Explorer blog

The other day, one of the globes biggest outdoor magazines asked me for an article on the choice of equipment during Arctic travel. Since I am in desperate need of time, due to changed family circumstances, I decided to send them this article which was written in the midst of a very cold Expedition! It is dated the 3rd of January 2005, but still does the job!

A small note regarding the choice of equipment during Arctic Travel

3 Jan, 05 – 21:35
GPS-pos: N67°28´ | E153°42´ | Alt: 11 M
It´s the 3rd of January in a grey and overcast Srednekolymsk. It´s terribly cold out there, -55°F, but there´s no wind. The New Year Celebrations is continuing with the same unhampered joy. The bar´s and disco´s in the settlement are alive.

We continue to get mails from readers all over the western world, full of interesting opinions, heaps of advice and encouragement. Inspiring, fun and thought-provoking. Many of them has to do with our choice of equipment. Quite a few are of the opinion that we´ve picked the wrong choice of clothes and equipment for an extremely cold climate like this.

´´Why´´ , they ask, ´´haven´t you learned anything from the native people you´re living among, who´s knowledge how to dress and what equipment to choose in an extremely cold climate like the Siberian, has to be superior to any other. They have thousands of years of amassed knowledge!´´

One reader from Moscow even pointed out, that natives of this region probably have lived here for more than 300 000 years! (A Russian scientist, Yuri Mochanov, have found proof of this amazing fact along the northern part of river Lena, at an excavation site called Diring Yuriakh. That means, if it´s true, that there was a small pocket of life surrounded by the immense continental ice long before the dates we´re being taught in Scandinavian schools today!) Anyhow, I was of exactly the same opinion before leaving Sweden, namely that we would as fast as possible, get our hands on proper fur clothes before setting off on skis. And copy the natives way to dress. However, that was before I did any serious thinking. Especially regarding polar history. And, I changed my mind completely once Johan and I had a chance to try out these ancient and well-tested outfits.

Every single piece of equipment that we´re using on this Expedition, is the result of an ongoing development, which has taken place since the father of all polar travel, Frithjof Nansen, in the late 19th Century, started looking for the optimal equipment to use during physical travels in cold climates. Every single piece from the stove to the clothes we use. All the other knowledge we carry with us today as well, regarding how to travel and how to survive in this extreme cold, is also a development from this era. Arctic legends like Nansen, Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen, Knud Rasmusen, A.E Nordenskiold and Robert Falcon Scott have tried and used pretty much all existing materials like fur, canvas, leather, wool, cotton, felt to nylon. Tested under circumstances far more demanding than we´re experiencing at the moment.

The technical development has taken a big step since this epoch. We also understand the importance of what food to eat, what training and what type of preparations are needed, the full potential of the human body and the mental aspect much more. This also applies to the choice of equipment and clothes. Which is a certainty, since we´ve learned from the wide experience and mistakes of all those earlier travelers. Or at least it should be a certainty, but since we do continue to get questions and opinions about this, and since we´ve had doubts ourselves, maybe not! There´s also a fact that every single hunter, trapper and fisherman we´ve come across since leaving Zyryanka, have been utterly shocked and worried when they´ve seen how we´re dressed. They just shake their fur clad heads, look us in the eye´s and say:

´´This is no good at all. This is what you should have!´´

Then they point out, as we would be utterly mislead, what clothes and boots should be worn. What they don´t understand, and everybody else with the same opinion, including ourselves before we realized properly, is that when the native Siberians head outdoors in this extreme climate, every single step and thought they have, has to do with either getting food, do as little mistakes as possible, they never stress or overwork themselves and they try to preserve as much heat as possible. They´re not outdoors to do any sporting adventures which involves sleeping in a tent with no heating and physically abusing yourself. They travel either by snowmobile, slowly walking or, not that often, ski. They´re dressed from top to toe in a variety of fur clothes. Thin and thick garments in layers. By far the best choice of clothes if you ain´t moving too fast and you want to keep the cold at bay. And if you have a warm log cabin to return to in the evening. But if you´re out there, pulling a 100 kg heavy pulka/sledge behind you, going through rough terrain and sleeping in a tent, fur clothes are on the verge of being dangerous. They make you sweat enormously and sweat is no good at all. And not sweating is almost impossible if you do any hard work. And, anyone, who´s been sweating in fur garments, knows that it turns to ice in no time. And, for example, getting a fur glove on when it is frozen to ice, is a lot of unnecessary hard work. And it adds on to the risk of getting a nasty frostbite. By the way, even in our light wool underwear we sweat tremendously even in temperatures like -58°F and at times we have woken up in the morning, after freezing all night, having to thaw out the ice of the long underwear. That is a reality I don´t wish anyone to have to experience.

