Paul Schurke founded Wilderness Inquiry, a wilderness program that encourages participation from individuals with mental or physical challenges. He co-led Will Steger’s dogsled expedition to the North Pole. He now runs a dogsledding business (Wintergreen Dogsledding Vacations) near Ely, MN and owns, with his wife Suzie, a clothing business (Wintergreen Designs) that makes clothing based on Inuit designs and modern fabrics.
Q: Please talk a little about your background, your early trips.
A: I came from a family of humble economic means. Six kids. But my parents had the foresight to save every penny to buy a small parcel of land on a wild stretch of river. All of us kids nurtured our interest in the outdoors there. And in adventure. I became intrigued with the trees and the wildlife.
I came up here on a trip with the Lutheran Church, on a trip kind of like the Boy Scouts. I didn't realize it at that time, but I certainly do now, that one thing became indelibly fixed in my mind. A fleeting moment, standing on an island, on a beautiful lake on the Minnesota/Ontario border. The sun was dipping down below the horizon. There was a bear on the opposite shore. It was just the exquisite beauty of the surroundings. That moment has stuck with me and I started thinking that I had to live there eventually.
I feel very fortunate-very blessed—that at that tender age I developed a very strong sense of direction in my life. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but from that moment I developed a very strong sense of direction in my life. A compelling sense of place. I knew what mattered to me was not so much how I made my living, but rather where I lived. The place was more important than the financial.
I find that there are a lot of folks out there who live where they do because of how they earn their keep. For me, where I lay my head down at night means more to me than how I spend my productive hours. So when I developed this sense of place, and that place was going to be here, I felt privileged and proud to be so well on my way. Latching on to what life had for me.
So I worked for that church summer program and went through high school and college with an eye towards a career that would allow me to live in the North Woods. So I decided that I needed to study something that would allow me to be flexible and live in far away places. I decided that career was writing. You can apply those skills anywhere on the planet. So I worked for the newspaper in high school and then in college. Whenever I could. While everyone else was out playing sports.
In college I studied the history of the natural sciences and then environmental journalism. Then I got interested in the whole subject of who has access to the North Woods. Logging companies and mining companies versus people. And then disabled people. So we got a grant to arrange trips to the Boundary Waters for people with disabilities. All kinds of people, be they blind or deaf or in wheelchairs or on crutches or with MS or MD or quadriplegics. So we launched a pilot program taking them up there.
The trips went over fabulously. All of us were riveted by the discoveries made on those trips. Not so much about the wilderness but about the value of the wilderness experience. Particularly among people with such a wide range of physical differences, who had lived in such cloistered physical conditions most of their lives. Many of them had come from residential institutions for the physically disabled. And suddenly being thrust into the most unlikely of places, the wilderness itself, and finding that much to their surprise and delight that in the wilderness, for the first time, they had some control over their own survival and well-being. Everywhere else in their lives they had been catered to and patronized to and people hovering around. We assume that a person in their condition would feel that they are far less in control in the wilderness where they can't even get their wheelchair over to the cooking area because of the rocks and roots. But quite the contrary. They felt it was a wonderfully freeing experience to be out there, realizing that they had control over their activities and their destiny. The choices that they made on a day-to-day basis—rather than a sense of personal freedom that they never before experienced, plus it plain worked. There was very little difficulty canoeing and portaging and camping. Sure it required extra effort for someone in a wheelchair to get across a portage, but that was mainly a function of time. It took more time. For the most part they could make it and feel extremely good about it.
So that program, which became Wilderness Inquiry, has grown by leaps and bounds. It now has a staff of forty people and it runs several hundred trips a year all over the world. Every trip has as its hallmark that it involves a group of people with physical differences. We realized that these trips provided not only a sense of independence in an unlikely setting, but it also provided people without these disabilities a chance to gain a more positive attitude about what a disability may or may not mean. In other words, people would find on these trips, time and again, that the aspirations they had in common far outweighed their physical differences. That all came out the first night around the campfire. Someone who has multiple sclerosis and has limited use of their arms and legs would find out they liked to fish and would be chatting around the campfire. You both would find out that people, whose lives are totally different, can share a common interest in an unlikely place. Their attitude, and yours, about disability will never be the same. It worked for both the disabled and the able-bodied.
