There there's a possibility of isolated storms in the South as well. But mostly what we're talking about is windy conditions and very very hot temperatures record-setting temperatures possible too much of the sauce today with the readings from the 80s in the Northeast to around 100 in the southwest tonight partly cloudy chance of thunderstorms lows in the 60s and 70s too much. Almond, but first we'll remind you that this is Minnesota Public Radio a member supported service. You're tuned to ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Sunny skies, 87 degrees right now dew point 65 wind gusting to 30 from the south. The BBC report that you heard in today's news broadcast was made possible by a grant from the capital group a money management firm investing throughout the world for American individuals and institutions. Minnesota public radio's coverage of issues related to Human Services is made possible in part through a grant from 3M makers of posted brand notes. Well, mr. Will Steiger from 30 below to a hundred above? How do you like it? I love it like the heat it was a big surprise or flying in the Minneapolis like flying into Las Vegas with this drought I'll bet because you were in Greenland. Just how many days ago six days ago to just six days ago Skip and what was the what was the temperature range that you encountered in Greenland? Well, actually the day we were picked up it was our first day above freezing was 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but we are temperatures range from the mid April 30 below to a gradual warm up above zero in mid-june and you went to Greenland for what reason we were training for the Traverse the crossing of Antarctica, which will take place on next August 89. It's a 7,000 mile Traverse and we train with six men from nine different countries are five different countries and 30 dogs in our equipment. Why Greenland will is it a similar in some ways to the Antarctic the Greenland ice cap is Occidental to the Antarctic Plateau, it's a very high ice shelf as an average of about 8,000 feet. Very flat. Very monotonous type of ice cap, whether we have a prevailing wind and since it was almost a duplicate environment to Antarctica. We thought would be perfect place for our training. What did you learn? Well a number of things. First of all, the members of the Expedition are all authorities in different areas of a Arctic and Antarctic. So they're Professionals in their own their own ways. So it was more or less fine tuning our equipment rather than going out and doing you know, blatant experiments on tense and so forth, but we work through 10th systems sleeping systems clothing when you have that many different cultures. Just trying to get a diet together that satisfies everyone because it seems everybody has different tastes on the expert Expedition different types of spices and so forth. So we got a very good diet that contains about 7,000 calories we worked Went out that we'll be using in Antarctica. It also was a very thrilled test for our dogs to see how a dog team will run will function running 60 almost 60 straight days at that altitude and the surprising thing was is that monotony was the biggest problem that we had with the dogs. They really they got bored. They got bored after about 40 days. They lost their enthusiasm. What does a board dog do in Greenland All Aboard dog doesn't pull as fast as a motivated dog, and and what's in the expedition's for the sled dogs is chance to run the trails and smell the scents and look at the scenery. But here they're green was an absolutely sterile environment. So their senses went to sleep and there's no way of telling him he looking in there another three weeks and will be flown out of here. You'll be back in your home in Ely Minnesota. So they lost enthusiasm and we had to apply that by singing and doing bird calls little very thing just to get them hopping away some special dog treats if they Very well. Well the little bit at night. Mmm. Well, if you have a question for will Steiger like to ask him all about his Greenland trip or about the big Expedition coming up next year to the Antarctic. You can give us a call in the Twin Cities area 2276 thousand is the phone number two two seven six thousand four Twin Cities area callers elsewhere within the state of Minnesota one 865 to 970018 hundred six, five two nine seven zero zero and if you're listening in one of the surrounding states, you can call us directly at area code 612 227 6,000 7,000 calories per day did I understand that correctly? Yes, that's correct. My goodness, that would make the ordinary person on an average work schedule balloon up like nobody nobody's business and we were we were hungry on that diet. The diet is very high in fat for instance in the supper. We would have a for each person a half a pound of Land O Lakes cheese 1/4 pound of butter 1/2 a pound the Pemmican that's put on top of the soup and the rice. Oh my goodness. Did you ever check your cholesterols? We did. In fact, we had a cholesterol checked before at st. Mary's Hospital were doing a medical experiments on over there and we sent her blood in there now in fact arrived yesterday and they will check to see what kind of a rise of any although we checked our cholesterol in on the North Pole. We had a similar high fat diet and of all and all the team members of cholesterol either stay the same or a dropped which I think there's a relation there between exercise possibly cold weather and cholesterol intake. Wow, that's amazing the amount of energy that you burn up everyday eating 7,000 calories in still hungry so hungry. It's it's not just the exercise. We skied the whole distance 30 miles every day 10 days in a row one day off then another 10 days on it's not but it's not just a physical exercise. It's a fact that your body has to produce its own heat in the cold. There's no ducking into a warm weather to warm building to warm your clothing up your body. A supply that he'd even in sleeping your body's always producing that those calories. So the body then needs the fat energy to supply the fuel to combat the cold temperature outside. We have some folks on the line with questions. Let's get to them here without further Ado. Go ahead, please you're on with Will Steiger. Yes. I've got a question. That was wondering at what his opinion was whether William Perry made it to the North Pole and back considering that it took him nearly that amount of time just to get there and be flown out and I'll I can hang up and listen okay on the North Pole period shoe I think you have to look at you have to look at two things there first. The logistics could have piri have traveled the mileages that he said he did supposedly long mileages and the question there is could the dogs and we boils down to the dogs have covered that distance and our North Pole Expedition a two years ago. We did Cover similar mileage to Perry and to my myself personally. I don't feel there's that there's not that much difficulty. Mileage is but the other problem which I don't think will ever be solved is the navigation seeing that you're you're navigating on them on a moving ICE. It's almost like fighting the north North Pole. Now. We're talking about hitting that is like hitting a moving Target in there. And in 1909 when Perry was there there was no satellites to to confirm that he was sitting on on top of the world. It was just he went totally by the man's word but there is a question whether or not using the navigational system that he used. I think the question is could he have traveled in a straight line and hit the North