The human body is a phenomenal heat source as long as you´re moving. Which we do all the time, except when we´re inside the tent. Therefore, we dress to avoid sweating too much. Therefore a light set of underwear, a shirt, a pair of trousers and a Gore-Tex jacket with a hood is more than adequate to travel in. Even at these low temperatures. Plus a thin balaclava with a facemask and a pair of wind proofed gloves. And two pairs of light socks inside the boots. But, as quick as we stop, say just for a dump, we immediately whip out the thick down Jacket, the thickest down gloves and the thickest hood out of the pulka. Otherwise we would get serious problems. And when it is time to camp, boots off immediately as well and on with the down boots (bivvy boots), quickly inside the tent, get the stove going, get inside the sleeping bag and hope for a relatively warm night. Furthermore, these modern clothes dry much faster, the seems are better and more comfortable, they´re windproof, but they still breathe and they´re much lighter. Fur clothes are really heavy, the seems are uncomfortable after awhile and they´re clumsy to handle. And once they freeze to ice, they´re hard to handle. But, this should be said, the modern clothes and boots are nothing for someone who´s hunting, working in the forest and chopping wood. The normal life of a Siberian hunter.

Nevertheless, there´s no doubt that we´ve been freezing too much lately. Dangerously much. And we will freeze even more once we start skiing again, the 1st of February. The reason for this is due to the fact, that temperatures will continue to be low plus that there will be more snow and, worst of all, February and March are a time of blizzards and snowstorms. Therefore, we´ve realized, some parts of our modern clothes are just not sufficient below – 58°F. We need to add on some sort of solution involving fur. As additional protection. Especially on our hands since they´ve taken too much damage already. We´re presently working on a pair of big wolf skin gloves, with fur on the upper hand but only normal leather in the grip of the hand, to pull on quickly over the other gloves when needed. We´ll see how they will turn out.

What, than, can the modern developers of polar equipment and clothes learn from the Siberians? First of all, I think it is, once again, important for them to properly understand how extremely inept, slow and awkward all movements become in this extreme cold. The longer the time, the worse. (I have a feeling that most gear to day are made to last a normal modern polar trip. Maximum 2 months.) Gloves shouldn´t be too tight, arm sleeves neither, no unnecessary and complicated solutions as for example to many zippers. The pocket openings have to be wider and longer, more space and more back up solutions if the gear brakes. Which it will sooner or later in extreme climates. Siberians also always have a quick backup. As an example, our ski bindings, who´s weak points broke immediately when temperatures went below -58°F. Luckily, there wasn´t too much snow at this moment, so we could walk. If this hadn´t been the case, we would have faced serious problems. It wouldn´t have been a problem at all if the manufacturer had added two simple square holes on the sides of the bindings, where we could have slipped through a piece of string, to keep the boot in the binding. This backup solution would also have made the binding lighter. A Siberian binding is just a piece of leather which is tied over the front part of the boot. If it brakes, there´s a spare at hand immediately. This solution is no doubt much weaker, more uncomfortable and is made only for shorter trips, but, there´s always a backup possibility.

We´ve definitely progressed a lot since the day of Nansen, but there´s still some distance to go to complete perfection!

This article and many others can be found in the dispatch compartment at www.siberia.nu! Or, if you speak Swedish, you can watch as below….

watch?v=QkjAV-BM90g

Life isn´t always easy. If you choose a life as an traveler, for most people a very odd life, and it is, things on and off goes wrong. Professionally and personally. Such a life it is. About 8 months ago I was sitting in a curry smelling flat in Muscat, the capital of Oman hoping to get the Arabian Expedition on its feet. So far it hasn´t worked. Funds are still lacking and so is quite a few needed permits to do this major effort. So then, I penned these 10 tips down what to do when life goes to hell!