So I stay involved with it although I relinquished my administrative duties so I can live here near Ely. I had a sense of place about the woods, and now I had a sense of mission too. I saw the wilderness as a wonderful median for interaction among people, people with a variety of differences. Initially we were exploring physical differences. The wilderness provides this amazing common denominator. No matter what your background is, everyone who is not familiar with the woods has the same sort of fears and apprehensions out there. Over the course of the trip, no matter what your background is, it all focuses on going from point A to point B. It doesn't matter if you are a stockbroker or a bum. The facades tend to disappear. They get set by the wayside pretty quick out there. The common human aspirations of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness far outweigh all the differences we spend precious time worrying about in the urban environment.
So it worked. It worked marvelously for us. Even people who were quadriplegic could learn, with a little coaching and resourcefulness and adaptive equipment, that they could contribute to the process of going from point A to point B. So we thought, “What else is there that would allow the program to continue in the winter?” I didn't know anything about dog sledding then. But it seemed like something worth exploring. So we heard about Will Steger, and we came up here and got directions out there. To visit him used to be a half a day trip over portages and through lakes. There is a road now, but there wasn't then.
So I found him out there and shared the idea with him. He was keen immediately. Excited. About providing winter accessibility for the disabled. So we agreed on a plan and started working with Will. We brought a group who had been on summer trips—two who were deaf, a couple on crutches, a woman who was blind, a couple of folks who used wheel chairs. Quite a mixed group.
Will was taking the plan pretty seriously too. He had outfitted some sleds with bucket seats and hand controls. All out of chain-sawed timber—just rough things. Joy sticks with pivots on either side of the seats to steer and stop. So he had a fleet of zip ships in front of the kennels. Off we went and it was a wonderful trip. Folks who were severely impaired as far as mobility were on the zip ships. Others that had some movement were on snowshoes and skis. It worked. We slept in a snow cave and it was a glorious experience. Will took to the concept and I took to the technique of dog sledding in a big way.
I kept coming up here to Ely to work with Will on other trips. My wife and I took care of his dogs and his Lynx Track business while he went off to the Arctic on one of his odysseys. He would be gone for a year or more. So we got the chance to make a break from our life and jobs in the city and move north get our feet wet up here in the woods.
So it all came together--my vision regarding the woods, the program I started in college. After working with dogs for a few years, the idea of traveling by dog team to the North Pole seemed more and more possible.
Q: How difficult was your trip to the North Pole with Will Steger and the others?
A: It was the most physically taxing thing I have ever had to do in my life. It was also the most emotional thing I can ever imagine dealing with. The intense dynamics of a team on a quest which had a very strict set of self-imposed rules. The trip had no support, no re-supply, so that led to endless discussions of what constituted support. Could we melt snow for water? So it was a personal quest, and that determined all these standards of purity.
The years of preparation for the North Pole expedition were a real opportunity to operate at capacity in every sense. Intellectually, physically, emotionally. To push the pedal to the metal to achieve your personal best. You come away from that with a reservoir of confidence that you can apply to anything you want to do in life. It gave me a pool I can tap whenever I want to do something, no matter how unlikely or how illogical it may seem to others.
Of course then there was the psychological battle. The daily grind. Pushing on. The mental gymnastics of endless equations regarding rations, navigating by the sun and dealing with the parabolic curve of the Earth, the daily drift of the ice cap. In many, many ways we were taxed to capacity. So much was compressed in so short a time. In three months in the Arctic you live ten years of experience.
Q: How dangerous was it?
