Exploration

What draws us off the beaten path? The first of a two-parter featuring polar explorer and author Erling Kagge. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Today and next week. We're featuring ambient music from Nathaniel
Kraus here more and Nathaniel Krause dot band camp, dot com,
links and more on our website Ephemeral dot Show. Ephemeral
is a production of I Heeart three d ad Fuful Exposure.

(00:25):
Listen with that phones what draws us two places off
the beaten path, seldom seen or only dreamed about. I
think they're all born explorers in the sense that as
soon as you learn how to walk, you kind of
walk off to the house you're living and you start

(00:46):
to wonder what's between you and the horizon. Um, as
soon as you get to horizon, you started wonder what's
beyond the horizon. That's how we'll be born. Unfortunately, when
they get the year and a half and two years soul,
all the five years old, you get corrupted by kindergarten,
by your parents, by your friends, you mentioned by the
school system, by the government. You never stop being an explorer,

(01:11):
but gradually it's diluted that spirit. And also think we're
kind of all born philosophers too, like you know, thinking
about thinking, thinking about big questions. That's something you do
when you're two or three or four years old. Then
you gradually stopped doing that too. It's a better question.
Like a friend of mine, the philosopher Arnns, was asked

(01:32):
why do you climb? And he replied, why did you stop?
My name is Alene. I'm from Norway. I'm a polar explorer, mountaineer,
and I was the first in the world to reach
the top of Everest and the North Pole and the
South Pole by foot. This is the first two episodes

(01:57):
will run this month featuring Early, who I interviewed the
motely from a studio in Osla. In addition to his
legendary expeditions, Arling is also an art collector, the owner
of a publishing company, the author of eight books, and
just generally a guy with a one of a kind resume.
I started out when I was twenty years sold to

(02:19):
sail across the Atlantic with three friends. Then we sailed
back in when I was twenty one, and then I
sailed first time to Antarctica bit a Bermuda boat called
war Baby in eight to six eight to seven. And
then when I was twenty seven, I walked with Burger
Olsland to the North Pole. Burling and Burger hold the

(02:40):
Guinness World Record for being the first to reach the
North Pole unsupported by air drops. Strange thing is at
least my experiences, and I think also quite a few
other explorers and all the people's experiences that first to
get the idea, then he decided to do it, and
then you start to figure out how to do it.

(03:00):
Because if it's the all the way around, they get
the idea, then they start to figure out how to
do it. You may give up quite quickly because it
is too complicate, it too demanding, and it's kind of
too irrational to walk to the North Pole in over time,
I was college and I already been to Antarctica. I
have been doing different fairly extreme trips. And a guy

(03:24):
I knew him a little bit. He was an adventure
and he said, you know, Lank, should we walk to
the North Pole together. I just felt like this is
great and I didn't know much about it. And then
berg Alsland today probably the world's leading polar explorer. I
always wanted to see for myself what is behind the horizon.
I always had that drive in me. We met him

(03:45):
almost by accident, and they decided to go together. I
spent two years preparing because expeditions has many All the
things in life all comes down to good preparations. If
you're not really well prepared, you will fail. So well
prepared for two years and started to walk from Northern Canada.

(04:11):
When you say you're prepared for two years, what I mean,
what are you doing? Obviously you need to train fish
Cliff to become super fit to dragon two hundred and
fift pounds sled to crevasses and you know reugh eyes,
and you need to have the right food, so you know,
it's lots of physiology to make up like as many

(04:32):
calories as possible per pound as you possibly can digest
because you're have to bring all the food video for
one or two months, and at least at that time,
you need to design your own undrax because you couldn't
buy proper gear and did design the sledges. And then
you need to raise the money because needros had any

(04:53):
you know, sufficient means, so we need to raise money, sponsorships.
It's not the Hobbit's a total of style. So for
two years, I don't think I did any park this
or anything like that. Just kind of worked really hard
getting ready, and I was at school at the same time.
But of course that suffered too, so it's kind of

(05:13):
the most important thing in my life to get to
the North Pole for those two years. It's a very
ecocentric thing to do. I wouldn't say it's egoistic, because
that's such a misused world, but it's certainly very egocentric thing,
and maybe, like you know, also a little bit unsympathetic
to focus so much on yourself and also to use

(05:34):
nature as kind of a field for competitive things. That's
what quite a few people think, and that's thought the fair.
But I'm proud of what I did. What kind of
stuff do you care? I mean, what's on that tuner
to depound sled? Yeah, about one key load, which is
about two pounds of food every day, and then you

