By Gregory Strong
Published in The Vancouver Sun (Saturday Review), August 8, 1998
Mining Polar Epiphanies
"Gareth Wood learns hard-won lessons about life and teamwork in his narrative of the polar trek that deserves to be included in the pantheon of classic Canadian tales of adventure."
Enduring temperatures of -50 Celsius and gale force winds, Canadian Gareth Wood and two British companions retraced Sir Robert Falcon Scott's epic journey across Antarctica. South Pole is Wood's gripping account of how they skied 1440 km and faced every conceivable obstacle, including shipwreck.
Crossing a patch of sea ice, Wood is even attacked by a massive leopard seal. "For a fraction of a second our eyes met", writes Wood. "They were cold and evil with intent ... I pictured the seal swimming down with my limp, red-clothed body in its jaws."
Ultimately, Wood's party finds its measure in Scott's epitaph: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Without sled dogs or air drops or supplies, each man hauls a sledge with 160 kg of supplies although no one has ever pulled that much weight over such distances before. With neither radio nor emergency locator beacon, failure means certain death.
However, personality conflicts within the group are nearly as lethal. There is Roger Mear, a short, powerful alpinist. With a mercurial temper, he is known as a "hard man" in the British climbing fraternity. Mear is keenly interested in whether or not the modern technology used in mountaineering can be applied to Antarctic travel.
Robert Swan, their nominal leader, is a handsome, charismatic figure who idolizes Scott. With his flare for self-promotion, he sold the idea of an "In the Footsteps of Scott" expedition to the British public, garnering the financial support that made the venture possible. But once in the Antarctic, Wood feared that their impetuous leader might be so obsessed with Scott that he wouldn't mind if they met the same fate.
Then there is Wood himself, the narrator of the story whom we come to trust. Stoically, he endures hardships. In the absence of disinfectant, he bathes his blistered feet in white gas, the fuel for their stove. When their evacuation ship is holed and sunk by sea ice, he courageously volunteers to stay behind for one more lonely year until their shelter and stores can be taken away.
Through these trials, Wood emerges as the quiet hero of the book. Although he is [a] man of great sensitivity, he is cautious and rarely expresses his emotions. When Wood complains about the deteriorating personal relations in the group, he is met with taunts, "Well, the clam finally opens. I didn't think you had it in you," snaps Mear.
The crisis comes after they have already pulled their sledges 560 km. Through no fault of their own, they had incorrectly installed the runners on two of the sledges. Instead of investigating the problem, each man blamed the other for insensitivity, for complaining too much and - the wonder of it! - for slackness.
Wood acknowledges the error could have killed them all. "It was the beginning of my personal journey," notes Wood, "of learning what it takes to work as a team." It is this spiritual growth that makes South Pole such a life-affirming book.
For Wood learned that despite their differences, their skills complemented one another.
In 1986, after 71 days of hardship and heart-breaking quarrels, Wood and his companions reached the South Pole. For their efforts, they were awarded the Polar Medal by the Queen. After the publication of his book, Wood was similarly honoured by the Australian Geographic Society in November, 1997. Then it took him 10 years to tell his story. Journalist Eric Jamieson helped Wood to edit his voluminous interviews and notes and to see his book into print with a small B.C. publisher. With hardly any budget for advertising, mostly by word of mouth, South Pole has become a minor success, and been reprinted three times.
Wood has gone on to build his own website and do motivational training seminars for business, drawing on his experiences of group dynamics. Perhaps Gareth Wood may just write the one book. It is hard to imagine a journey surpassing the one he describes in the book. Whether or not this will prove the case, South Pole ranks among the best of Canadian accounts of adventure and exploration.
Gregory Strong
More Information...
|
 |
Independent Book Reviews:
· Sir Ranulph Fiennes
· Lincoln Hall
· Gregory Strong
Sample Passages:
· The Beardmore
· Leopard Seal Attack
· Hut Point
· Epilogue
Return to:
Book Information (Main)
|