A: I don't think the things I do, in the Arctic or other places are very risky. I certainly don't think they are foolhardy. In fact, I think rush hour traffic is much more dangerous than anything I ever encountered in the Arctic. Sure there are techniques you need to know, and there is proper clothing and equipment you need. But, like most things in life it is 90% attitude. And that attitude has a lot to do with attention to details; it has a lot to do with seeing both the forest and the trees. Paying attention to a broad range of things going on around you—the weather, the terrain. If you have the ability to keep track of the forest and the trees, your immediate surroundings, the entire geographic concepts at the same time—if you have got that going for you, there is no reason you should face life-threatening situations.
I can't say that I have ever feared for my life in the Arctic. I have feared for my life in other settings in the outdoors. But in the Arctic in the cold and the ice and the snow, most of those things are givens. There are a lot of variables out there, but the cold and the ice and snow—you expect those and so you are ready.
Hunger
Q: Two things seem to get people. One is they run out of food. The other is they get soaking wet.
A: Both of those can be avoided. You have to plan for those. People who have those problems have simply not planned. You never get yourself in a situation where you run out of food.
If you are alone and get wet in the Arctic you have basically signed your death sentence. You need to have someone there to help. So I just don't travel alone. I never have, and I have no interest in it.
Q: How many people were on the trip?
A: Eight.
Q: Was that too many?
A: It was a lot.
Q: Do you end up compensating for the weakest people? A lot?
A: Yes. We did. But I think people were quick to acknowledge the qualities that the physically weaker members brought to the experience that helped compensate. For example, one, who was the least physically fit relative to other members of the team, brought a spiritual element to the trip that otherwise would have been lacking. He is a very spiritual person, and he made regular reference in our tents at night to the moments of what he believed to be divine intervention. A bridge of ice would disappear right after we crossed it, sudden change of weather without which we would have lost our bearings. It would make us mindful that we weren't out there alone. We weren't out there just in body but also in spirit. It added a dimension that gave it depth. It was such a significant contribution that people found themselves acknowledging it repeatedly. Rather than about Bob's shortcomings.
So our North Pole trip generated a lot of press. I am not sure it was worthy all of that, but it certainly was worth everything I expected in terms of personal growth, and then some. I tested myself physically, but that was the smallest benefit I gained from that trip. It was so complex. The pre-trip preparations were much more complex than the trip itself.
Will and I didn't have a pot to pee in. We would scrape up $99 to take the red-eye, mid-night People's Express trips to New York. We arrived at Newark airport one night at 3 in the morning, dead broke, not a penny in my pocket. Somehow I had miscalculated. I had to talk the skycap out of $1.25 to take the shuttle bus downtown for our meetings the next morning. We would get in the front door of these corporations. We would try to schedule our meetings for 11. That way they would buy us lunch afterwards. We were really doing this on a shoestring and a prayer. Bit by bit. I think they were enamored with our mid-west naiveté. But we were radiating a sense of belief, I am sure, that we were actually going to pull this thing off. It worked. The money took shape. Meanwhile we were working on the logistics, the route plan, the navigation, designing and building the equipment. Sewing clothing in the garage based on the Eskimo designs Suzie had seen up there. Using the most modern synthetics. We went on maybe six smaller expeditions preparing for the North Pole. We went out on the big ice of the Arctic Ocean for a few months, starting from Barrow Alaska. Then we were ready for the North Pole.
Q: Did any dogs die on the trip?
A: Yes one dog did die actually. It was an interesting story, actually. Bob Mantel’s lead dog. He was half German shepherd and half sled dog. He had all of the characteristics of a sled dog, and also the intense loyalty of the shepherd. It made him a good lead dog. Well, unfortunately Bob was concentrating so intently on driving his sled one day that he didn't notice that a hole had developed in one of his mukluks. He froze one of his feet. He realized that to carry on would mean the loss of a limb. He opted to turn back. The dog had a very close relationship with Bob. We didn't consider that Bob's departure would have a major effect on the morale of the dog. He had been responding well to all of us on the trip. We had all been driving different teams. Bob insisted that we carry on with his dogs because he felt they were critical to the success of the trip. And we agreed. Without that dog who responded to voice commands and could find his way, the trip was going to be much more difficult. But as soon as Bob left, his spirit went right into a nose drive. The temperature dropped. Within three days he was almost comatose. We had him tucked inside a parka on a sled and gave him soup. But he had given up the ghost. He died.