(05:57):
have fueled to melt the ice and snow into water,
and a little cooker, sleeping bag and maddress and a tent.
Of course, we had like twelve hundred and fifty three
grams so repair kits, so we didn't bring any spares.
We could repair everything that broke down, and of course
when it's done to minus fifty four centigrade, kind of

(06:21):
everything breaks down and it's so cold, like you're crying
when you're peeing at least when having a because it's
so unbelievable cold. That was kind of everything we had
in the sled and add up to dred twenty twenty
five kilos, which is about two hundred sixty pounds. I think,

(06:44):
did you say that one of your feelings broke and
you had to replace your feeling? Yeah. I was eating
lunch and of course I gots solid frozen and I
broke on tooth and it was I think a lot.
First I walked to all today with painful tooth, and
then in the evening we heat up the tent and

(07:04):
I laid back and all my mouth. The one guy
I was just keeping my mouth open and clean my tooth,
and then the other guy was filling it up the
Temporarily it's worked really well. The dentists had a hell
of a time to get it out again when I
get back to Norway. How many days was that particular expedition,

(07:27):
It was fifty eight days and nights. The Arctic is
an oceans are to navigated by continents, with the North
Pole on the top, while the south Pole Antarctica is
a continent setting navigated by oceans. So due to walk
to the north pole. We walked and drifting ice. Sometimes

(07:47):
the ice breaks apart, and you know it's sea level.
It's like three thousand meters, so if you fall into
the water, it's quite dramatic. Then it's given polar bears
up there, so it's not super dangerous, but you know,
pretty dangerous and very difficult, I think, to walk to
the North Pole, and that's why most people fail. How

(08:10):
does that relationship, that interpersonal relationship change over the days
and and how do you sort of come to rely
on each other? How do you really interact with each
other on a trip like that. It's quite interesting because
I didn't know the guys, the two other guys very well.
And get the guy who asked me at college if
you should do it together. You had an extent early

(08:32):
on not to give up. And then it was Burger
and myself and the harder new each other and the
only new child because you have been preparing the expedition,
so we kind of didn't have much in common at
the time, so we hardly talked about anything but food
because we're starving, because we're eating like six thousand calories
per person per day. It was too little to talk

(08:54):
about food. We talked about being freezing cold. Beyond that,
it totally focused on putting one leg in front of
the other to get northwards, because to walk to North
Pole technical wise is that simple. You just need to
put your leg in front of the other sufficient times.
That's was over total main concern. Today we are great friends,

(09:16):
I think at that time we're not great friends, but
just two guys who had the same goal that was
totally dependent on each other. And I think that was
a great advantage because if you had been close friends,
had that, you know, shared history, so much more to
argue about, so much more to misunderstand. But we only
had one goal. I think that was a good start.

(09:39):
But also, like I think, you know one way, you
are totally hypnotized when it start on such an expedition.
You are totally focused on having one direction and what
behind you or to the left or to the right
doesn't matter. All they want is to get to the
North Pole. We hardly talked walking to North Pole and

(10:00):
to the soft poll. I didn't talk at all. Maybe
I said a few words, but I hardly talked for
fifty one of you to two days. Your next trip,
you're planning to go to set poll. You decided to

(10:21):
go alone. Why do you decide to go down? Several reasons. One,
it's more difficult, and I believe in making life more
difficult than it has to be. Of course, if I
was born in Sudden Sudan, I will have thought differently
about it. But as a Norwegian it has to be
more difficult, I think to be meaningful. And also I

(10:43):
want to be the first to do some things. I
didn't want to walk to themselves poll in the way
someone else had done it before. That had you know,
many good reasons I didn't express to myself, and afterwards
it was so much more interesting to be absolutely by myself,
not to meet any people, not to talk to anyone.

