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[WHITNEY HOUSTON, "I'M EVERY WOMAN"] I'm every woman

It's all in me

Anything you want done, baby

I'll do it naturally

ANGELA DAVIS: As you may know, March is Women's History Month, a time for us to acknowledge the contributions of phenomenal women. Today, I'm excited to talk with a woman who is a living legend and a Minnesota native. Ann Bancroft is here, and I made her dance with that music. I'm so thrilled that you like that.

ANN BANCROFT: OK. Chair dancing.

ANGELA DAVIS: Ann Bancroft is a polar explorer, who, along with Explorer Liv Arnesen, became the first women in history to sail and ski across Antarctica's landmass, and is also known for being the first woman to cross the ice to both the North and South Poles. She's been named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine and Ms. magazine and inducted to into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and is also the founder of the Ann Bancroft Foundation. And its mission is to empower girls to imagine something bigger and help them reach their full potential. This morning, Ann is here with us at MPR News. So nice to see you.

ANN BANCROFT: Oh, it's so good to be back in here. Thank you for having me.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah. So how are you handling, first of all, the snow we've had the last several weeks? I know you love the snow, but what do you make of this winter weather?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, I'm cautious when I answer this question because I do love it. It just brings out the little girl in me. For me, it lifts my energy. But I do understand it's a real hardship, particularly at the end of the winter for so many people, particularly people who have to commute and navigate the tough sidewalks and streets and whatnot. So I'm cautious in this because I'm usually the only one in the room who's still pretty excited about the snow dumps.

ANGELA DAVIS: So when you're at home in Minnesota, do you try to get out and enjoy the snow? Do you go like cross-country skiing and snowshoeing?

ANN BANCROFT: Both. I think that's really the secret about winter in Minnesota. It's certainly something that's fostered my sense of adventure since I was a young kid. But being outside, playing in it, dressing for it, engaging with it is where the fun is and where that energy rises up. It's not when you're commuting or navigating in bad shoes and things like that. That's when it's really aggravating.

ANGELA DAVIS: And shoveling.

ANN BANCROFT: And shoveling. Well, I like to shovel.

ANGELA DAVIS: You like to shovel?

ANN BANCROFT: I love to shovel.

ANGELA DAVIS: Oh, my goodness. Well, I know you've spent some time also working as an instructor for Wilderness Inquiry, and that's an organization that helps disabled and able-bodied people enjoy the wilderness year round. So tell me what happens there.

ANN BANCROFT: Well, it's a wonderful program. It does a multitude of things. I've been working with them since 1986 when I came back from the North Pole as a 30-year-old young woman. And I just love it because it's an entry point to a place I love, which is the wilderness for anyone. It's not about going fast. It's about working together and just experiencing the splendors.

But they also run programs right here on the Mississippi for inner city youth and all across the United States. So it's doing lots of different programming. And it's one of the reasons I can't seem to let them out of my clutches. I love being involved with them.

ANGELA DAVIS: Right. And converting people?

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah, absolutely.

ANGELA DAVIS: Because yeah, if you're going to live here, you need to figure out how to get some enjoyment out of the winter weather.

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah. And I think what I've come to really understand, as I've been talking with people the last 30-plus years, is that adventure doesn't have to be the top or the bottom of the world. It's right out the back door. And if we can have that mindset, life becomes a little bit more manageable and pleasurable to experience because we don't have to think about these extreme expeditions that I've been lucky enough to do.

Those, I understand, are just really for a very few that get energized by it. But it's finding a patch of grass in your backyard or a park, a city park. The mighty Mississippi that is urban so much of it is so extraordinary.

ANGELA DAVIS: I'm going to quote you tonight when I talk to my teenage children. And Bancroft said this morning, adventure is right out the back door, so go shovel that paths. We can get to the alley, kids. All right, so you referenced-- you keep referencing 30 years. You've done this. You've done that. You're now in your 60s, and you're still traveling the world, and you're still leading expeditions. So you're still in great health. You look wonderful.