Q: How do people get along on trips like that?
A: On the longer trips, personal differences erupt into conflicts. In a professional team, it’s given from the start that you cannot afford to squander energy on personal conflicts when the task at hand requires everything you've got. There have always been conflicts but we have always been able to deal with them before we came to blows or shook up the team. We were always careful to remind ourselves that the trip has to come first and the personal baggage has got to be stowed until the end of the trip. Then we can bring up conflicts and deal with them. But right now let’s focus on the task at hand and not worry about someone who put their soggy wet boots on my dry sleeping bag. And did it maliciously.
Q: How did you get involved in the Russian Arctic?
A: When I was in the Arctic I got to know a little about the Inuit people there. They are the world's only true cir cumpolar race. They are right around the Arctic. The people up there, in Russia, Canada, America and Greenland share the same language, the same culture. They traveled back and forth and there are many blood relations. And then, fifty years ago, a key link in that circuit was closed—the Bering Straight—with the Cold War. So the annual migration that took place every year ceased. Inuit were actually incarcerated if they were caught out on the Bering Straight in kayaks. So they started to shut the border down in the late 1930s and formally closed it in 1942. Of course, they did everything they possibly could to discourage contact between the groups. I learned about that from the natives in Baffin. I was really struck by the irony of that situation.
The folks in Washington and Moscow really knew nothing about the Arctic. They had never been there or considered the impact their diplomatic decrees would have on the natives. When I came back from the North Pole I was thinking about that and wondering if we might be able to do something about that. I didn't know anything about Russia. I had never been there. I had never met a Soviet citizen. I didn't speak the language. I just knew that there was this bizarre diplomatic situation in the Arctic.
So, I researched it a bit in 1987 before all of this openness occurred between Russia and the United States. I blindly sent a letter off to Moscow, basically addressed to whomever it may concern. I proposed a plan to put together a team of natives from the Soviet Union and Alaska and travel through the Arctic areas of both countries. Months went by and then the radio phone rang one night and here were was a man named Diametric Prolix from Moscow. The post office had forwarded my letter to him and he was very interested in the plan and wanted to work on it.
Q: Did he work for the government?
A: No. Diametric is a self-styled adventurer. Much like myself and Will. Except he has done it in the Soviet Union where it is immensely more difficult to pull these things off. He at the time was 42 years old, and had been doing these things for quite a while. He had gained some credibility. In fact, when I heard his name I was very honored to be even talking to him, not to mention being able to work with him. I had heard about him and his most amazing expeditions. He had been to the North Pole two or three times. One was an amazing expedition done during the Arctic night—in total darkness. Out there on the sea ice. I had been in awe of him.
So we set up a plan that required six people from each country. Men and women. Representatives of different regions and cultural groups. A route that would take us through all the principal regions of the Arctic that shared these cultural connections. A 1,200 mile, two-month trek. Twelve people of different regions single-mindedly seeking the same goals. Breaking down barriers—diplomatic barriers, cultural barriers. Coming down through an adventure.
We traveled through about thirty very remote, isolated little pockets of life. Ancient communities. We got clearance from the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs through the most militarily secure region of their country. Where all of their missile bases are sited. Where their eyes and ears on the U.S. of A. are situated. No foreigners had been permitted there since the 1930s. The U.S. State Department gave their permission.