(11:04):
It's not about turning you back to the world to
be in silence for a while. To me, it was
the opposite. It was about opening up to the world,
thinking about people in a different way, with more respect,
and loving the world even more. One thing which is

(11:25):
easy on expeditions, because sometimes it's really rough, really hard,
really cold you're suffering, is to swear. Here. I never
swear on expeditions because it on the drags you down
with just a negative words that drags it down. It's
a total waste of time to swear. It makes life

(11:48):
even worse. So that's another reason why I kept my
mouth shut. You tell a story in the Silence Book
that I think when you're under is the plane of
the helicopter going to your like dropping point that they
made you take a radio? Is that right? Yeah? I
was forced to bring a radio by airline company that

(12:10):
flew me off to the edge of the eyes and
my sponsor. But of course I didn't want to be
in touch with anyone, so I cheated a little bit
to stick to my ambition to be by myself. I
had to leave the batteries in the plane to begin with.
You are restless because you think about eight hundred and

(12:32):
fifty miles or something to go, I'm not going to
meet any people, no idea or somebody else, but no
exact idea about how many days is going to last.
Then you kind of feel like a little bit desperate
or you don't feel happy. But then as the hours
and days passed by, you get into a written and

(12:52):
you start to enjoy life. It's a beautiful feeling, and
it's not like a feeling you should be living by
your self for rest of your life, because we're all
born social beings. But just like you have a break
from the world, and as you've already talked about, like
you know, experiencing the world and sometimes not the whole expedition,

(13:12):
but being in the present. So I'd rather say it
was an absolutely beautiful experience, and I think most people
would react to the same way as me, because it's
in daily life. It's kind of very exotic idea to
be by itself for such a long time, but I
think if you had to, most people would have enjoyed it.

(13:36):
In Earling set his sites and somebody in Mount Everest
becoming the first person to complete on foot what's known
as the Three Poles challenge. You know, has similarities in
the sense that you are very much a part of nature,
that you feel that you have been out there for
a while to kind of feel that your body doesn't

(13:58):
stop by your skin, no, by a finger tips, but
it's extended in the nature. So that's a similarity. A
high upon a mountain. It's not as dangerous as you
read or here in the media, but still it is dangerous,
so you have to be very careful. But of course,

(14:19):
you know the difference between the poles are like, this
is a mountain. This is a huge mountain, and it's
so much bigger than how I could have imagine before
seeing the mountain. It's dramatic because if you fall, you
don't fall into the water. It is could be tough enough,
but you can fall two or three thousand meters. I
think sometimes if they hear people claiming it's easier to

(14:41):
climb evers, but usually the people who didn't get to
the summit, I think everyone helped me to the summit
agrees it's readers have going to get to the summit.
How's the view? Ah? You know when people tell you
the climb evers because they want to see the view,
it's not absolutely accurate. I think I love the view,

(15:02):
but you know, the view from the next month is
even better because then you can see everything perspective. So
I got to the summit, I was smoothed, I was
so happy, I was almost crying. But then shortly afterwards,
you know, my next feeling was how in hell should

(15:23):
I get down again? Because to get down from the
mountain is kind of more dangerous than getting to the summit,
because you easily feel more confident, less self critical. Is
starting to take small chances and suddenly it's faithal to
my experience, most accidents are happening on the way down
from the mountains. I'm not on the way, so breaks

(15:46):
up palling, that manorious palling. Do you think there's something
about the simplicity required by that life, having everything on
your back or in your slid and hiking or climbing
that like affects your sense of pleasure and reward, that

(16:07):
things seem maybe more easily rewarding than they would in
like a normal sort of work of day life. Yeah,
that's sort of true. You're so much more present, So
it's like, you know, philosophers are writing about the existensive list,
but to be on an expedition way of the apolar
regions or close to the summit of everys like existensive

(16:27):
listm in real life is so present. And I think
one of the most beautiful feelings you can have is
to be freezing cold and then get warm again. That's
the best feeling. And of course this advantage being warm
all the time that you're not appreciating it, just like
you know, if you have been healthy throughout your own life,

(16:48):
you don't appreciate, you don't feel grateful for being healthy.
If you're always healthy, time is not linear, and to
have the variations in life makes life feel longer. There's
a Norwegian saying, and I think translates in English too
much want more. Yeah, yeah, that's the Norwegian saying. I'm

(17:10):
sure that they have then other languages too, but at
that we say it to Norwegian bill, Yes, much will
want made more. If you have a lot of things
in your life, you just want more and more things.
It's this kind of the opposite of the old wisdom
that if you're going to live a happy life you

(17:32):
need to keep your pleasures simple. Do you think something
that's too easily obtained can lose its sense of pleasure?
Like I think of this is the aphorism like no pain,
no gain. Yeah, absolutely very much, believing in struggling, fighting hard,

(17:54):
not getting things too easy in life. Of course, both
you knew we should be careful not romantizing about it,
because of course many people are to talk like this
is almost obnoxious, because you know they have a daily
fight just to survive and support their families. But for
me it's maybe it sounds a bit strange to say,