1. Never, ever underestimate the love of your family. And the importance of having one. The same applies to truly good friends.

2. One can loose nothing by being a true human with all its good and bad sides. The truth is everything, but with some time of thinking before revealing it. Think before talking. Time heals. And wherever you are, no matter what circumstances, stand for who you are. Don´t try to be anyone you can´t be.

3. Never judge and condemn. If you don´t know the true story of what happened. One can have an opinion, but try to put yourself in the other persons place. It makes a difference.

4. Positive thinking always overrules negative. If you have negative people around you, get rid of them until the´ve eaten the humble pie.

5. Take time to be there for other people. You never know when things go wrong.

6. Accept responsibility and sort out the problem. Then move on.

7. Better give then take. In every aspect of life. One can never be to kind.

8. Be true to yourself. Tragedy strikes when one tries to be something one ain´t.

9. Enjoy every moment of the day, you never know, when it will end. So then, why worry at all?

10. Never, ever complain. There´s always tons of people who are worse off, no matter how bad your situation is. If you have been a good human when everything falls apart, there will be people there fore you. So being good and kind is a winner.

However, my own hell have been very strengthening for my character, I´ve learned a lot and I´ve been eating the humble pie. A visit to hell have been for the better. I come out of it as a better human being. More humble, more understanding, kinder, warmer and ready to live to its fullest limits again!

I still hope for a the Arabian Expediton to come through, even if it seems impossible! But than again, positive thinking helps! Stay tuned! Nothing is impossible….!

It is of course a very privileged life to be an explorer, to have in your mind that everything is possible and fulfil dreams most people never even get close to realising. Not even in mind or thought.

For me, proper exploration today has to do with connecting cultures, opening up horizons in other peoples mind, with the help of a camera, written words with the all mighty pen and by simple and genuine travel, e.g. not using a motorised vehicle. If an explorer turns up in a motorised vehicle, he or she has closed a door before it is even on the way to open up another horizon. By that way you build a new wall, not a bridge over the existing one. A true explorer shows other human beings first of all, this is the way, for example, that the great people along the Kolyma River in Siberia live. Exploration is about building bridges between people, not that ridiculous male theme, I am strongest and I can do this and that. Very tiring indeed.

Another important issue of today’s exploration, is to try through science to open up other peoples eyes about the realities we live in. And help to put together this eternal puzzle, concerning the meaning of life, our globe and why are we here.

Hmmm, lost a bit of my train of thought there….what I want to write, is to tell you readers, that one of the most fulfilling aspects of having chosen this life, is all the great people you come across, not only whilst travelling, but people doing what you are doing, exploring!

Two of my best friends, even though I have so far never met them in person, is CuChullaine and Basha O´Reilly. These are some of the most intelligent, warm hearted and generous people I have ever come across. Everything they do is to make this a better world to live in. Two grand personalities and human beings who run one of the most prestigious Societies in the world, The Long Riders Guild. I have communicated with them a lot the last two years and they have in many ways done my life a lot of good. Some of the most inspiring people I have ever come across and CuChullaine has also written one of the best books I have ever read. They´re ready for one of the most compelling challenges in history really, a four year global ride! See http://www.theworldride.org/

They are exactly what a world full of copies need, two original thinkers and genuine human beings! I am honoured in many ways to be part in their team of advisers.

Basha as asked me to quote her, because she has a very important job to do and need help:

“Because you have travelled from the Pampas of Patagonia to the frozen tundra of Siberia, we are urging all of your friends throughout the world to check the master breeds list on the World Ride website. If their horse’s breed is not represented, I would ask them to print off the DNA form, complete it and send it to The Long Riders’ Guild with some mane or tail hairs. In this way, everybody who contributes will become part of the largest collection of equine DNA in history. Horse owners are rushing to represent their favourite breed, including White River horses from Mongolia, Manga Largas from Brazil and Marawaris from India. Yet there are still hundreds left unaccounted for, and we particularly anxious to obtain DNA from the fabled horses of Yakutia.”