So off we went to places that had never seen a foreigner. Some of these people could see the mountains of Alaska on a clear day. But they had had no contact with the people in Alaska. So it was quite an emotional experience. To be part of this reopening process. Among our team members there were long lost relatives that they had heard about but never been able to visit. Gorbachev got in on it and seemed to take a sincere interest in the whole thing. The trip led to a treaty between the U.S. and Russia opening the border to native travel. It also opened a whole new world for me. It got me back on my sense of mission regarding the wilderness and adventure. And I've been going to the Russian Arctic ever since. I've been organizing these trips, which are a combination of citizen diplomacy and adventure travel. I just came back from one last week.
The people on the trip plug into a family there, sink or swim. It’s just: "By, by. Have fun." and off they get trundled to some Siberian home. No English. Living in caribou teepees. A school administrator from the city of Milwaukee shows up in a God-forsaken Siberian town and his family is there in fur clothing waiting to greet him with big pot of soup and take him home for the week. He looks at me, almost in tears, and says: "Paul, do I have to?" See you in a week. Have fun. Total immersion. It works great. I love to see them when they get off the helicopter and realize what they are going to be doing for a week. Until they get to that point they are saying: "Experience of a lifetime. I can't wait to get there. This is going to be neat." And then they find themselves so totally out of their context. The Siberians are very gracious. It’s role reversal because the Siberians remained much more composed and gracious and relaxed than the Americans ever did.
It works. It works great. I have been over there a dozen times at least, and it never gets old. It’s always exciting. Three years. It is one of the few places on the planet where you can have cultural experiences of that magnitude. It is a country that was closed until very recently. It is a culture that few people even know exists. The people there still hunt and fish and carve for a living. They are relatively shut in. But the outside world is poised to disrupt their lifestyle. Looking for oil and mineral wealth. Eskimo teenagers in Alaska have the highest suicide rates of any group in the world. They know they should be out hunting walrus. That is what their instincts tell them to do, but there is no reason to hunt walrus because they get a check every week from the oil fund. It has totally disrupted their sense of identity and value system. That hasn't happened in the Russian Arctic. Those kids are still out hunting walrus, doing whatever their cultural instincts tell them to do and they feel good about it. But that is going to change. Soon. So I am hoping to experience that while I can. Share it with others while I can. I am hoping I can put a book or a film or a National Geographic story together about this unique place and time. It will take me several years before I cover all the ground there. Hopefully it will still be there.
It all fits nicely with my sense of mission of getting people together and breaking down barriers.
Q: Is it a business for you?
A: No. Not really. It is a hobby. A mission. I factor in to these trips a small return on my effort but it isn't adequate to support my family. If it became a business, I probably wouldn't want to do it anymore. What makes the trip special to me is that it is a cultural adventure. Not a treadmill.
Q: Do you ever think you are missing something? For instance, money?
A: Rarely. I think I have undergone a catharsis like you. I found out that what I really like doesn't cost money. Taking my canoe out for the evening rather than going to a Broadway show. No. It’s a challenge to make a living out here the way we are doing it. It’s work. But we are making a living and raising a family. I'd like to find a way for the kids to be able to go to the college of their choice. One way or another I will find a way. I have some goals, but they are not paramount in my life.
Q: What can we learn from your life?
A: I do things that turn my crank. I feel strongly that adventure for its own sake is not very satisfying. It’s hollow. I feel strongly that adventure is a gift like the ability to paint a masterpiece. It requires us to give something back. I believe adventures should be used to break down barriers, bringing folks together, cutting through all the social stigmas that otherwise keep us apart. So that is my rationalization for doing what I do with such intensity. It has some redeeming quality to do it.
Q: Do you believe that most people don't know what they want or don't have the courage to pursue it?
A: I'd say the latter. I enjoy traveling with a group through the bush by dog team and dealing with knee deep snow, with slush, with a blizzard or whatever and then sitting around a campfire with them at night. But I see a select group—people who are willing to do these kinds of trips. They are looking at their own little personal North Pole and looking for that boost of confidence that will get them there.
Getting to the North Pole means being able to lock into this reservoir of confidence that you have from here on out. It doesn't have to be the North Pole, but something that is attainable and you make it happen. You have to break a personal barrier. I think that most people know pretty much what those barriers are. They just don't have the guts to tackle them.