(18:16):
but for me it's different because I live in quite
normal Norwegian middle class life. I grew up in a
typical Norwegian middle class family, and then you have to
make your life more difficult and you have to struggle.
And I think it's super important to struggle. But because
people know who has not been struggling, have been spoiled
throughout their whole lives, they get very boring and they

(18:40):
quite often complain that their lives are short, that is
not much excitement going on. So I don't think it's healthy.
I think life is a struggle. It should be a struggle.
The difference between walking or climbing up to the top
of a mountain compared to use a hell a culture
up to the same place. You know, it doesn't relate,

(19:05):
even if you at the summit is totally different. Flow
in the helicopter. You need to stuggle it, you need
to use some time, You need to feel the environment,
You need to kind of become a part of nature.
If you're going to appreciate climbing a mountain. One of
the meanings of life is to fulfill your own potentials.
And if you're going to do that, we really have

(19:26):
to get up and live an active life. And you
need to think you need to experience, you need to read,
you need to talk to people, you need to move around,
you need to be moved. Just when you get up
in the morning. Like you know, if you are a
fairly privileged life, you don't even need to get up
from bed. You can just stay in bed and your
moderate eventually give your food because she feels sorry for

(19:50):
you. You You can just remain in bed to just get
up in the morning. After that, everything kind of feels
nicier and easier, and then throughout the whole day. It
is very much about making life more difficult than it
has to be. Of course I'm more eager than most
of the people on it. And then the beauty, oh,

(20:11):
not getting a shape about it, and sometimes just remain
in bed. A variety is important. M hm m hmm.
I want to talking about a couple more expeditions that

(20:32):
you did in the US. Funny ten, I think right,
you went to New York and you did two very
different kinds of walks. Yeah, it walked like five days
and nights. Together with your fellow of American Steve Duncan,
who's urban history and an urban explorer. City shaped their
environment and the way they do that is through infrastructure

(20:52):
with some of the people. I came and went went
to Northern Bronx, walked through New York City, partly through
the train, water, subway and search systems that is beneath
the city streets. Navigating the literal underbelly of New York City.

(21:16):
You straight up like went up to like a manhood cover,
just lifted it up and just just drafted right. Sometimes
you could climb on fences and get into a tunnel
or something, but like just in Green Street and over Manhattan,
we just waited and it was no cars, and then
run over to the manhole and climbed in and cling
poop and the man holds back again and it was

(21:37):
down in the dark. So I've been Northern brown Swit
went into the sewage and walked down to Harlem and
then kind of crisscross the city through these tunnel systems
all to Shamaka Bay the Atlantic Ocean, and they have
to get that ball ground to change tunnels. Of course,
you can walk at subway tunnel through all of Manhattan,

(21:57):
but we want to have the variety. We want to
just see the city from the inside out and see
what the city would look like if you turned it
upside down, and it was great crossing the city with
a backpack, with a sleeping bag, little mattress, little cooker,
hit Waiders suggest Wailers. It's no hardship. It's not like

(22:20):
an ob expedition. It's kind of easy going. And I
guess the biggest risk was to be called by the police.
You were even laughing. Sometimes it's kind of playing flat
in the sewage, and so how we got absolutely soaking
webb wash. It was pretty crazy expedition, and even some
people living down there, not in the sewage, but in trentannels.

(22:44):
I'd really like New York City, and again I was
partly driven by curiosity to get to know New York
City even better. I'm not thinking about that expedition, or
like all the expeditions, unless I talk about it. Even
to me, it sounds strange thinking about it. Unfortunately, I
sat down off words to write down what we have

(23:06):
been through, because if you do it several years later,
it's a different story. So fortunately I wrote it down.
What I wrote my book two is kind of based
upon what I wrote in twenty ten, so it's pretty accurate. Well,
I'm super happy with that that expedition and we didn't

(23:27):
get sick on that same trip to New York after
experiencing the city from the inside out, Stephen Erling side
from the top down, we'll climbed Williamsburg Bridge, but you know,
it's not really climbing. You have to climb some gates,
so it's a little bit risky, not super whiskey, and
then it's almost like stairs getting you to the top.

(23:50):
The biggest risk there is Toma sees you and reported
to the police, Like my friend Steve said, when it's
on the top of the bridge and sound there's absolutely
quiet down on the street below you. Then you're deep
because then the police has closed off the bridge. So

(24:10):
it's what like it's like super early in the morning
and you just go to the very top of the
Williamsburg Bridge and you have no permission to do it.
You know, you don't get the permission that we were
happy to get that permission it was possible, but of
course they will never give you a permission, so you
have to do it without the permission. I'm not recommending
and want to do it, because you know it's not legal.