Pole right dead on that I think is will always be the question. We did travel by the Sextant Paul shirky was her Navigator and we managed to get within a hundred yards of the pole using the section. So we proved definitely that the section is extremely accurate, but the question could have traveled in the straight line and he did I don't think anyone will ever solve that I suppose a compasses worthless when you're trying to find the North Pole. Well, actually the compass will show you roughly where North is but it won't pin. Point it like giving you the address when you need on a Sextant when you take essentially you get a son shot you measure the degrees of the sun you look at some tables in your booklet and that will give you like a Street and Avenue address of where you are in relation to the globe or the North Pole when you were on the North Pole itself, and we're getting a little distracted here, but I'm curious about this when you were on the North Pole itself. Did you take out your compass? And if you did want to tell you the compass was pointing, I think it was a hundred and Ninety Degrees. That was like it's pointing to the Southwest. I think the needle was but the compass does work we use in Greenland. I've used a compass within 200 miles of the magnetic magnetic north. They're the magnetic field pull a compass down in an angle the needle down at an angle 45 degrees, but you could still within five or six degrees use it with accuracy. Okay, let's move on to some more folks with questions here. Yes, you're on now with Will Steiger. Hi. Hi historically expedition to the Arctic and Antarctic and out and to Alpine regions would A lot of unused equipment and garbage and junk behind displaying the environments that they were exploring. This is the case in present-day Expeditions and what sort of logisitics you go through to carry garbage out of the areas that you're exploring. Let me use the the Antarctica as an example. We will course we have the fuel drums. There are planes that fly in our caches, but we're setting out to what we're calling a to leave a trail Without a Trace and it's expensive flying out, you know, empty fuel drums, but on the Expedition we have budget that that in but you have to like any Wilderness setting you have to go out of your way and and usually had an expensive it's expensive to bring out let's say your litter if it's a fuel drum or collecting your plastic along the way and then flying that out at resupply but in Antarctica were extremely careful with that and everything will be flown out how Greenland, how'd you handle it there? We had the film crew came in and they first and there we were able to take out garbage and then we carried it with with us to the end of the 16th. All the Brew Nobles the cardboard in that was we used as fuel we burned it. We bypass a lot of this problem though in our packing procedures not to pack pack foods with a lot of plastic and so forth try to keep this as simple as possible the packing and so you did even in Greenland not leave piles of junk all over the place. No, no, no, okay ten minutes past the hour and now it's your turn to talk to will Steiger. Hello there. Okay, I love the picture of your bright-eyed little nephew in your arms in the paper the other day. I thought it was great. Listen. There was the original British Expedition over the pole. They got there to the pole. They got there later than Edmondson and there were some films of them of three guys pulling their sleds to the pole again South Pole again, just recently. Are you going to be where are you going to be Crossing the the continent? Where will you be going in? And where will you be coming out? I'll hang up and listen. Okay fine. That's very good question will be leaving at the southernmost tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. You have to think backwards when you're looking at Antarctica. If you follow the Chilean Greenland across the ocean their picture on the map, you'll see the Antarctic Peninsula. It's maybe 400 miles from the tip of Chile. That is a starting out off point on August 1st of next year and it will take us about seven months to ski and dogs lived at seven thousand five thousand miles across Greenland or Antarctica, which will take us over themself pole into the Russian base of Mooney, which is right below Australia, if you took a look at a map there in grueling line straight down from Australia. It was a good map. You'd see the base of mirnyi, so we'll be traversing West Is the longest possible route of Antarctica Scott's route in amundsen's route was quite a distance almost one coordinate on the other side of by McMurdo Bay there in Antarctica. They started from a totally different area. You leave August 1st and you will attempt to be done by February hopefully March, March 1st, March 1st already. Obviously, you chose the the timing of it for a reason why those particular seven months instead of another well here again, August 1st is equivalent to our February 1st down there. So we're starting at the very last part of winter that we can we're starting very far to the to the north. And then we're moving into the interior, but we're traveling exclusively almost entirely in the summertime in the interior of Antarctica in the wintertime that night time it gets down as low as a hundred thirty below Fahrenheit that's pretty difficult temperatures a travel in but now in January which is Midsummer there that same area will have 30 to 40 below Fahrenheit, which is summertime temperatures. So we're traveling in the summer in the light time when it's a little bit warmer. All right, we'll Steiger is with us today talking about his trip to Greenland that he just finished and about the expedition to the Antarctic coming up next year. We have a couple of folks on the line and a couple lines open again in the Twin Cities area 2276 thousand 2276 thousand if you have a question for will Steiger elsewhere within the state of Minnesota, the toll-free number is 1-800-695-1418. You might be able to get in with a question. All right your next little there. Hello. I'm have kind of a joint question. One-on-one are the expedition was financed and secondly, if a person is interested in such a trip as far as joining an expedition like this other organizations, they can contact her. Okay. First of all your question on financing that's always the biggest challenge in putting together an expedition like this. We have a rather large budget since we're funding a research vessel that's being built for the Expedition and our source of funding comes from the number one from the corporate money large corporate sponsors to small corporations small businesses in the state. We have several major sponsors one that our largest sponsor is a French insurance company out of Paris, France. And then another Fat another facet of our financial supporters is local support of t-shirts posters and so forth and and the small contributions of five to ten to twenty dollars, like raising money for the radio station here does amount to a substantial part of our budget now in terms of expedition members are joining joining the actual team. We have already selected five of the of the six members. The other six lot is still open. There's a possibility someone from China another person from Canada that will join that but the Expedition team has already been put together since we've been in process for the last about two years ago or so, but we do have a large support from volunteers and individuals that contribute in fact this Sunday in June 26th at seven o'clock at st. Catherine's college at