out, but it 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:58.680 might not necessarily be in the right direction. Plastad soon 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:02.800 came to a realization, with uneven ice ahead of him 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.159 and a load of equipment totaling hundreds of pounds, his 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:11.160 expedition had become too cumbersome. He sent Woolsey and Bombardier, 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.600 who were both sick, back to base camp. Clemmens also 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.960 went back since his cameras needed thawing, but he still 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.679 needed to send one more man away as a leader. 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:24.800 It couldn't be him, and it couldn't be Austad, who 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:30.400 had experience with sea ice. Powellick operated the radio, Pitzel 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.760 was in charge of navigation, alfter Haida was a doctor, 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:38.280 and Peterson was the mechanic. All were indispensable, but ply 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.440 Stead finally decided that alter Hida was the only one 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.840 who wasn't absolutely necessary to their progress, Though any one 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:48.320 of them could have needed medical attention for something like 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:52.720 a broken leg, the doctor was sent away. Plistead may 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:55.520 have had second thoughts. Once they started moving forward again, 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.359 leads opened between ice flows and revealed water below. The 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:03.920 men hurried to cross before they widened. They used rods 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:07.280 to test the ice for stability. Sometimes the rods would 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.880 hit solid ice, other times they would pass clean through. 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:14.760 When they came to a newly formed ice bridge fifty 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:18.200 yards wide. The men scrambled across it, knowing it could 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:23.480 collapse at any time. Because Plistead, the National geographic fan, 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.200 had read Robert Pierry's accounts of crossing these fragile, flexible 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.480 ice bridges, he surely would have doubted the wisdom of 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.640 this enterprise. Pierry and his men had barely crossed such 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:39.679 ice with lightweight sledges, nimble footed dogs, and snowshoes. Plistead 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:44.480 had snowmobiles and too much gear. Once Plistead and his 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:46.600 crew woke up to find that the ice flow they 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:50.000 had camped on had drifted into open water, they were 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:52.920 marooned and could do nothing but wait for the ice 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:56.160 to close up so they could proceed. It took two 0:24:56.240 --> 0:25:00.239 days when they finally were able to move forward, did 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:03.040 their best to assess the strength of the ice before crossing. 0:25:04.960 --> 0:25:07.439 Often it came down to not what they knew, but 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:09.840 what they hoped to be true that it would be 0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:14.560 able to support their snowmobiles. Here's Bill Conberry, they have 0:25:14.640 --> 0:25:19.600 about the same power of powered lawnmower. Today. You look 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:22.480 at the ski dooce from five and they look like 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.440 a little plastic toys. They're not very maneuverable, they don't 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:29.200 handle very well. And you know, the idea that they 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:31.680 went on what essentially looks like a tonk at toy 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:34.159 is one of the things that's really remarkable about this 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:42.080 entire story. Despite the conditions, only minor injuries befell them. 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:46.919 Powellic twisted his ankle in a crack well, Peterson's nose froze, 0:25:47.040 --> 0:25:51.720