(24:31):
That's one thing, But I'm another think it's like all
this is a little bit anxious to me it was
worth it. If it's worth it for you, I don't know.
The beauty is that we understand there we had the
sunrise over seeing into Brooklyn and Queen's beyond that the Atlantic.
Of course, New York City is very much about making money,

(24:53):
and making money makes lots of noise. But as I said,
it was at night, early in the morning, so it
was fairly peaceful on the top of the bridge. And
to see a city kind of low and early in
the morning, to sit there still asleep and see the
sun is rising, it's a fantastic experience. Other way enreaching

(25:15):
experience and made me feel grateful. I think more people
should get up and wanting to see the sunrise, because
that puts your life into perspective. There's one more work
I want to talk about. You went in I think
you went to Los Angeles and walked from where to wear.

(25:37):
We walked Cesar Jervis Avenue, which is kind of east
in l A, walked down Caesar Chaves and into Sunset Boulevard,
and then we walked Stor Billward into the Pacific Ocean
to kind of walk into the whole city. He didn't
leave Caesar Chervis and Sunset Boulevard at all, so just
followed us two streets. We could probably have done it

(25:58):
in one long day, but we had three nights sleeping
and we did whatever we can do in l A.
On those streets. We didn't see anything that you don't
see if you're driving, but it's kind of the sort
in slow motion, and we saw it from a different
angle because you saw it from the curve of the road.
So for the first time in my life, I did
manicure and pedicure for me as no reagi, and I

(26:20):
thought was very exalted because it's so many pedicure manicure
saloons in l A's kind of get a feeling that
everybody is kind of doing pedicure on each other. We
went into the church or psychology and had nineteen in
its consultation, and the church concluded that we were all
insane but they could help us. And then we went
to all kinds of bars and you know, restaurants, etcetera.

(26:43):
And first night they slept at the hotel called Value In,
which is kind of hotel when you bring a person
to for maybe before half and over two hours and
go back home again just doing whatever you could do
on those two streets was not even dangerous, just kind
of interesting and fun to see. L A. It was

(27:05):
this truth that you got stopped by the cops for
walking because it just looks suspicious. Yeah, actually that's kind
of a cliche. I had read this novel from the
fifties that kind of this guy was speculating was going
to happen in the future. It happened to us in
East l A. It was pretty rough neighborhood. So the
police guy was just kind of wondering, you know, why

(27:26):
do you walk here with a small backpackage publicly a
bit suspicious And we told him what we were doing,
and he was very nice. It just said, you like
to take a photo with me, So it was a
very nice policeman. Did you experience any kind of Catharsis
hitting the Pacific Ocean? Yeah, this loneliness approaching the Pacific.

(27:53):
I've been driving through l A. Of course, when it's
also cars, you move slowly, but then you're kind of
piste off again and tie moves fast because nothing is happening,
or it's like at this life feel a little bit
meaningless because nothing is happening this time you're walking so
towards the oceans. It felt meaningful, and it felt like

(28:14):
so many things to see and to experience and to think.
And then ematually get to the ocean. You jump into
the ocean, you have a swim, and then you go
to this gladstones. I think the restaurant is at the
end there, and you have a cocktail, and life is great.

(28:34):
Any big expeditions planned or things that you want to do, No, No.
After this, I jump on my bike and go home
to cook for my kids. That's that's my thing today.
And I will do some hiking tomorrow. Day after tomorrow
I will go on long expeditions again. Most likely, of course,

(28:54):
nobody knows anything, but somehow, some of the biggest mistresses
in life or in the world is in your own backyard.
I think, to Arling's earlier point, if we are all
born explorers and in tandem philosophers, what is it that
each of us might be looking for? For Erling, the

(29:17):
answer was silence, not only in his surroundings, but silence
of the mind. That's next episode. This episode of Ephemeral
was written and assembled by Alex Williams, with producers Max
Williams and Trevor Young and editing by Rima Ilkali. Special

(29:38):
thanks to Nitro Sound in Oslo, Norway, and to Andrew
Howard for gifting me a copy of Silence in the
Age of Noise, which, along with Walking One Step at
a Time, are the books by Erling Kage on which
this conversation was based. Find them wherever books are sold,
and find us on the world wide Web at Ephemeral Show.

(30:00):
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