O'Shaughnessy Hall. We're putting on a fundraising event. Most of our local supporters are going to be out we're going to show slides for the first time of the Greenland expedition in some video. It's a first time any of us have seen the slides will be on Sunday. They're also be three of the team members from England Japan and Russia there at that meeting so that they had that event at st. Are O'Shaughnessy Hall at st. Catherine's on Sunday would be a good opportunity to get acquainted with with the team the support members and all of our backers anyone interested can call the O'Shaughnessy all there. I don't have the number here, but for more find out about tickets and all that sort of thing. All right quarter past the hour as we continue with Will Steiger. Hello there you're on with him now. Hi, this is Mary O'Donnell. Congratulations to you and your teammates. I'm curious to find out about the workshop. I think it's scheduled for August about Antarctica if that's open to the public if I could attend or how I get information about doing that. Hope to see you soon. Okay mirror. Thanks. We have a workshop. That's it's actually for teachers at Hamlin College. I think it's the first week of August. It also is open to the public if you want to come in and sit in on these courses, it's essentially 2525 full days of instructions of Anna Antarctica. The Expedition is going to be featured in one of those days. But we've Drawn Together about 20 people 20 authorities of Antarctica different facets from Wildlife the atmosphere to snow conditions and so forth and we've organized a seminar for teachers teaching teachers how to teach Antarctica essentially is that but if anyone's interested in particularly teachers in this seminar, they could contact the Hamlin College asked about the Antarctic Institute there and they'll give you the full information on this event. That's the first week of August moving on then to another listener with a question about wills trip to Greenland or the up. Coming one to Antarctica. Hello there. Welcome back. Well, hey, I was up there about pretty close to 40 years ago. Now flying with the Air Force well and truly over up. There are two things are in my mind. One is the status of T300 Fletcher's Ice Island. And the other is how the air pollution is doing up there. Okay on the ice island case of listeners aren't familiar. Occasionally. There will be a large block of ice. It's actually glacial ice. It'll break off from Land usually in Ellesmere Island. It's maybe a hundred feet thick the varies in area, but that'll float out onto the moving ICE of the Arctic Antarctic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean up there talking about the North Pole now and the scientists will use these these I silences basis so Landing wheel their craft and as they float around the Arctic Ocean, they'll monitor T3 Fletcher Fletcher's Island. It was called was a large. Side and that broke up I'm not sure how many years ago, but I'm not sure right now. We're that island is if it if it's totally disintegrated or if it's still going around. I know there is one large ice island off the west coast of Ellesmere. Now that the Canadians have a scientific base on it. And there is another Ice Island that the Russians have a base on that just crossed the North Pole around me first and in terms of the air pollution fortunately, we didn't we didn't see any in Greenland. However in the early spring march/april on the Arctic Ocean you sometimes see this brownish Hayes. Unfortunately, which is from industrial pollution. They're not sure totally of the source of this. It could be the industry in Siberia there the Russian industry, but the the air pollution in the Arctic is actually it's actually there you can see it in the spring but we didn't see anything like that at all in Greenland. However, the the we expected a is less ozone and Greenland because we're At a high level the ultraviolet light was incredibly intense and Greenland, which is probably just a very typical situation but I've climbed mountains before and I'm experienced with high altitudes up to 20,000 feet. But this ultraviolet off the Greenland ice cap was the most intense I've ever experienced. I think it was because it was reflecting off of flat surface continually almost like a mirror and it was like traveling in outer space within 3 hours your skin would literally fry and the the the solar protection didn't really help us that much we had a you know, a number eight number nine solar guard which I thought would help and it didn't help at all. The only thing that really helped was to get your face your lips and nose in a shadow of a Hatter to make a mask over your face. We of course had sunglasses. There is no way that you could go even a couple minutes without sunglasses, but this pointed out though, I underestimated the ozone or the ultraviolet problem there. I didn't take the proper precautions. Off and as a result, I burnt my lips and nose real bad and they never heal their still healing up right now, but in Antarctica, there's less ozone and instead of 8,000 feet will be up as high as 12,000 feet. So it will be a very serious problem in Antarctica were traveling seven months underneath that Sun. So, you know after continual exposure there could be some very serious a long lasting effects on you. So I would say of anything that we learn on the Greenland ice cap. It was this effect on the ultraviolet light moving off a little on a tangent here. There was a article in the I think was the st. Paul paper this morning suggesting that the drought that we're having might be According to some NASA scientists result in so-called greenhouse effect the burning of fossil fuels and so on did you witness firsthand any indication of warmer temperatures up at those very very North northernmost directions though. He did not not first Hannah. No again in the weather like the weather we have now the drought you can never tell is that part of the Overall cycle is or is it a warming Trend that we're actually getting into now. We're due for a drought actually, if you study weather Cycles, we had one in the 30s and you get the 30 60 or droughts. However, there is there is a definitely a problem of the of the atmosphere warming and one of the things that we hope to highlight through the Expedition is to draw attention to this problem with the ozone layer that that's almost a separate entity in itself there. The floor rights are dissolving the protective layer allowing the ultraviolet lights like to come on the atmosphere. Now, I think our goal in Antarctica is to is more than just across the continent continent. It's is to draw attention to the power in the spirit of international cooperation, which is which is Edie actually when it's protected Antarctic over the last thirty years a treaty called the Antarctic treaty, but the world I think is facing some very serious problems. So the old the ozone the greenhouse effect is One of the major ones and some of the effects of this heating is definitely going to come out in Antarctica the ice starts melting there. It will permanently change our weather Cycles. Let's move on to some more folks with questions for will Steiger. Hello. Thanks for waiting. Yes. My question is why I go every what you're doing has been done before the scientific experiment stations are already there spending a great deal of money and other than personal glory and maybe writing a book or some sort of TV series. Why do it okay first on the question of why they're there are there's always the personal reasons of why you take Expeditions for me Expeditions