April 30 , 2001 Ottawa Citizen by Alison Korn This trip just won't end. We've been sitting in this tent at Ice Station Borneo for three days now waiting for the wind and white-out to let up so a plane from Khantanga can land and take us back to Siberia. After long days of skiing, drifting and stressing, this enforced idleness is kind of fun. When we finally get back home, life will be hectic again. So this is a special, suspended moment in time.

As a journalist, an athlete, a woman, how was it -- really?

As a journalist, I was both participant and observer, and every evening my stories were entertainment for our tired crew. To leave the tent to phone the Citizen in privacy would have been unsafe, and the cold would have zapped the phone. Reporting on your peers as they listen in on you wasn't an ideal situation but that was my working environment nonetheless. I like to think that kept me honest. Not everyone agreed with my decision to report that we travelled three kilometres south on the first day, but everyone knew it would be in the news. When I had named several women who suffered hypothermia and frostbite they made quick calls home to assure their families they were still OK. But when one woman became incontinent and asked that it be kept off the record until the trip was over, I respected that. It was a fine balancing act. I couldn't risk amplifying someone's mental meltdown by sharing it with the world. We needed to stay strong together to survive.

Athletically, the trip was not the hardest thing I've done. I remember rowing workouts so intense I felt queasy and achy for a day afterward. By contrast the skiing was a long, slow slog punctuated by what we call baggage handling -- hauling packs and sleds over house-sized pressure ridges. Our days were long, but I usually woke refreshed after a good night's sleep, although with stiff fingers from gripping the poles. On the ski trek I was forced to adapt to a rolling schedule or no schedule at all. While our rowing training was totally regimented and organized, the Arctic ice in this environment determined our direction, our drift and our mileage for the day. We moved about one nautical mile per hour. I felt quite agile until I got blisters on both feet and had to creep along until they healed. I also had to pay more attention to my body temperature. As a summer athlete, I love to sweat -- it's a sign of a good workout. But here, any sweat will freeze the moment you stop, so at the first sign of sweat you have to unzip the sides of your jacket and pants to air yourself out. In Borneo, with a sled laden with food, stove and a gas can, I struggled for two marches until I exploded at Josee Auclair, our leader, that my load was too heavy. My training background in rowing had conditioned me to do what's required by the coach. So I loaded the sled with whatever I was asked to. "You know what? Your coach had too much control over you," Josee said. "But it worked, you got a medal." Through my tears I understood the message: It was time to decide for myself what I could or couldn't do; what I would and wouldn't do. She took the gas can from me for the rest of the day but returned it the next and somehow I adjusted to the load. By the end of the trip, I was occasionally pulling two sleds to give relief to exhausted or frozen teammates.

As a woman, just as in rowing, I loved being part of a crew of other strong women all focused on the same goal. What was different was we were all novices in the Arctic environment. Together we had to adapt to living communally, sleeping cheek by jowl, co-operating to put up the tents after skiing all day, making sure everyone stayed warm during breaks and sharing tampons as our menstrual cycles coincided in a most interesting way. We heard about each others' kids, parents, partners, careers, divorces and visions of marriage. We were enveloped in a bubble where you get to reflect on your life and where you are heading. A kind of privileged isolation from the world even as the world follows our trek. Soon our group will split up, and we will be back home telling stories, doing laundry, eating fresh fruit and using lots of toilet paper. And we will get to say we were part of an all-women's trek to the North Pole: A group that wasn't supposed to be able to do it, that nearly didn't make it, but that endured.

Now where IS that plane?

reprinted with permission