Mikael, here’s the link to the Breeds page: www.theworldride.org/breeds/breeds.htm

The other day I helped a couple of very good friends to look for participants for a very interesting Skeleton Coast expedition they´re setting up. I posted it on Linkedin and immediately got an angry answer:

“Appearently this is a for-profit pay your own way “adventure vacation” venture, not an expedition. Don’t you hate it when the adventure travel industry abuses the term expedition to sell empty positions. if you can get enough people to pay the 25 pound processing fee, you can make a tidy profit even before you pick the people who are willing to pay for a position. Mikael, you are damaging your reputation by having your name associated with this type of ethically challanged practice.”

Andy Miles, one of the organizers, gave a very good answer, see it here. However, it is a good question. But sensitive. I have an acquaintance in Exploration who calls pretty much everything an expedition, almost when he goes to the toilet, which is fine. For him it is an Expedition. For me, I think, anything below 6 months of hard travel, isn´t an expedition. There´s not set rules what constitutes an Expedition, but Explorers Club for example, only gives their honorable Flag to expeditions they deem scientific, no matter length of time or difficulty. It should be discussed by people who actually live on doing expeditions, not arm chair travelers or jealous wanna bees. For example, see this link about an attack from two people, who later turns out being two wannabes, one British woman and a British bloke,  who never have been able to make a living on it, but they have a right to have an opinion. Please read all the comments as well.

I would very much like to have an opinion from you readers, no matter what you do for a living, what constitutes a proper expedition?

Stockholm is hotter than ever right now! It is so hot out there, that it is hard to get anything done, except reading…..therefore, I have assembled a list of what I think is the best 10 books ever written on adventure and exploration! Books which still continue to be a source of inspiration and enjoyment to me, no matter how many time I have read them!

1. Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. This is the way real climbs, real exploration should be done. Before you had set routes and ropes fixed to the mountain. This book presents the enthralling account, by the leader of the French expedition, of the first conquest of Annapurna – at that time, and at more than 8000 metres, the highest mountain ever climbed. It is a story of breathtaking courage and determination against appalling odds. In records of mountaineering, in tales of human endeavour, there is nothing so unforgettable as the account of the descent by the triumphant but frost-bitten men, after the monsoon had broken, through the flooded valleys of Nepal.

2. The worst journey in the world by Aspley Cherry-Garrard. This book gave me and Johan Ivarsson great insights into the cold during our Siberian Expedition. One of the youngest members of Scott’s team, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was later part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied him on the final push to the Pole. This is his account of an expedition that had gone disastrously wrong. No episode in the history of human endeavour reads more harrowingly than Scott’s last expedition to Antarctica. Scott reached the South Pole in January 1911 to find Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it; then perished with his companions on the way home. ‘Yet, “tragedy”‘, Apsley Cherry-Garrard was to write a decade later, ‘was not our business.’ Cherry-Garrard was just 24, the youngest but one of the team when he joined Scott. Left behind for the final leg, in accordance with Scott’s original plan for a four-man advance, it fell to Cherry-Garrard eight months later to be a member of the search party which discovered their frozen bodies. The experience permanently damaged his mental health. For the rest of his life he was haunted by the fear that, but for what he perceived as an error of judgement on his part, they might have survived. Yet this book, his story of that and earlier expeditions, is in no way self-indulgent or sensationalist. Despite his name, aristocratic birth and classics degree from Oxford, Cherry-Garrard was no arrogant nobleman. Rather, this not especially robust but intelligent man well understood that polar exploration requires a singular fortitude pushing beyond brute strength to what Ranulph Fiennes was later to term mind over matter. Cherry-Garrard’s descriptions of the conditions suffered are rendered all the more diabolical by prose as stark as the landscape traversed. As for hyperbole, the ‘Worst Journey’ of the title in fact refers to an earlier expedition investigating nesting sites of the Emperor penguin. A work of supreme dimension, this masterpiece remains as compelling today as when it was first published 80 years ago.

3. The Heart of the Hunter by Laurens Van der Post. A beautiful book about travels among the Bushmen. In this stirring sequel to “The Lost World” of the Kalahari Laurens van der Post records everything he has learned of the life and lore of Africa’s first inhabitants. He explores the very sources of the Bushmen’s spirit and imagination – their dreams and stories, the legends that guide them and inspire them in their daily battles with that harshest of environments, the Kalahari.