are a way of exercising, you know, potentials here physical potential spiritual potentials and so forth. And in terms of has it ever been done while Traverse like that has has not ever never been done traveled by foot or with dogs, but our main purpose on this Expedition in Granite with the budget we have it would be very extravagant for just a personal Lark for a group of people to go down and just cross for you and then come back and write a book and appear on TV. But our real purpose in Antarctica is is to two reasons one to draw attention to the power of as I mentioned the power of international cooperation. This is the reason why we have six members from six different countries and why we were working with the Russian government French government in order to put this together and the other other part of the main goal of this trip is education is to draw attention to Antarctica through the publicity that the generate the that will generate through the expedition to draw attention to Antarctica in and the future of the of that continent in relation to the future of our race and yet Granite science-wise, there are bases down there that many scientific basis probably route in the 20 to 25 on the continent. You're not doing any real pure science, we're doing observational science along the way because of the lack of time and the lack of weight that we can bring on the sled. So it's not as is not and we're not stating that it's purely scientific Expedition. All right, let's move on to our next question or hello. There will still use listening for you now will could you elaborate on that dogs and specifically their their needs and the provisions that you have for them. Could you comment on their diet and their gear and do you have a veterinarian that goes along? Okay. The question was on the dogs. First of all, the most important thing probably with the dogs is what do you feed the dogs and I've worked with Science Diet over the last 10 years. It's a special type of food and we've developed a special when it's called. We're calling an endurance diets were formulated dog food that we've developed over the last ten years for the dogs and essentially one pound of this food, which is dried meat eggs. The mixture of other animal products contains about 3,000 calories and then to pot we feed 2 pounds a day. So the dogs are getting 6,000 calories each day. There was a question on the food. You know, what were the what were the dogs reactions be feeding this high fatty food at a elevation of 8,000 feet and that's why the Greenland expedition was an experiment to see among other things to see how the dogs fared on this new diet we had and now the died I'd met as I mentioned. I've been working on for 10 years. It's not like all of a sudden last winter we came up with this idea of some concoction. We put together the dogs did very well very well in the diet. We also experiment with in terms of different types of harnesses couple the dogs. We had Gore-Tex jackets for the thinner hair dogs to the lead dogs that were essential to the team at the beginning of the Expedition didn't quite have the have a coat of fur coat that would Allah keep them comfortable at 30 below. So we made a special jacket. For them and then little booties, so when you get a thawing temperatures, you can put it on their feet and they don't cut up their feet as I mentioned earlier in the program the dogs dog boredom or their lack of enthusiasm was the biggest problem. We've run all male dogs always on Expedition. There's always a problem with females with the heat cycle when the female goes in heat the males have a tendency of getting into huge fights. However, after this last episode in Greenland, I'm strongly considering taking two females on the team in Antarctica. I'll put them I would put them on birth control kind of alleviate the boredom fact, we already I think that would work. I've run a lot with female dogs female dogs are just as good as male dogs and sled dogging when you're pulling sleds weight. In fact, they have a tendency of having a better Spirit, but they do add a the female dogs to a team does add a coherency a family coherency that keeps the interest of the of the male's little more Pete. What kind of dogs are they? These dogs are majority of these dogs are a blend of Northern husky breeds for us. I've taken the Eskimo dog, which is a large 90 pound dog with very thick fur that type of dog is very tough but lacks a lot of times the High Spirit you find in a racing dog. So I read the Alaskan racing dog into this large fur dog along with some wolf some other Siberians and if come up with about a 70 75 pound dog that rather large size with a thicker fur that provides them with protection for the weather. And do you have a vet on the trip Congress that know we have a vet out of Ely and through Hills Pet Products that I work with that we work with their Mark Morris veterinarian Association in Topeka, but one of our members Jeff Jeff Summers from England is is trained as it is a trained field that to put it that way if there are any questions with the dogs if there's any diseases or infections Whatever. We have a system set up to radio. We can contact a vet in the states through a satellite hookup. We sit we do the same in any emergency Jean Louie Tiant who is my partner is a doctor from Paris and if he has to bless a perform a surgery and he has a question. We have the satellite link that through the radio system we can call in St. Marys and Duluth to find out where he makes the first incision. Okay. Let's move on we have about a half an hour left here with whilst eager today he back from his trip to Greenland and looking ahead to the trip to the Antarctic. You'll be on the ice the first of August of 1989. Thanks for waiting. You're on the air with him now. Yeah. I was wondering if you have to get government clearance to go to Antarctica for your Expedition. Okay government clearance. No, it isn't. It isn't like entering a country where you need a passport. You need the check in at the boundary, but government are Antarctica is a myth. Straight through the Antarctic treaty and accordingly. We have to follow the rules of the treaty the treaty states that we have to notify the you are our home government in this case the US government to tell them of our operations what we're doing and so forth and then they in turn will notify the other countries so they know who's going who is down there and where they are in case of emergencies, but in this case this Expedition, we've worked very closely particularly with the French in the Russian government's with our air supplies in and drops, but there isn't any it isn't like crossing the Mexican border where you have to get permission in a border crossing, but you have to keep the authorities down there notified what you're doing. And on now to you, please. Hello there. You're on with Will steer. Yeah, I got two concerns up what the humans and the dogs drink to they just chew on ice and snow and from our Impressions with National Geographic movies and whatever seem to be shifts occurring all the time with the pressures in these Isis. How do you know how to avoid crevasses and stuff like that? Okay first on the drinking for the humans we milked snow or if there's ice around with our white gas stoves white. We use I use a standard Coleman stove and moderate temperatures in a mountain stove Corner MSR and very cold temperatures. It takes a lot of time in the evening in the morning to milk snow. We spent about two hours a day with the stoves on melting snow in the water the drinking water by the way