|
|||||||||||||
|
|
Thus it was Saturday at 05.30 in the morning that Rune Gjeldens and Torry Larsen set foot on the North American continent, at Cape Discovery on Ellsmere Island, to be exact (83°04'41"N & 77°00'19"W). Having crossed the Arctic Ocean in 109 days in total independence - let us remind those that do not know it already (and they are more numerous than one might think) that the Arctic is an ocean covered by pack ice whereas the Antarctic is a genuine continent. To summarise the expedition's last moments: Rune and Torry had been forcing the pace since Friday morning - after already progressing 24-hours non stop and going without sleep for the Tuesday/Wednesday night. Having come within view of the Canadian shores at the level of Cape Discovery, they found their path blocked by a 200-metre wide stretch of open water. Beyond it lay deliverance, the explosion of the dream, and an end to all the nightmares… They spent hours trying to cross it but without their sledges it was difficult. Even impossible, the communiqué said, because of the enormous amount of floating and unstable blocks of ice that were surrounding this unfrozen area of sea. You can imagine the adventurers' frustration! They found themselves just 200 metres from their goal, with no fuel, no rations, no water, and with only two cigarettes remaining.
It was then that the aeroplane that was coming to look for them appeared
in the sky: after it had landed - on terra firma rather than on the
pack ice - a somewhat surrealist exchange of words began, according
to the communiqué, between the people who had come to collect the
survivors, and the latter themselves, who did not know what to do
to get to the group. A final detail perhaps to bring the retransmissions of this polar expedition to a close: I went to Paris last week for the purpose of meeting the people from the Cercles Polaires Expéditions, - Nicolas Maingasson and Christian de Marliave, among others, who not only organise tourist travel to the North Pole from Siberia for the tour operators that sell the product, but also take care of the logistics of the polar expeditions that choose Siberia as their starting point for crossing the Arctic - it was they that managed the entire Norwegian expedition, for example, and the French one as well. Nicolas and Christian - who were at the North Pole when the Frenchmen and the Norwegians arrived there - explained to me that, when they had wanted to approach the tent of Rune and Torry to greet them, simply to say hello, the latter had declined all contact with the group and asked them to go away, as the autonomy of the project obliged them to. Further proof - and we have already spoken about it - that these two fellows from the Norwegian North are more than probably fabulous lads, complete and authentic. WELL DONE, LADS ! HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ACHIEVEMENT...
The
unfolding of the final stages of this expedition was distinctly less
problematical than what happened with the French (see
follow-up). In effect, Rune and Torry found themselves, on this
02 June 2000, just 50 kilometres from their goal, and in the flash
on the homepage we announced, that same day at 07.00 in the morning,
that they had caught their first glimpse of the mountains of Resolute
Bay. A sight they had been waiting for since 12 February! One can
imagine what was going on in their minds at that moment….. There
was however one final piece of suspense, which could have jeopardised,
not the success of this great crossing, but its notion of autonomy.
And it is well known how punctilious the world of polar explorers
can be when it is a matter of awarding a team the added ingredient
of "without resupply". 02
June 21.00: no other news since just now. Rune
and Torry are going through hell on earth. The big news of the second
part of this expedition since our last report of 12 May is that the
two Norwegians decided, on 13 May, to abandon their sledges. And to
put everything they needed into their rucksacks.
Which means that for ten or so days, Rune and Torry have been advancing on the pack ice with their rucksacks weighing about 45 kilos each. This new way of progressing was naturally causing them a fair amount of problems: their bodies had become so thin, they said, that there was no longer an ounce of fat on them and they were obliged to cut strips from their ground mattresses to place them between the straps of the rucksacks and their backs. The load was so heavy that once they were harnessed up in the morning, they did not unload their rucksacks for the entire day. Needless
to say, their morale was at its lowest. And the situation was going
to get worse. On the one hand, as we have just seen, there was the
pain caused by carrying such heavy loads: Rune's right thigh had been
paralysed since 19 May, doubtless because of the straps that were
blocking the blood circulation. Torry, for his part, could hardly
use his hands, which were also suffering from intermittent paralysis.
"The rucksack", Torry explained, "is probably pressing on
some nerve or something similar at the side of my shoulders, and I
have no use of my hands for most of the day…" Furthermore, there
are the conditions of progress in wet, deep snow, piled up by the
wind, on which it is practically impossible to ski. That, on top of
the drift of the pack ice (negative, naturally) which sometimes causes
them to lose a whole day's walk.
|