ANN BANCROFT: Well, thank you. I love radio.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yes. But tell us about Access Water. I mentioned that is your newest venture. What is Access Water?

ANN BANCROFT: Access Water is something that Liv and I cooked up some years ago as a way to continue to do our brand of education, which is merging our love of adventure and outdoor travel, which is our classroom with our curriculum and our partnerships. And we're focusing typically on fresh water and the challenges that exist, and the different kinds of challenges that exist all around the world.

So we've brought together an international team of women, a woman from every continent, with the exception of Antarctica, to join us, to help listen and articulate some of the challenges and amplify them out so that we can learn from each other and figure out a place where we as average everyday citizens, young and old, can engage and be a part of the solutions to a resource that we all depend upon.

ANGELA DAVIS: I think there are many people who are not aware that there is a critical shortage of fresh water in many parts of the world. Are you finding that as you talk to people that they don't fully understand, that for a lot of places, this is a huge problem?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, I think, certainly in places like the US. Most of the US were a wealthy, pretty comfortable nation. However, we have our flints and other issues. I think we're hearing the conversation more, even in places like the US. We hear certain things-- that girls and women carry water in third-world countries at great risk and great distance, which stops them from education, or it puts them in danger physically, et cetera.

But I think what we have to understand as a globe is that we are all facing these problems. The problem, in part, is the density. We are all using this resource, and it's a finite resource. And so if you listen a little bit closely after you've turned on the tap to some of these conversations, you start to understand that-- in Minnesota, we get a lot of our water from groundwater and/or the Mississippi. And if we take care of that, it will continue to provide for us.

Or where does that water go? Earlier in your program, you were talking about drain water. That's a real issue that Minnesota Pollution Control is taking on. Where does our salt or our grass clippings go once they go down that drain? So it's really just learning to educate ourselves about where we want to enter into taking small steps to make a difference in our world and going back to adventure in your own backyard.

The action comes from our own little households. And what we have to remind ourselves as we think about that resource is that our small steps accumulate. If your neighbor is doing them, or that school is doing them, it starts to make a difference.

ANGELA DAVIS: So you and Liv put together this band of women from each continent. And now, then what? You've been traveling. Where did you go?

ANN BANCROFT: We've been a couple of places, and we're moving around the globe slowly. The very first trip that we did in a couple of years ago was down the Ganges River in India, and we started from the glacier, the source of the Ganges in the Himalayas, in Northern India. And we traveled. We camped, believe it or not, all the way down through India, down to the sea, the Bay of Bengal. Nobody does this, let alone eight women of all different sizes and colors and languages. And it was fantastic. And we were in schools, in cities and villages all the way along talking about this wonderful river that is very complex.

ANGELA DAVIS: And were you on boats also in the river?

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah, we were on boats the entire time.

ANGELA DAVIS: Oh, my goodness.

ANN BANCROFT: It was fantastic.

ANGELA DAVIS: Did you have interpreters to help? You said there were all different languages.

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah. We have an Indian team member. But we realized that India could be a continent. It's so enormous. And there were times when she didn't understand all the languages and some of the villages that we were in. It's a wonderful thing to have eight women. It's very exotic. So people would see us, and they were so curious.

So sometimes language was not the big barrier to communicating and having an interesting conversation. It was very human, born out of curiosity. And oftentimes the comments would be, if you have come so far to care about our river, we, too, should care about it.

ANGELA DAVIS: That's deep.

ANN BANCROFT: That's an international team, and the entree that it can give you in ways that maybe you couldn't have had traveling by yourself, or just leaving myself.

ANGELA DAVIS: So while you're visiting these different places, you make a point. You said of speaking to different groups, or getting into the communities and educating them, or asking them questions? Or what do you do while you're there?

ANN BANCROFT: We have an educational program. So we partner with educational groups. So before we went down the Ganges, the educators were already being in training classes to learn about the curriculum around the Ganges and water so that they could teach it. And by the time we came through, many of the schools were demonstrating what they had been learning for the last year.