Every one of the eight people on our North Pole trip has gone on to tackle bigger projects. Some of which have been successful. Some haven't. For those who haven't been successful, I think it has been exceedingly frustrating for them. Will and I have realized successes and both savored the satisfaction that comes from those successes. Recognizing on a personal level and publicly that the North Pole was not just a one-shot deal but something to build upon.
Q: Why? Why not just go on a two-month canoe trip alone? Is money really underneath all this stuff? Is that really what it is all about?
A: It has a lot more to do with fame than money.
Q: Is a deep desire for fame a weakness? That you are not good enough to yourself—you need other people telling you that you are good?
A: It can be. You get caught in a certain social milieu and work your way up a particular ladder. When you become a world-renowned adventurer you do open a Pandora’s Box. The enticement of fame and fortune and the obligation, perceived or otherwise, of continuing to up the ante, to continue to outdo yourself is so strong. And the expectations are so intense. Every time you give a talk, people ask immediately "What is your next big project?" Well nothing. I am going to be raising kids. Retire at 65 and have my IRA pay the bill. If you responded like that there would be this gasp of horror from the crowd. The ones that are into it. The ones that pay $5 to come and hear an adventure lecture don't want to hear that you are stepping out of the thrills and spills and you are going to go back to the daily grind.
When you gain notoriety and get to be able to tap into the funds that follow notoriety, there is a certain power that comes with that too. You are faced with whether your personal integrity is sufficient to overcome your power base being corrupted for your own personal gain. Skewing it in a manner that appears to be socially redeeming, when in reality all you are doing is hopping on the next hot gig to justify your own pursuit of fame and fortune. If you do have the personal integrity to step back from the groupies that come to all your talks and buy your posters and T-shirts and clamor about what a wonderful person you are. To be able to set all that aside and use your political capital and whatever voice and position of authority towards things that are truly well-intentioned. You have to try to deal with that odd dynamic—the power base and notoriety. Do you use that to inspire people while really trying to achieve selfish ends, or do you really put that stature to work for the betterment of mankind?
There is an internal conflict that each of us wrestles with all of the time. Sure, we have these lofty notions that what we are doing is serving the public good, but are we really voicing these notions of the public good to enhance our own fame and fortune.
Nobody is getting rich. It’s really the notoriety. As soon as these world-renowned adventurers get some money, they dump it into the next dream and it’s gone. But their vision of hell is to be stuck in a beautiful log cabin for forty years, twiddling their thumbs and answering correspondence from Skokie.
Q: Why is that?
A: Fear. Fear of failure. There is so much social stigma associated with that. Friends, family and community. Forget about what you want out of life. Start first by tackling fear. Tackle that on an incremental basis by taking those challenges out there that have been thinking about for years, that you have always felt were attainable but you didn't have the finances or time or the support of your relatives and friends. Simply decide you are going to tackle those goals and make it happen. Maybe something as simple as taking part in a community run. Who knows? Whatever it is, face it and make it happen. After that you work to the next one, and the next one. Build your reservoir of confidence. You may find that you do not get where you intended to go, but you will get the confidence that will get you there. Get your confidence in your self and the confidence that others will have in you. To finally quit the job you don’t want. To move out of the community you are in that you may be dissatisfied with. Whatever it is going to take.
Q: Are you involved in any aspect of ecological protection work here, for instance having to do with the wild country where you operate your dog sledding business?
A: I have taken a stand on a number of issues locally. I didn't want to squander my political capital. Will and I got a certain amount of notoriety in this town from our expedition. I have been focusing on old growth forest. Most of the forest has been logged from New York to here. The forests end here in this part of Minnesota. Further west you hit the prairies. Only a few isolated pockets of the original majestic pine stands still remain.
Q: Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?