down. There is really superb. It's a couple things I miss when I'm traveling. You're in the desert and the dog simply eat the snow and the human being if you're traveling in the ice situation, if you're eating snow you will you have a tendency of dropping your body temperature, but for a dog when they're especially when they're training and or exercising the eating of the snow is a cooling mechanism because they're all coated with fur. Overheating is always the problem but snow is their main access to water that is also the consideration in a diet. You don't want to feed a dog to dry of a diet because of it's dry then they need more water which is more snow and they milked they takes a lot of calories to milk that snow in the water. So that is one big serious consideration in choosing the diet. It is the is how dry it is what how many gallons of water would you get out of the snow in two hours? Let's see here for usually right now we camp with two people per tent so with one stove going and and let's say two hours. We probably get it. Three gallons and we're bringing some of that water to just 33 degrees others other water were boiling up 40 and so forth. So you're melting it is one process but bringing it up to another 200 degrees is another one. Okay, how do you avoid the crevasses and so on? Okay, and that question first of all, I think it's important that I probably Define the difference between the Arctic or the North Pole regions in in Antarctica the South Pole the North Pole that we travel to two years ago T6. We traveled on the cross the shifting moving surface of the Arctic Ocean that ocean averages about 10,000 feet deep and its larger than the size of the United States. So there are problems was more open water cracks and wear these these plates of ice came together. They produce large ice ridges that we would have to cross 30 40 ridges. There are literally thousands of those in a way but now in Antarctica the other side of the globe on the For we're looking at a solid continent similar to Greenland Greenland is not a continent but it's it's a large land mass but in Antarctica, it's Solid ground with between two and three miles thick of ice fresh water ice on top of that. A lot of that ice is depressed. So the ice extends well below sea level and still fresh water. And in that situation you of course, you don't have to worry about Open Water, but you do have problems with crevasses and fortunately crevasses are just localized around certain areas, wherever you have any drop decline or steep drop in elevation, the service of the of the ice will move very fast forming the crevasses. So anywhere where you rising up you can expect grasses, but on the ice shelf itself or the eye of the Antarctic plateau in the case of Antarctica you have just a flat surface and accumulation of let's say maybe a foot of snow. Cheer that doesn't melt there. It's totally flat with no crevasses at all because there's no ice movement crab crevasses are associated with ice movement. So because it's localized in certain areas, we are aware of what areas will hit crevasses. We pretty well worked our way through most of the last batch of calls. So if you have a question now for will stagger 2276 thousand in the Twin Cities 2276 thousand Minneapolis st. Paul elsewhere within the state of Minnesota one 865 29700 the toll-free number in the surrounding states call us directly area code six twelve to two seven six thousand and if you get a busy signal try again and like oh and eight minutes, I'm like that. Okay your turn next to all hello. I'm sorry that I don't know more about Antarctica, but I'm wondering it is classified as a desert. Is that right? And it does not snow or does it snow and how does the dogs gets know if it's a desert and doesn't snow I'm sorry. Okay, whenever one of the purposes of of the Antarctic expedition is actually education to bring out more of these interesting details of what Antarctica is when Run into a lot of lot of questions are interesting questions fascinating questions like this, but it is quite a large continent down there about the size of content of China. That's totally unknown in our northern states here at least in your question of the desert a desert here would be defined as a certain low amount of precipitation. I think maybe desert is six inches of precipitation a year unless a desert doesn't necessarily reflect the temperature like you can have a desert in the Death Valley where it's dry and Sandy that's what we think of it as a desert, but you can have a cold desert like on the Greenland ice cap or the Antarctic Plateau where you have a less than 6 inches of precipitation, which is still quite a bit of snow that falls every year. So Antarctica, the plateau at least is is defined as a desert because it has a minimal amount of precipitation. However, all this precipitation in the for all falls and snow. Form of snow on the plateau when it falls it stays there and accumulates year after year after year, so you so that's the reason why you have three miles deep thickness of ice actually ice that's forms from the snow. So it's a desert. Yes, but there is still a lot of snow. There is one area several areas near the coast where you actually have a dry desert where there is no snow and you have a some blowing snow and and and that but that's just a small area but there's no no problem with dogs fighting snow on the route that we're taking we got thousands of years had accumulated thing got to if they wanna see tens of thousands. Yeah. All right. Now, it's your turn to talk to well. Hello there. Hi. I was wondering if they're going to be any women on your team. And if not, why not? Okay, the question of the woman was audience probably familiar and Bancroft was on her North Pole team 86 the first lady to the North Pole. In this case, I looked around the world for a woman for the Antarctic expedition and I couldn't find any person that would could meet the qualifications. The qualifications were very knurled for one. We needed people from different nationalities. We couldn't select for instance to Americans to people from France. So that that really narrowed narrowed the field down right there. But then the positions that we were open were very specialized. We needed for instance Jeff Summers from England fulfilled one of the positions and that was we needed someone who was who would spend at least three years in the British Antarctic Survey and the peninsula and who had run dogs and they're just simply wasn't any women available to fill those slots. What are the Specialties of the other 14 members there's yourself as the as the leader there's this gentleman who does the knows the British stuff British? Jeff Summers is British Antarctic Survey. Victor boyarsky from Leningrad Russia, I spent seven seasons in five seasons in Antarctica to in the Arctic and particularly winter Dover and vostok which is the area of near the area of in accessibility John. We Italian who is my partner. It's travel to the North Pole and he's a partner and he's a medical doctor medical doctor, huh and partner. Actually I should say one of our chief fundraisers kids'll Financial from Japan who's very experienced dog trainer who I knew through Naomi O'Mara was a Japanese Explorer and then like I mentioned we do have one slot open it probably will we're leaning more in the direction of China. John Louis is also a diplomat. He was has been invited over to Peking on July 9th to meet with the Chinese. What are you looking for in the Chinese? What expertise in the Chinese person? If Walt would you select preferably? I don't