So we just planted that seed of the curriculum. And with NGOs and other organizations, they helped us translate that curriculum, get it into the right, as I say, containers, so that it was approachable in that culture. And then we come through. And a lot of what we do, quite frankly, is listen and hear the stories coming off of the shores of the river, of people that live it every day and are bearing witness to the challenges, the splendors, the importance of that waterway for them.

And that river is so enormous. It took us two months to get down it. It changes in personality from tip to tail and from village to city to village to cities.

ANGELA DAVIS: And I'm imagining bugs and critters and stuff.

ANN BANCROFT: And snakes.

ANGELA DAVIS: Oh!

ANN BANCROFT: [LAUGHS] And goats.

ANGELA DAVIS: So what do you have in the boat to deal with all that?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, you have a good attitude, just like Minnesotans are having in early March around this ice and snow. A good attitude.

ANGELA DAVIS: Wow. And technology. Technology has made things a lot more exciting for an Explorer, because you can really share what you're doing. And in Access Water, aren't you interacting with school students, allowing them to see? How does that work?

ANN BANCROFT: Exactly right. When I started in '86, we had no means of communicating with anyone. We just went out into the hinterland and disappeared. There was no internet.

ANGELA DAVIS: You had a polaroid camera?

ANN BANCROFT: We had a camera, but you had to wait until we came home to see images or film footage, or hear our stories. We were like the early explorers at that time. But the technology rapidly changed by the time I went to the South Pole in '92 with an all-women's team. We didn't have the internet yet, but we had a GPS, so our navigation was a little bit more fluid. We still had a two-way radio.

And then in 2000, we had three million kids following us all over the world because of the internet. And now, as we go down the Ganges or the Yangtze in China, we have social media-- tweeting, Facebook, Instagram. Wherever kids are, we go, which is sometimes the Wild Wild West for Liv and myself, the older ones. So it's important that we have younger team members.

But we communicate as we go. And it's both, I would say, a blessing because we get lots more participants following along on the journey and learning with us because we have an educational mission. But it's also very complicated because you don't always feel like communicating every minute you're on these trips. You just want to go in your tent and feel dirty.

ANGELA DAVIS: And look for snakes.

ANN BANCROFT: And look for snakes.

ANGELA DAVIS: Can't be on Twitter when you got snakes around you.

ANN BANCROFT: It's really hard to--

[LAUGHTER]

Got you. Multitask.

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, this is an 11-year or 10-year mission? because you're going to visit each of the continents, hopefully?

ANN BANCROFT: We are trying to go to each continent, and we're doing things in between educationally. Right now, we're exploring with a Norwegian company called Science Factory, which really teaches girls, particularly around STEM, math and science. And we're infusing the lessons learned from these expeditions to help them in terms of the leadership aspect of these science camps in Scandinavia, in Asia and around the world. So we're really having fun this year piloting some new programming that's off the water.

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, if you're just joining us, we are talking with polar explorer, Ann Bancroft, who still lives here in Minnesota but is still exploring the world as you're hearing. And if you have a question for her about exploring or also about empowering girls and young women, which is what her foundation focuses on, please give us a call. The number is 651-227-6000, or you can leave me a message on Twitter. I'm @angeladavismpr. So talking about technology, on Twitter-- I looked at your Twitter page. And you described yourself as a chicken farmer.

ANN BANCROFT: Oh, dear. See? Careful what you post.

ANGELA DAVIS: So, you like to raise chickens?

ANN BANCROFT: I just love birds-- all kinds-- domestic and non. I don't know. I can't articulate why other than they're just all characters.

ANGELA DAVIS: So, how many chickens do you have?

ANN BANCROFT: I think there's about-- I don't know. Too many.

ANGELA DAVIS: You like the eggs? Is that why you have them?

ANN BANCROFT: Eggs are great.

ANGELA DAVIS: Eggs are great.

ANN BANCROFT: But there's something about sitting in a chicken yard and having a chicken on your knee that just is looking at you. They're characters, and they calm me. I'm sure my blood pressure goes right--

ANGELA DAVIS: Interactive. I can see you talking to them.