A: Yes I do. It’s evolving, searching to get a fix on my own spirituality, which have been impacted by my adventure experiences. I was brought up in a real conservative Lutheran household. I rebelled in my teens on a wholesale scale. I went to a Benedictine University, which was almost a heresy in my family. It gave me a different perspective. The Benedictine approach centers around a dedication to community service to those less fortunate and a life of prayer. The problem I always wrestled with, regardless of whether it was Lutheranism or Catholicism, was the whole notion of exclusivity. Few are chosen and those that are chosen are those who subscribe to the Christian faith. But having traveled a lot and been exposed to other, ancient cultures, in particular the Eskimo cultures in Russia which have a very highly evolved sense of pantheism, I’ve been exposed to a belief system based on the faith that God exists everywhere. So why doesn't heaven have room for those folks too? Surely their faith is tied to the same precepts as the Christian faith. Surely they are as deserving to whatever rewards come from a life of goodness as anyone else. For me, exclusivity is unacceptable.
There were many times on our journey to the North Pole that divine intervention was conspicuous. And a sense of presence. You are on top of the world there. It is unexplainable but you are in constant awe.
Q: What does this culture have to learn from Eskimos?
A: I guess a lot. As an analogy, the Amazonian rainforest is often talked of a genetic warehouse, where someday may be found a cure for cancer. Likewise, the Eskimo culture is a reservoir of human qualities that are dormant within all of us but are active only in Arctic cultures. Their survival instincts. Their resourcefulness, their intense relationship with the environment— their ability to discern weather changes well before they occur. Those are all skills that they have carried from generation to generation, and they have not been lost yet. Those skills have tremendous potential to serve the human race, given the potential environmental crisis we may be facing.
Q: Does living in the Arctic, in an igloo, going hungry sometimes enhance spirituality?
A: I guess I am a firm believer in the old saw "No pain, no gain." Personal growth requires compromise and sacrifice. Going beyond your personal comfort zone—expanding the envelope. A long walk on an empty stomach can teach you a lot...if you have the willpower and attitude to direct your mind in positive ways. To be in a pinch in the Arctic you can either think about your bad luck or take some positive action. I think it was Nietzsche that said, "Whatever doesn't kill me, helps me grow." Any of those experiences can lead to positive results.
On our trip to the North Pole, we had very severe limitations on how much personal baggage we could bring. We limited ourselves to 2 oz a day of personal food choices-chocolate or raisin. We also could bring a few ounces of reading or writing materials. I happened to grab Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning as we were preparing to leave base camp. So there we are on the sea ice passing that book around. The book is about Victor's discoveries during his time in Nazi concentration camps. That people subjected to hunger, cold, pain, loneliness--no matter what the deprivation—always have one freedom. The freedom to choose your own attitude. A very wonderful and useful freedom. So much of what goes on is a function of attitude. Positive mental attitude is so critical and so true. And also so simple—it is always a matter of choice. No matter if you are sick, cold, have wet feet—your attitude is still a matter of choice. Discovering Victor Frankl on the sea ice was really something.
Q: What can we learn about life from Will Steger?
A: He brings a single-minded passion about the outdoors and how it fits into life's meaning. I think foremost what I've gained from Will and my observations of him is that a key ingredient to making things work is a deep personal belief in the goals that you set for yourself and your ability to attain them. When you can shed those self-doubts, at least in the way you present yourself to others, you immediately start gaining support because, as near as I can tell, everybody loves a winner. When people sense that you are a winner, when you present yourself as a winner, others want to join your team. They see that you are going places and they want to hop on for the ride and get there too. Will has this magical spark in projecting this unshakeable certainty, that makes you believe that it is not only going to happen, but that you are going to come back. A phenomenal number of folks start beating down the door to get on board and take part in the process and contribute their money and talent and enthusiasm to make it happen. The pool of support mounts rapidly.
Is almost like a contagious enthusiasm that some religious evangelists bring to their circle of followers. Although in Will's case, the followers in these sorts of projects are more philosophically benign and globally beneficial.
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