Ann Daniels - Living in the Extreme

 

Thank you. My story starts on a warm August day in 1995. I was at home playing with my 18-month-old triplets, and I was given an advert asking for ordinary women to apply to be part of a North Pole expedition. 

 

Now, I had no outdoor experience, but something in this advert spoke to me. I knew my marriage was ending, and I had a bleak future and there was hope in there. And so, I thought, well, they're asking for ordinary women and I'm definitely that. It didn't occur to me at the time that I should have some outdoor experience or at least have spent a night in a tent. [audience laughter] It said “Ordinary.” And I was a mother of triplets. If I could do that, I could do anything, surely. 

 

And so, I sent an application form off with £75 that I actually couldn't afford. I wondered if I'd ever hear back, but I did. A thick brown envelope arrived on my doormat with instructions of the farm on Dartmoor, where the selection was to take place and a kit list. Well, I earned nothing on this kit list. I couldn't afford to buy anything. So, I made a few calls to some military friends of mine, and within three days I had everything I needed from the feet to my head. It was all a drab olive-green color, but it would do. I could now go and start this selection. 

 

I turned up on Dartmoor and I walked into the Barn and over 200 women had applied for this selection. I saw them all in their outdoor kit, bright colors, all worn from specialist outdoor shops and I am in my drab green army kit. I just stood out. So, I put my new boots under the nearest hay bale and just tried to look the par. The weekend started with a talk on the Arctic and then were marched out on Dartmoor. It was hell. I hated it. It was cold, it was rainy. We walked for mile upon mile upon mile. And after an hour, I was in so much pain, I didn't know what to do with myself, “What was I doing here?” I just kept going. That's all I could do. 

 

When it got dark and it was still raining, I literally sobbed with the pain, “Take me home. Take me home.” And we finished. I got to the end, that was about all I could do, and I was just going to leave it. This was not for me at all. And then, the media came down and they interviewed everybody, but particularly me, mother of triplets. After every interview, they said to me, “What will it be like to be part of this expedition? What will it be like to go to the North Pole?” 

 

Somewhere along those interviews, I suddenly caught the dream. This was my chance in a lifetime to do something, but I was crap. [chuckles] So, I had two choices. I'd give it up or I'd give it everything. Well, I wasn't going to give it up. So, I went home and I spent the next nine months on my own with three babies training. When they slept in the afternoon, I was in the garden running around, doing military style circuits. Friends taught me how to read a map, how to pack a rucksack. I went back in nine months’ time, and this time I was ready. 

 

I was chosen. I'd made it. It was the biggest achievement of my life. This expedition, it was a relay. It was my first expedition. Five teams of four women went in relay format to the North Pole. Actually, I never went the whole way. I did the first leg, 17 days, and then the next team took over from me. But it was here I fell in love with the Arctic Ocean. It was beautiful. The ice was amazing. The sounds, expedition was just fantastic. I'd found at the age of 30, what I was meant to do with my life. 

 

So, I came back. Five women from that expedition, we got together, we skied all the way across Antarctica, became the first British women's team to ski to the South Pole. I then began to guide expeditions in the Arctic. But the big dream really was in me. I wanted to go the whole way. So, I spoke to Caroline Hamilton and Pom Oliver, my polar colleagues, and asked them to join me. And at first, they said no. Very few expeditions had gone the whole way to the North Pole and no women's team had done it. Not the whole way. But I persuaded them and eventually they agreed that we'd have a go. Three women against the fierce Arctic Ocean. 

 

The hardest thing was raising money. We had to raise thousands of pounds for our kit, our food, our support team and logistics working in the High Arctic. But the hardest thing that we had to get beforehand was insurance. It's not your average holiday insurance, is it? [chuckles] Who would insure a group of unknown women, especially as a mother? We thought I would be the sticking point. The bad press that the insurance company would get if it went wrong. 

 

We were sitting in a posh office in Canary Wharf at another insurance company. We could see them turning off. Suddenly, unfortunately, Pom mentioned I was a mother. And we just thought, “Oh, God, Pom, that's it, no chance.” And they changed. One of the guys looked at us and went, “What? One of you's got children?” And I’m like “Yes, yes, yes, sorry.” And he said, “Well, actually, that changes things.” They had a big conversation and they decided that they would insurance, because I was sure to come back for my children. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we got it. The last piece of the puzzle, the last jigsaw of puzzle, we were going to make this happen. I couldn't do anything without my parents. They moved into my home. They looked after my children who were excited to be with granny and grandad. And the hardest moment was when we said goodbye at the airport. I saw them being really brave, trying not to cry. That was a bit of a gut wrench. But I knew they'd be fine when I walked through the doors and they were back with granny and granddad. 