ANN BANCROFT: I'm a weird kid.

ANGELA DAVIS: And what has kept you in Minnesota? I mean, you could obviously live anywhere in the world, but you've chosen to stay.

ANN BANCROFT: I love Minnesota. It typically gives you four good seasons. I love that shift.

ANGELA DAVIS: Now we're about to argue. It does not give us four seasons.

ANN BANCROFT: No?

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, not.

ANN BANCROFT: We're in between right now.

ANGELA DAVIS: We don't have season equity here. Yes, you're right. We do have four seasons.

ANN BANCROFT: I couldn't live in San Diego. Let's just put it that way. It's lovely to visit. But I like the distinction between what we're going through right now, and then leading into a glorious spring. See, my problem is, by July, if it gets hot and humid, I'm a little fish out of water there. So I'm looking towards August and September at that point because I'm sick of the stick. But I love that transition, and I love what it offers-- the shift and how I feel within that shift, both the frustrations and the glory. And it's a great place to camp. And everybody feels like they get it. What I do even.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah, you can fully appreciate the seasons as they change because you're really waiting for the next one to come along.

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah.

ANGELA DAVIS: You are correct there. As you travel the world, what are perceptions that people have of Minnesota?

ANN BANCROFT: When they say, how did you get into polar expeditions? I usually say, well, I'm from Minnesota. So I grew up in Minnesota, where we had tons of snow as a little kid. So it's a nice way to quickly explain your strange penchant for the top and the bottom of the world, and people get it. They just sort of already think that they know what you're talking about. So it's my quick quip. I think people beyond Minnesota think that Minnesotans are really hardy. So I say at this point in time, you've just got a little attitudinal adjustment because we're supposed to be hardy.

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, stay with us. We're going to continue to talk with polar explorer, Ann Bancroft, and take some of your calls and read some of your comments and questions for her. We're going to hear more about the work that the foundation is doing, which I think is just wonderful with young girls and women. But first, we do want to get to today's news headlines with MPR's Steven John. Good morning, Steven.

STEVEN JOHN: Hi, Angela. President Donald Trump is apparently ready to revive his border wall fight, offering up a new budget that will seek $8.6 billion for his signature project. The record $4.7 trillion budget blueprint being released today also increases defense spending to $750 billion while reducing non-defense accounts by 5%.

The Democratic National Committee has selected Milwaukee to host the 2020 National Convention. Party Chairman Tom Perez picked Wisconsin's largest city over Houston and Miami. The move will bring Democrats to the heart of the region that delivered Donald Trump to the White House in 2016. It's the first time in over a century that Democrats will be in a Midwest city other than Chicago to nominate their presidential candidate.

The United Nations Secretary General says at least 21 UN staff members died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday, along with an undetermined number of people who had worked closely with the world body. The 157 passengers and crew on the Ethiopian Airlines plane were citizens of 35 different countries, including the US.

Technology stocks, are powering broad gains on Wall Street, although a drop in Boeing is weighing down the Dow Jones industrial average a bit. Boeing fell 6.8% after the second deadly crash involving one of its new 737 Max planes. The Dow was up about 80 points in midday trading. Sunny skies expected for Minnesota today with highs in the mid-20s to low-30s. It's 11:37.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Support comes from Hamline University School of Business, introducing its innovative Master of Science in Business Analytics, preparing business professionals to become the driver behind data-driven decisions. Learn more at hamline.edu/msba.

ANGELA DAVIS: Programming is supported by MentorMate-- helping teams of all sizes grow their software development capabilities with the expertise of over 500 Bulgarian technologists at mentormate.com

You Are listening to MPR News. And coming up in our next hour, we have MPR News Presents. You can hear a new debate from the Intelligence Squared series about China's ability to be the world's technology and economic superpower. Stay tuned for that at noon. Right now, we're talking with polar explorer, Ann Bancroft, who is also the founder of the Ann Bancroft Foundation, which I mentioned works to empower girls and young women. She is here with us in the studio this morning as we celebrate Women's History Month, and learn more about what we can all do to empower the girls and young women in our lives.