think we'll find anyone. That was a dog musher and You never know what it's not necessary to have six people with the same expertise that would almost defeat the purpose. In this case. We would look for someone with cool weather experience preferably in the Himalayas. We would like someone between the, you know, roughly the ages of 35 and 40 in between close to that age that not too much younger than that. And then we need someone who can speak English released has slight Commander the English you can learn English is a is our Expedition language why the age Criterion? Well, the maturity level I find is is very important like the green one expedition was more of a mental challenge the physical, you know, we had the day-to-day challenge of Storms and crevasses that keeps your attention that's real action. And but when you're dealing day-to-day monotony, it's very difficult handling your time. And in that type of situation is where you'd usually under in with the most most group. And monotony, but since physical the physical demands on these Expeditions is just to me is a very small part of it and I take for granted. You almost have to be an Olympic shape for an expedition, but that's that's fairly easy to be as long as you're under 50 years old. Oh my oh my oh my oh my I'm not touching that one with a 10-foot pole. Let's move on to another listener here. Go ahead, please you're on with Will Steiger. Yeah. I'm one of those people that really doesn't like the Heat and I was just amazed at after your Arctic Expedition and then you came back from Greenland and you were in much colder climates and you came back through very hot climate. Doesn't that take a lot of adjusting know for myself. It doesn't it's all very personal I think and how the individual does I'm able to adapt pretty much to wherever I go. I mean two days later after Greenland, I was in New York City and except for the strong pollution in the air there. I could adjust fairly. Well, I usually have a difficult time sleeping in Oars for a week or so with the I cry miss the fresh air, but the temperature here is is to me very pleasant. It's like I just love walking outside when it's 90 below everything's all warm. You mean 90 above any above God opposites here. All right. All right. Thank you for calling your on with Will Steiger. Hello there. Hello. First of all, I'd like to tell you how wonderful I think it is that you're doing such a great thing going to all these Great Lengths to do such a wonderful thing like going to the North Pole and South Pole. My question is you touched on it briefly about the physical preparation. How do you mentally and psychologically prepare yourself for such a venture like you're doing I'll hang up and listen thing. Okay the physical it is a challenge for me. I usually keep it fairly good shape and I like to keep in better shape, but my job now and Deals mostly jet planning around the United States and Europe and so forth, which you might think of that as a But it isn't it's a lot of hotels and airplane type food and it is a challenge physically to stay in top shape and I traveling very hard to do. I have taken up rollerblading myself. So whenever I'm in a city, I brought my roller blades in the evening and spent a couple hours of exercise, but the other flip side of them are training in Ely, we work in an isolated Wilderness base there and there we just splitting your wood carry water running dogs. It's very physical and that that seems to make up for the travel time, but the mental and psychological preparation I think is where the real challenges and I don't know, you know mentally if you can sit down and do exercises that are going to prepare yourself for a long exercise for a long Expedition. I think it's a matter of just lifetime experience of putting in time, you know, 30 years or thirty five years into your life and going through a lot. Out of experiences in the article you're close with people and when you develop your you know yourself very, well, you know, how you how you handle yourself in confined situations or isolated situations? And this is something I think that just pure age and experience will bring you it's something that you can't cram into 20 years of life. It takes 30 or 35 years and that's really what I look for is that maturity level and and I'm not saying that people in the younger 20s don't have it. But you have a tendency of putting on experience in age. You do get a certain maturity that I look for in Expedition members you said for sure that monotony was the big problem for the dogs and you kind of hinted at that for the people was that in fact the biggest psychological problem and for for the for the for the men on the trip, and how did you deal with that? Yes, I think it was I mean we expect at this for ourselves that would be monotonous but expecting something as never like actually being 60 days where there every day is always the same nothing changes and well we handled it. We again individually, what do you do with your time during the day that your daytime we'd always travel 10 hours every day in the time the day would be dictated by two things one would be the weather if it was really blowing and storming that would keep your concentration the weather if you had to concentrate on navigating, but if it was very pleasant weather you can let your mind run free. The other thing that factored in there is hollow. The dogs were running the dogs were motivated. Then you had apply the motivation for 10 hours and at the end of the day you are exhausted in the chest from singing and shouting and yelling commanding where the dogs are running and it was good weather and we did have a many days like that. Then you were free to let your mind go in any direction you'd want now in Greenland or Antarctica in a setting like that. There are no outfit outside influences on your mind. There's no music no advertisement. No bill. Original nobody honking horns at you. It's all up to how you want to place your mind. It's a total free choice. You did not bring along cassette machines to play music on. No, he didn't although we're thinking some of the members are thinking of doing in Antarctica and it might be a good idea even though the amount of weight wouldn't be that much that much trouble, but you were pretty much set with your own your own thoughts. So you start with your own thoughts. Hmm. Okay, 15 minutes before the hour as we continue chatting with Will Steiger the Minnesota Explorer and adventurer and your next. Hello there. Good afternoon. I'm calling in regards to your comment that you made a few minutes ago about the spiritual dimensions of Adventures like this and I would like you to talk a little bit more about that is the spiritual dimension of this trip. Come on Lee at the end where and you discover that Humanity has conquered the elements. How do you deal with the spiritual lows during the trip to any The members of your team profess a certain Creed and if so, how how does this trip helped them or strengthen them in that Creed that they profess I'll hang up and listen Okay, that's very good question. First of all, I think spiritualism is a very personal thing in the and in this case I could maybe speak for myself and maybe of the other team members but I would say when I'm talking about the spiritual side of it. It's more of an exercise of let's say for instance Faith or it's a good exercise of perseverance humility these basic These basic words that we read about in that but it exercises that for instance and traveling in a harsh area like that. You see very clearly just how fragile your body