Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

The trek from Hercules Inlet, Antarctica to the geographic South Pole is made of 1,130 mostly uphill kilometres, which can stretch 10,000 feet high and across a desolate, dangerous, and frigid lands.

Ewan Affleck holding his winning prize, a 0.54 carat diamond, after securing the K-Rock Ultra three-day race earlier this year. - NNSL file photo

Few have reached the pole on foot. And, none have run to it.

Especially in 35 days.

But that's exactly what a team of three Canadians are set to do this December. And, with the help of one Yellowknifer, schools across the country – and two so far in the NWT – will be able to follow the adventure.

Dubbed the I2P 2008 South Pole Quest, the record-seeking run is the first expedition under lead runner Ray Zahab's new not-for-profit group

Impossible to Possible, founded to explore the connection between adventure, inspiration and education.

Using connections cobbled together from various runs, Zahab has formed a completely volunteer-based virtual office set to support him in the ultimate cold feat – and then broadcast it to kids everywhere.

Yellowknife ultra-marathoner and two-time Ice and Rock Ultra champion Dr. Ewan Affleck was recruited last spring, originally to run alongside the three athletes in the historic expedition.

"I was to be the physician and provide medical services. Ironically that's not what I'm doing at all," he said.

Strapped for funding – the team of six soon became the current team of three – and a torn meniscus in Affleck's knee led him to take on a new position entirely: science and education co-ordinator.

"The notion was how to take an adventure like this and using modern technology, make it a platform for kids to learn," said Affleck.

"When I was younger we used to have the textbook and that would be it, but there are all kinds of ways to change this and to make it more experiential. This could really work. It's an interesting experiment." The result is 30 online modules, developed primarily by Affleck, which puts the modern quest into the historical context of the first Antarctic explorers, Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. The modules also explore present-day issues only the Antarctic can answer.

"Antarctica has been called the greatest classroom in the world," said Affleck. "There is so much fascinating science there, so much work, and it's a place of such extremes that it provides that remarkable platform to look at all kinds of issues."

Using adventure as an experiment in education, the trekkers will also correspond via satellite phone, upload images and answer email questions from the 15 participating schools. Each module, geared loosely towards the Grade 10 level, will be posted Monday to Friday on the Impossible to Possible website for schools to access.

"(Zahab) wants to use expeditions as a vehicle to provide education experience and inspire kids to realize their goals in life," said Affleck. Easily one of the smallest participating schools is Whati's Mezi community cchool, home of 120 students and Blair Hagman's 18-student Grade 11 and 12 science class.

Hagman is in his first year of teaching in Whati; he spent two terms teaching in Christchurch, New Zealand – one of the gateways to Antarctica.

"A big part of teaching there was focusing on Antarctica and the South Pole," he said. "Moving up here, I was getting closer to the North Pole. "My interests are seeing these different places and teaching the students about the two poles and getting them to know how important they are for the environment."

Both the South and North poles are important gauges to see how climate change is happening and how important it is for us to be aware of the environment, said Hagman.

"And what we can do to prevent or speed up the process of climate change," he added.

"It's pretty interesting that with ice core drilling we have data basically from the last 600,000 years of what the temperature has been like on Earth."

With the modules, students "will actually see how much the temperature has changed in the last 100 years compared to this history of Earth and realize that humans had a major impact on the temperature rise."

The I2P team: Ray Zahab: Famous for being a former pack-a-day smoker, Zahab decided to turn his life around eight years ago. He ran his first marathon, the Yukon Ultra 100-Miler in 2004. From there, he ran 4,500 miles across the Sahara in 111 days, equivalent to running two marathons a day for four months in 50 degree-plus weather. The run was documented in the film Running the Sahara, narrated by Matt Damon. Zahab founded Impossible to Possible to use "the theatre of adventure to build a unique and meaningful learning experience." Out of the team of three heading to the South Pole, Zahab will be the only one to run it. Richard Weber: Weber is the only person in the world to have completed six full North Pole expeditions and has trekked to the North Pole more than anybody in history. In total, he has led more than 45 Arctic expeditions between the years 1978 – 2007. The upcoming trek, which Weber will ski, will be his first to the South Pole. "You can't get a much better person than him along for the trip," said fellow teammate Dr. Ewan Affleck. Kevin Vallely: As a Vancouver-based architect, writer and filmmaker, Valley is documenting the trek, which is set for a full showing after the journey is complete. He's bicycled the 1,150 mile Iditarod, the notorious Alaskan sled trail, in winter and explored jungle and arctic regions the world over. Vallely, who's also skiing the route, has regular dispatches from the Antarctic running in the Globe and Mail. Dr. Ewan Affleck: Though Affleck is no longer running in the Antarctic journey, he is nonetheless an accomplished runner. "I began running (in Yellowknife), I'm not necessarily a particularly fast runner per se but I noticed the further I went, the more success I had," he said. "So I just began running longer distances and longer distances and I also discovered I liked running in the cold and in the snow." Affleck has completed in both Rock and Ice Ultras and won the three-day run portion of the event each year and was the only person to finish the first year.

Some of the other modules look at traditional knowledge, plate tectonics, sleep patterns in a land without nighttime, the ozone layer and greenhouse gases, among many other things.

"On the day they go through the Transarctic Mountains we have a whole thing on how they were created, and on how Antarctica used to be in the Northern Hemisphere -- that land mass -- and how it gradually moved and how the fossil record found in Antarctica relates to fossil records found in India and Africa and how that has helped prove these land masses have been gradually moving around," said Affleck. Chief Julius school in Fort McPherson is also participating. Sir John Franklin high school in Yellowknife had expressed interest, but hadn't signed up yet by the deadline.

Affleck left Yellowknife for Chile on Nov. 15. There he will spend two weeks putting some finishing touches on the modules, trying to get as much done as he can before the actual trek.

With him are Zahab and the other two explorers, Richard Weber and Kevin Vallely. Affleck will leave for home when they depart into the southern cold.

Affleck said he doesn't mind not embarking to the South Pole with them.

"I don't want to fall into a crevasse; my wife wouldn't like it," he said. "It can be dangerous there, people die."

And besides, Affleck will experience the same slice of adventure, if not a bit more, as any participating student.

"People find this stuff fascinating," he said. "I grew up reading about Scott and Amundsen ... it was always fascinating."

Indeed, when Affleck talks about the explorers, his voice rings with excitement.

"(Scott's team) collected 30 pounds of rock ...they were found on the sledge when their bodies were found. You'd think if you were starving and cold and about to die, you'd get rid of the heaviest stuff, but they kept it because they were committed to their science."