If you have a question for Ann Bancroft, we'll take it. Give us a call-- 651-227-6000, or you can leave me a message on Twitter, and we'll pass that along. So I do want to talk about your foundation, the Ann Bancroft Foundation. It's been up and running for almost 25 years now?

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah, it's wild.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah. So what does the foundation do? Or when you started it, what were you thinking? What did you want to do?

ANN BANCROFT: It was started in the '90s after my all-women's expedition.

ANGELA DAVIS: Tell me about that all-women's expedition. Is that the one to--

ANN BANCROFT: This was to the South Pole.

ANGELA DAVIS: South Pole.

ANN BANCROFT: And my board really challenged me, I think, at that point. We were really more about curriculum because it was founded around the expedition. And they really challenged me to think about the legacy that I had just, or the platform that I was now sitting on, which was the first woman to both Poles, and really focus in on girls. I was, at that point, wanting to be the typical elementary teacher that I was and be all things to all kids, boys and girls.

And so I took the challenge. And we created the foundation to give small monetary grants to Minnesota girls to really have an experience because when I was 11 and 12, we were living in Africa. It changed my whole perspective. I understood suddenly that there was a big world out there, and I wanted a piece of it. That experience just started to alter the compass bearing that I was on, and we wanted to give girls that opportunity at a time in life when they're navigating a lot of different things as adolescents.

ANGELA DAVIS: So a girl could apply for a grant, and then be able to go to a camp? Or how does she use that money?

ANN BANCROFT: It was wide open. I didn't want to put any parameters on it because it didn't have to be camping and outdoor just because that was my thing. So it could be Concordia language camp. Some of the kids have come down to the capital and spent a day shadowing politicians. It's all across the board. Kids will lead you to places you didn't know existed.

And so they write a small grant or a small application and articulate the experience that they're thinking about, that they're dreaming about. They have to have an adult mentor help them through the process. I guide them through the process, and we give out $500 or less for the experience. They don't see the money. It goes to the provider of the experience.

ANGELA DAVIS: So you're literally opening doors.

ANN BANCROFT: We're just trying to open a sense of possibility. Many of these girls have seen nos in their lives already and feel discouraged. Some are navigating self-esteem and don't feel an ability to make friends. So when we hear back from them, I think the more profound pieces are less about the experience and more about what the experience provides. An adult other than my parents listened to me. I made a friend, and/or the experience ignited me beyond my wildest dreams. Or I got uncomfortable, and I got through it.

ANGELA DAVIS: The keyword "ignite" because you have that one experience, and then it can change a girl or a teenager.

ANN BANCROFT: Forever.

ANGELA DAVIS: They can see themselves differently. That's wonderful. And so the $500 grants, they're more to the foundation?

ANN BANCROFT: There's really not much more. I mean, it's meant to be very--

ANGELA DAVIS: To the point.

ANN BANCROFT: Simple. And to the point because we're dealing with girls. So we don't want to be a very involved grant system.

ANGELA DAVIS: Is there age range?

ANN BANCROFT: We're five through high school.

ANGELA DAVIS: Five? I'm five, and I can get a Bancroft grant?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, we don't receive too many at that age, but we keep it young.

ANGELA DAVIS: It's good. That's wonderful. Well, Leslie from Stillwater is listening to the conversation and would like to ask a question. Go ahead, Leslie.

LESLIE: Hi, Ann. I am wondering if there's anywhere on the planet that you have wanted to go to but the country told you no.

ANGELA DAVIS: Oh!

ANN BANCROFT: You took a twist on that for me. I have at times been denied in certain countries, but it was visa issues or other things. But then it would be open again. So no. As a Caucasian American, I have not been denied any access thus far.

ANGELA DAVIS: Do you think that's made a difference, being a white woman from America?

ANN BANCROFT: I don't know. I just prefaced that because I think that sometimes can give you-- coming from the US particularly can have more opportunity to open doors to be able to move more fluidly. But I have not been to not-- but there's a lot of world I have not seen yet.