your life your intelligence yourself just how that is. Absolutely almost nothing compared to this powerful force that surrounds you it's I mean, it's very obvious and it produces effect of that is it produces humility and I can speak on that terms on the other team members are very very humble people. They've been through situations, or maybe that's just the way the way the way the people are but it's it's a very good lesson that way and our fragility but also you see the power of the human Spirit you see that despite this intensely cold blizzards and storms that because of your intelligence and your human Spirit you're able to flourish you have control of the situation because of this because in this fragile little warm body that just traveling underneath the storm. You have that spirit and that intelligence but it is always exercises that and and faith that not just in yourself, but faith that you can you start off with an idea or a vision of the Antarctica two or three years ago and you actually see the Expedition coming together. Not only traveling 60 days in storms are on the ice cap, but the whole business end of it the whole organization of all the people all the all the other aspects of the expedition's that you usually don't see as an outsider but faith is always continually exercise in that and it just exercises those those human qualities that you know, we we try to exercise caller asked a couple of other things about how you deal with spiritual laws do they occur? First of all, yeah. I find with myself that the mind or the body or are we always go through a cycle we go through the ups and the Downs you try to get your cycle. So you're not going way up and way down those are difficult. Not once but you tape them up at there are always the low the low and then there are always hides and you for myself. I recognize the low as a low cycle and that's a low cycle so and I don't put any weight into it and I know that in a day when I wake up tomorrow or two days from now, it's a little bit better, but I recognize that we go through these Cycles. All right, we have about 10 minutes left with whilst eager today. Let's get some more folks on the air with him your next hi there. All right. Well, I want to ask a question. You've touched on a little bit already and that's some of the psychological aspect. I'm wondering if you have Any kind of sort of psychological program or or a kind of an agreed upon way of communicating with each other or talking with each other, especially if disputes come up. It doesn't sound like there will be major disputes about the purpose of the Expedition or anything but just the normal sort of irritants of people living together. Do you have any kind of anything that you guys are going to agree on beforehand as a way of dealing with each other emotionally and psychologically during the hard times? Yes, very good question communication is the key on an expedition like this. If there are problems. It's usually communication problems, especially if you've chosen the right people that can work out now what we do but on the team for instance we've been together now since September we traveled in Greenland, we will be together now another year. So we're going to know each other pretty well, but there is an expectation among the group first of all if there are problems If I have a problem with someone or someone has a problem with me that these problems are eventually discussed. I mean it isn't that in the he you're angry with someone that you have to come up and start discussing this it's best just to let things cool off for a day or two. But if there's something Brewing that we Face the problems if it's with a system that we're doing or if it's with personalities or a group of people in the Expedition rather than starting the commiseration behind the backs because once that starts the whole thing to case so we have almost an expectation that if there are problems we deal with it and and if someone's having a problem with me, I expect them to to come to me eventually and work it out rather than talking to Joel behind my back that will is this and that but with this expectation and this is where the maturity comes in that you you deal on on the on the table all very open with each other very honestly, I think to all of us want to cooperate we want to work together. It's is quite a challenge to bring The different cultures together there's there's an interest there all the other team members are very considerate always willing to compromise and that it's almost like a marriage situation with us six people where there's a lot of joy in there is there's a lot of compromising and there's some down time there but you you have to keep that communication to open us now. We'll move to your question please for will Steiger. Hello matter of the crevasses. You mentioned that only that you knew where they were there in certain restricted areas. Well, once in that area, how do you avoid falling into the things the reading I've done suggest that you can ski out or dog sled right over an area that suddenly the bottom drops out and then you go and you have to do something to deal with the situation. So when you're in require vast areas, how do you deal with them then? Okay, when in a Crest area first of all The ice cap we would travel and storms when we maybe see that the most a hundred feet in a crevasse area. You can travel only when the visibility is good because you first of all you rely a lot on real fine. We're you have a crevasse you the snow over that grass will sometimes sink and if you look closely you'll see a very very subtle Gray Line and so you need very good weather when you're traveling over a crevasse area. So first of all, you can see this danger signs so you can read read the terrain but you can't as you mention you can't always read the terrain so they're always the surprises of its LED falling through or someone falling through. So in this case, we have precautions where we have a rope team to two men. In this case, that would be a front in front with her roped up with ice axes. That would be checking the route. We're also would be Roped are we have a system on the sled that we were hooked into the sled? So if we go through the skier of next to the sled goes through this at the Rope stops you or if the sled falls through you can quickly get out of that rope in a fraction of a second but there are certain precautions of roping up just like ice climbing that we take when we are in crevasse areas and case there is the surprise moving on now to your question, please high will staggers listening. Go ahead, please. I was wondering if he knows about dr. Larry Gould who was a professor of geology at Carleton College and later president of Carl and he was second in command of the first bird Antarctic expedition in 28 and 30. Dr. Gould is still alive and I have his address in Tucson if he liked it. Okay, thank you. Yes. I have a doctor ghouls address in Tucson. I'm very familiar with his book cold and I was accomplishments and he was another Minnesotan that has quite an Antarctic history behind him. Hmm. All right, we have about five minutes left. Let's put you on the air with Will Steiger now. Hello. Hi. I'm really glad you got my call before your off because I just want to know where can we get a t-shirt? Okay, the question on t-shirts, they'll be all it'll be for sale commercially. I can't to say right quite yet what stores but our fundraiser at O'Shaughnessy Hall and st. Catharines College seven o'clock on Sunday. We will have our first run of our t-shirts all we have. Prototypes out now, but