 

We flew from London to the High Arctic and then we took a Twin Otter aeroplane up to the very last piece of land, Ward Hunt Island. It's 500 miles of ice and snow. You walk across the Arctic Ocean to the North Pole. We had in our sledges everything we needed for the expedition, our food, our clothing, our kit and enough fuel to melt water. 

 

And as the plane took off, we were terrified. It was terrible terrain, really cold. All we had between us and the outside world, there was no man for thousands of miles, was a satellite phone. The nearest aeroplane was two days away in good weather. It was sincerely up to us to make this journey. We just had to make that first step. I'd been on the first leg of the relay and thought I knew what to expect, but this expedition was worse than any I had ever encountered. 

 

For the first 27 days, the temperatures were between minus 42 and minus 56 degrees Celsius on thermometer. With winter, we were simply surviving. Our sledges were too heavy. They were about twice our own body weight and we had to haul three of us, one sledge over every ridge as we moved forward. It was debilitating and so slow. And in the beginning, we all got frostbite. I can remember skiing at the front, and I had frostbite on my middle toe and my little toe and a little bit on my big toe. I could feel it getting worse, but I couldn't call a halt to the team to warm it, because we were too slow, we would never get there if we stopped. 

 

I can remember thinking, oh, God. Okay, okay, okay. I can feel my middle toe well. “Oh, hell, who needs a middle toe? I can live without a middle toe.” A little toe, well, yeah, I can live without a little toe. I can't live without a big toe. If it starts to go [unintelligible 00:28:12], that's it. We were literally bargaining with bits of our body in order to make this happen. I found on the ice that when I could think about things, I missed the children terribly. I could probably go about 14 days, 15 days. That seemed to be the limit before it affected my morale. And the girls were really good. They would give me time with the phone and the precious batteries, and I rang home. I always thought they'd miss me, obviously. [audience laughter] Then I'd call, and they were so excited to tell me about everything they were doing and how great it was. They chatted and I listened, and I put the phone down, and I was filled with them again and I could keep going. 

 

If I had trouble with frostbite, Pom was the worst, all her toes were frostbitten. After 47 days, we had a resupply plane that came in to give us new food and fuel. And on that resupply plane, Pom had to leave. I never thought about getting on that plane. The chances of us getting there were so slim. On day 37 of the expedition, before Pom left, we'd literally gone just 69 miles of the 500 miles. We'd gone a few more in the next 10 days, but we still had over 300 miles to go. It was still impossible, but we weren't going to give in. 

 

Although we missed Pom, when she left, half of our team had gone. It was now just me and Caroline. We began to use Pom as our motivation. We'll do this for Pom, we'll do another hour for her and we became one driving force. We swam through open water. We skied across thin ice. We added hours to our days. When I say that we were walking across an Arctic Ocean, the ice moves constantly, always against us. So, some nights, we would get into our frozen sleeping bags that we would have to break. As we slept, we would go backwards. Those were the tough nights. 

 

But eventually, after eighty grueling days, we knew we had two hours left. The planes had left two days ago and we were literally feet from the pole. We thought, “This is it. This is it.” Whilst we navigated with our watches and the sun in old fashioned ways, we actually pinpointed the North Pole with a GPS. Because to explain what happens, the ice moves on the ocean and the water that fast, that whilst the North Pole is a fixed place, it feels like it's moving as the ice moves you this way and that. You have no concept that you're moving, so, it feels like the North Pole is running away from you. 

 

So, we got the GPS out and zigzagged this way and that. We couldn't pinpoint it. As quick as were getting there, the ice was moving and we thought, “We can't be the first women to go 30ft on the pole.” [audience laughter] We stood there on a piece of ice, not sure what to do. We could almost hear the planes. We looked at the GPS and the numbers. As we looked, it started to count upwards. We watched it moving and moving. And that piece of ice, as we stood still, moved up to the magical 90 degrees north. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

We’d got it. I planted the national-- No, I didn't plant the national anthem. I planted the Union Jack. We sang the national anthem, and I asked Caroline if she would take a picture of me with my children, because I felt they were there with me. I could never have made the sacrifices without them inside my very soul. Thank you.