ANGELA DAVIS: So with your foundation more than 20 years now, you must have some success stories. There have been some girls that had a grant back in the '90s and now are women who are out and working. Any stories like that you can share?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, I usually say that we try not to focus that the experience has to lead to a career path because I really want it to be about the experience, being the entree to opening their eyes and their minds to the world beyond. Years and years ago, we got a young woman, and she was in high school. And she wrote a grant to go be with the manatees in Florida at a scientific organization. And she is now a marine biologist studying manatees.

ANGELA DAVIS: Wow.

ANN BANCROFT: She wrote us a letter, and she said, you overdelivered.

[LAUGHTER]

It doesn't always happen quite that way. But we're spending a lot of time putting surveys out and talking to our alumni to see how the experience manifested beyond that first year when we were talking to them more intimately. And that's been so gratifying because they are talking about how it sparked a sense of who they were and how that has carried them and how they think back on that one experience.

ANGELA DAVIS: So when you came in, I shared with you that I have two teenagers, and I'm around teenagers a lot. Do you still see our teenage girls lacking the same amount of confidence that boys seem to have?

ANN BANCROFT: I think one of the reasons we started the foundation and in a certain way focused around adolescence, in part, was it's a funky age for girls. They're navigating lots of different things internally and externally. And so we do want to be that hand extended in their lives, to give them a little boost when maybe they're feeling the onslaught of all of life's dramas. And I do still see it. Girls can be so hard on themselves and on each other, and I think that's one of the reasons we hope to be about 85% yes in our granting rounds.

ANGELA DAVIS: So you do get a lot of applications?

ANN BANCROFT: We get a lot of applications, and we try and meet them.

ANGELA DAVIS: All right. Well, Ludwin is listening from Saint Paul, and Ludwin would like to join the conversation. Good morning.

LUDWIN: Good morning. Hi. Thank you so much, Angela, for having Ann on, especially during Women's History Month. And thank you, Ann, so much for all the work that you're doing for the women of the world, for all the girls. We just need it so bad.

ANN BANCROFT: Well, thank you.

LUDWIN: Yeah, thank you so much. And I just have-- really, I don't know if it's a stupid question but-- so it's awesome that you love birds. And I do, too. But chickens? What? How do you keep them warm in the winter in Minnesota winters, number one? And who takes care of them-- all your chickens-- when you're gone traveling around the world and stuff.

ANN BANCROFT: Oh, you get a lot help. How do they keep warm? They're in a coop, and they've got each other. And sometimes the heat lamp is really severe and a lot of straw. They do pretty well.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah.

ANN BANCROFT: I shovel for them, by the way, Angela, because I like them to come out and get a little sunlight.

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah. Actually, this is a conversation I hear quite a bit. People talk about taking care of their chickens in the winter time and trying to keep them warm. But they're sort of adapt to it, right? They're not supposed to necessarily be comfy or--

ANN BANCROFT: Well, they can get frostbite, just like we can, in their comb, in their feet. So you watch for them. But they do just fine.

ANGELA DAVIS: I want to pass this along from Twitter. Tania Bailey writes, have Ann come visit with the registered therapy chickens at the University of Minnesota? Many students agree they help them de-stress. So were you aware that there are therapy chickens at the University of Minnesota?

ANN BANCROFT: I am aware, and even some of the old folks homes are starting to use chickens as well as other animals because they do calm you. They are amazing.

ANGELA DAVIS: Really?

ANN BANCROFT: And I never thought I'd be coming on the show and talking chickens.

ANGELA DAVIS: Me either. Was not on my list, but here we are.

ANN BANCROFT: But they are fantastic.

ANGELA DAVIS: All right. Well, let's talk about-- I want to hear more. You've referenced this a lot. You're a former school teacher. So you went to the University of Oregon?

ANN BANCROFT: I did.

ANGELA DAVIS: And you came back, and you taught. Was it in Saint Paul and Minneapolis?

ANN BANCROFT: Uh-huh. Yeah, both cities.