the first shirts will be for sale. Then we have three or four different varieties of T-shirts and sweaters proceeds of that goes across to the Antarctic expedition. So if you get a chance on that Sunday night, if you're in the local area here stop auto shine see Hall there and pick up a t-shirt. All right, that was easily enough answered. So we'll move on to you now. Hello there. Hello. Yes. Please wonder how you acclimatized the dog and how you condition them to go from such a distance like from Ely to Antarctic. Yes in the case of ghrelin. It wasn't too much problems because we went from training and Ely there is a two-week interlude there in transportation and they were in the cold but in Antarctica, there is going to be a slight problem for both men and dogs and that is August our middle of our summer and all of a sudden will have dogs flowing from the tropics here at Minnesota down to Antarctica, but we are leaving almost a month. Early in Antarctica August 4th first and we will go slow at that time that first couple weeks and for sure to acclimatize both ourselves and the dogs fortunately our dogs right around in August. They start getting their winter coats. There's no problem there the problem that past Expeditions have had is bringing dogs down to Antarctica and then during the winter time. Which is our summer the dogs will lose their fur during the so they'd be just in the wrong cycle throughout first cycle, which is one reason why Scott couldn't use dogs and that led to the five men perishing on that expedition 1909. Okay, we have time for a couple more your next. Hello there. Thank you. I wanted to just briefly address what kind of failure planning you have done for example illness or injury and then specifically what if one of the members decide they want to quit Okay the backup systems, we have both medical and Veterinary and backup systems. First of all, John Louis a TN, the Frenchman on the team is a doctor there will be either be a doctor at our base in Antarctica or will be in communication with one via satellite. So if there is an emergency, we will have a medical team in Duluth that can be flown down to Antarctica probably within a 24-hour period We do it we do have advantage of the early explorers, of course because of the airplane if there's a problem we can call him. It's not saying that you can always get an airplane in the area of in accessibility. For instance. It's very questionable if you can get an airplane in there, so there is there is some risk there of but it's nothing like the earlier explorers at 1900 at the turn of the century. If someone wants to quit a course, there's always planes coming in. You can always call plane in say hey go here gonna hang it up. It's going to back to where we lives and then there are there are points along the way where people could fly in where the Press will go in and out. All right, one more caller and will be done. Go ahead. Please quickly. Hi, mr. Speaker. I was about 12 years ago, and it's just I just wanted to say it's been fun to watch her career in the media and everything and we were up there and we had dogsled we made our own snowshoes and what an experience it was. For an eleven-year-old you're one of the groups from Eden Prairie aura about the Belle Plaine, right? I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So now you have a little over a year to go before you actually get the ice. What do you do in that length of time very quickly. Well first the next six months is I'm pretty much involved in fundraising traveling getting the logistics. So I'm probably put about 75,000 miles in on the jet planes traveling around starting in November December. Hopefully, I'll be training in Ely be here more locally and then we'll be leaving round next June 1st or so now going by ship. Are you a ship? Yeah going out of Duluth Duluth. There is the st. Lawrence Seaway and all that. There is there has been some delays in building the ship and I'm not can't confirm this yet. There may not be the time to sail into the st. Lawrence there that ship may only come into New York. It'll be the New York for sure but next couple weeks. I'll be confirmed that with that originally the plan was to say on a Duluth, but it may be only New York City know. Well, well good luck to you will be a smile keeping track of your progress inside my pleasure being on the air. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Minnesota Explorer and adventurer. Will Steiger talking about his trip to Greenland and the forthcoming Antarctic expedition. That's midday for today. This is Bob Potter. Hi, I'm Paula Schroeder. And this is take out today. You'll hear documentaries on two of America's most influential black writers. Playwright, August Wilson and poet Langston Hughes. We begin with a special M. PR presentation. August Wilson's sacred book Wilson is a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright who lives and works in st. Paul and who now has two plays in production on Broadway fences and Joe Turner's come and gone fences will close this Sunday after a run of 526 performances here now is a documentary profile of the playwright produced by mpr's Stephen Smith and Beth friend. It's called August Wilson's sacred book. Po Boy. Poor boy, we were selling. Long way from home. Oh boy. We got four long weeks or low-fat will not back down. August Wilson calls the blues the sacred book of black experience the rhythmic Vault where 400 years of American black life is stored. Wilson takes the blues and turns it into poetry on stage poetry with an ear for the perfect pitch of black speech a clear and Faithful Poetry of the streets. She got worried down on a little phone. She called on that phone and they had a sand filter if blue. This is the sacred book the words are written in settings like this one a pool hall and cigar store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Called Pats Place Pittsburgh is where August Wilson was born and raised and this is where he first heard the Poetry of Black America actor James Earl Jones played the leading role of Troy Maxson in Wilson's most celebrated play fences Jones says Wilson's ear for language gives his characters a power and depth that other black characters have lacked. So rarely. Do you have a Man created? politically aware whether he's articulate or not. He's a poetic creation. Shouldn't do this when I give an example Rose comes out when Troy and his buddy Jimbo. No talking about women's legs. She says what you all out here getting into enjoys answer is what you worried about what we are here getting into for that's why I can't leave any more profound poetry than that with the blues as a Bible and the streets of Pittsburgh as his backdrop. August Wilson writes about a people dispossessed in their own country. Black Americans For Whom The Liberation From Slavery did not mean freedom, but simply a more subtle form of servitude. His plays are detailed etchings of black life in Northern American cities like Pittsburgh in neighborhoods, like the hill where Wilson do you up? To Outsiders and some who live here. Now the hill can seem like a profoundly sad place a scramble of Warren and decaying shops and houses slumped on a slope overlooking prosperous downtown Pittsburgh to August Wilson returning on a damp day to visit relatives. Many of the old buildings are now just brick scattered Lots like lost teeth from the wide welcoming face of the neighborhood. He knew even so walking the streets of the Hill clearly energizes the writer Priceless right there. It's dot Goldblum. The neighborhood doctor was it was gold.