ANGELA DAVIS: In your 20s at that time?

ANN BANCROFT: Yes.

ANGELA DAVIS: And has that really stuck with you? Because you still you really exude this educator vibe.

ANN BANCROFT: I was only a teacher for four years, and my school in South Minneapolis, Clara Barton Open School, let me go off for a year and train and do the North Pole trip. When I came back, I visited the school. It was early May, so school was still in session. I had just come from the top of the world. And my colleagues had created this K-through-eight school into the Arctic in every way-- maths, science, literature, art, music.

And at that point, I knew I could be a teacher outside of the formal walls of the school building. When I couldn't find my feet to go back into the classroom that next year, and I started doing other expeditions, I made a promise that if ever I did another large public expedition, like the North Pole trip, that I would have something that was bigger than me-- a part of that project. And the only way I knew how to demonstrate something bigger than me was education. So that's where the curriculum-- and I've never done an expedition without some thematic educational component.

ANGELA DAVIS: One of the first expeditions that you did, maybe. Was it your first one in 1986? You went out with Will Steger and six other men and 49 dogs, and even the dogs were male.

ANN BANCROFT: Yeah.

ANGELA DAVIS: You're the only woman. Tell us about that. What was that like?

ANN BANCROFT: After all these years, it's still my favorite line. I traveled to the North Pole with seven men and 49 male dogs.

ANGELA DAVIS: That's what it says.

ANN BANCROFT: Don't you ever forget it.

ANGELA DAVIS: So the only woman in that group. And was that one of your very first in 1986?

ANN BANCROFT: That was my first public expedition.

ANGELA DAVIS: So what do you remember about that-- arriving at the North Pole?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, I remember everything about that trip. It was life-changing. Getting to the Pole was exhausting. I mean, it was amazing. All I can say about the places that you end up, the goal, it's the summit, the Pole-- they're anticlimactic at the moment because you've worked so hard to get there from training to the trip itself. And so when you stand there in isolation with nobody being able to celebrate with you except your team, it doesn't feel like much when you come home. And there's the kerfuffle. You start to digest it-- any kind of significance.

ANGELA DAVIS: What were you wearing? Beyond layers, I mean, what do you wear when you're out?

ANN BANCROFT: In the cold?

ANGELA DAVIS: For weeks. Seriously, what were you wearing? I want to know.

ANN BANCROFT: We wear multiple layers of long johns and then a wind-- probably the most important piece of equipment in terms of clothing is our Gore-Tex pants and jacket with a fur roof-- really important-- because the wind is always blowing. So we don't wear a lot during the day because we're working so hard.

ANGELA DAVIS: And you're sweating.

ANN BANCROFT: When we come in at night, that's when you see the giant down parkas and the down pants and things like that, because as soon as you stop, you get cold. When your machine, your body is working, you feel pretty good.

ANGELA DAVIS: And then what do you take with you to eat?

ANN BANCROFT: Eat? I knew you were going there.

ANGELA DAVIS: More than just bars in your pockets, I'm guessing.

ANN BANCROFT: Well, the good thing about being an explorer is you can eat 7,000 calories a day. If you're an eater like I am, it's bliss. You eat two hot meals in the day, morning, and night. And then in the rest of the day, you're just nibbling on chocolate and nuts. Maybe a dried meat if you can stomach that kind of thing. But you don't stop. And then you're drinking a lot of hot fluids. So you have thermoses.

ANGELA DAVIS: Can you hear each other? I mean, I envision it being windy at times. Do you have to shout to talk? So you try to avoid a lot of talking?

ANN BANCROFT: Well, you don't have to-- unlike this hour with you, I'm an introvert, so I don't actually talk a lot or need to for a period of time. So when Liv and I were crossing Antarctica, it took us 97 days. I would say that we talked very little during the day, if at all. If we're separated, we use our ski poles as a way to communicate if we're good or bad, if we need to stop or proceed.

You're right, the wind blows all the time. You can't hear each other. You're wearing a face mask. You're exhausted. You're pulling a sled that's double your body weight, and then some. So finding the breath to speak. And then we're both-- personality wise, we are made for these kinds of long expeditions. We don't need that kind of communication all the time, that stimulus.

ANGELA DAVIS: And all these years. So you and Liv Arnesen, you've been doing expeditions together for, what, 30 years?

ANN BANCROFT: Since 2000.

ANGELA DAVIS: And so there's something unique in the way you work together. You just work together well.

ANN BANCROFT: We're sister souls is the way she frames it. And I think we are philosophically bound together. We're both educators. We're both women who have experienced the wonderful privilege of being women, who have done something for the first time historic, and we want to do something with that platform.

ANGELA DAVIS: And she lives in Norway?

ANN BANCROFT: She lives in Oslo, Norway. And then we just get along. So it's a joy to have her.

ANGELA DAVIS: Does she have chickens?

ANN BANCROFT: She does not have chickens.

ANGELA DAVIS: All right. Ali is listening in Roseville. And Ali, go ahead with your question.

ALI: Yeah. So I went to school to be a biologist, and I've decided through teaching swim lessons that I want to work with kids and do something-- teaching them about the environment and how great it is to conserve it. And so I'm asking Ann for advice of how to get into that field of being a naturalist, or being an environmental educator, and where I can start.

ANN BANCROFT: Where you can put your energies.

ANGELA DAVIS: That's a great question, Ali.

ANN BANCROFT: And something's squeaking behind you. I love it. I think it's a bird. It really depends on the entry point that you want to focus on because I think if we care about the Earth, we're all environmentalists. And so sometimes it's just volunteering at the local park, or introducing young people to the splendors, again, right out the back door, or it's going into coursework.

You really have to find your place of intensity and how deep you want to take it. Sorry, I'm not a great guide in that regard. But I think there's so many places that you could find yourself with your interests.

ANGELA DAVIS: Is there work that needs to be done that you can't get to? Is there something you would like to see another explorer devote time to?

ANN BANCROFT: That's a great question. I can't say enough about Will Steger, who--

ANGELA DAVIS: He's great. You guys stay in touch?

ANN BANCROFT: Oh, absolutely. And he has been dedicated to climate change for a very, very long time and making a significant impact, particularly with that focus. So I think it's finding-- what I say to explorers because we're not always scientists or educators or whatever. Speak from your heart the part that really ignites you. So if it's about water or if it's about a certain species or climate, amplify your voice and your activities through where your passion sits. And that's where Liv and I always make our decisions about where we tend to focus when we're doing a particular expedition.

ANGELA DAVIS: Are you encouraged by what you're seeing in terms of just our state government and different companies making commitments to move us to more clean energy and renewable energy, addressing some of the climate change concerns?

ANN BANCROFT: Absolutely. I mean, I'm really excited about what's been happening in the last couple of weeks just down the street here at the Capitol. I think what I'm really excited about, quite frankly, is citizens raising their voices to help politicians and CEOs move their dials in the right direction because it doesn't really happen unless citizens raise their voices. That's what politicians really ultimately care about. And that's what CEOs are caring about, is they'll change their behavior if they see a reason to do it. So we can't sit complacent about the things that we care about and want them to care about.

ANGELA DAVIS: A caller wants to know if you have a blog.

ANN BANCROFT: I do not have a blog yet.

ANGELA DAVIS: So how do we keep track of you? Well, they can follow you on Twitter. You're @polarann.

ANN BANCROFT: I am @polarann, and I'm trying to Twitter more. And I love Instagram because I love to dabble in photography and post pictures and whatnot. And of course, we have a Facebook page.

ANGELA DAVIS: For your foundation?

ANN BANCROFT: Yep, for Bancroft Arnesen Explore, and a website. We're looking at actually starting a podcast to tell our stories and talk to-- continue our listening and learning.

ANGELA DAVIS: I'm going to walk you down the hall here so you can talk to my colleagues about your podcast idea. I love it. Ann Bancroft, polar explorer and phenomenal woman, thank you for joining us.

ANN BANCROFT: Thanks for having me.

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