4. Arctic dreams by Barry Lopez. An amazingly inspiring account from the northern part of the globe. The European picture of the Arctic is usually of snow and ice: the inhospitability of the terrain and the frigid wastes of the tundra contribute to our incapacity to imagine ordinary life there. In this magisterial book Barry Lopez draws on this hazy understanding of the far north to provide a compelling account of the land and its hold upon the psyche.It is a book which could be compared to Chatwin for its combination of travelogue and poetic vision. Yet the beauty of the prose and the thought-provoking evocations of modern culture’s shifting relationship with the environment are in a league of their own. Here are sparkling descriptions of the lives of caribou, muskoxen, polar bears and narwhals, and extraordinarily moving passages which meditate on the nature of our relationship with the world, the inter-dependence of ideas, desire and science and the possibility of dignity and compassion in the contemporary world.It is a measure of the respect which Lopez has for his subject that his book exemplifies the supreme importance which he ascribes to the ethics of respect in the face of all existential paradox:”There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of a leaning into the light”.

5. Khyber Knights by CuChullaine O´Reilly. A very good friend of mine. It is an account of perilous adventure and forbidden romance in the depths of mystic Asia. A real modern day tale! It is also a book of insights to the human soul. It has everything an adventure book should have!

6. Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The best book about the race to the South Pole between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. It is not much liked by many British, but as somebody who is brought up in snow and cold, and know a bit about polar exploration, I think it is very accurate. Roald Amundsen should have been give much more acclaim for his fantastic life and discoveries. It is a very dramatic book,but gives a very good background on both of them.

7. Tracks by Robyn Davidson. Even though most of my recommended books are about males, most likely because they are described and written in a way that appeals to me and my way to explore, I think that books about adventure and exploration written by women, generally are better as a whole. Women are more honest, lie and brag about themselves much less and are much more emotional. This book as excellent. In every way and should be read by everyone who is thinking about doing adventures and Expeditions. It is a bout her 1700 mile trek with camels across the Western desert of Australia.

8. The voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. I had no idea that Charles Darwin was such a good writer. The book is a must in many ways, since quite a few of his ideas regarding the evolution of mankind began developing here, but it is also a great travel book full of adventures and insights into all these countries that the Beagle passed on its 5 years journey.

9. The incredible voyage by Tristan Jones. Amazing book by an amazing fella. His passage with his boat through South-America is just unbelievable. He is a very good writer and this will be a classic in the future. With a singleness of purpose as ferocious as any hazard he encountered, Tristan Jones would not give up – even after dodging snipers on the Red Sea, capsizing off the Cape of Good Hope, starving on the Amazon, struggling for 3,000 miles against the mightiest sea current in the world, and hauling his boat over the rugged Andes three miles above sea level to find at last the legendary Island of the Sun. And beyond lay the most awesome challenge of all – the tortuous trek through 6,000 miles of uncharted rivers to find his way back to the ocean.

10  Arabian Sands by Wilfried Thesiger. By now, I have read the book many times. It is part poetry, part the meaning of life, but most a great read about his amazing explorations in the Arabian desert, and most of all, in Rub Al-Khali. Thesiger himself sums it up himself, by saying in his foreword:

No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can hope to match.

Enjoy you read! And if you have any time over, when not see this little TED X lecture about the meaning of life!

My friend Nick Gallop, who has written one of my guest writer columns, sent me an interesting query about nutrition on Expeditions. It is a very interesting question, what to eat on an Expedition! So I decided to use his great questions for another blog report!

1. On long, man-powered expeditions like yours what problems do you have getting enough calories and nutrition?

Well, most of the time, there´s just not enough food around! And one can´t haul enough……Therefore, one just have to eat a lot of fat, loads of caloeries and hope that one comes a cross some kind of civilisation every month to be able to fill up with the best possible foods! There´s no doubt about it, that you do take a good beating on long, man hauled Expeditions!

2. What food tips do you have for anyone planning such an expedition?

One just have to add on a few extra kilos before leaving, maybe not 26, like I did before the Siberian Expedition! But quite a few, yes! Because you will loose lots of kilos!

Most of the time, one is really, really tired, so there´s little energy to either fish or hunt or do any complicated meals, so bring lots of freeze dried food, but with some tasty food 1-2 a week. Like dried moose fillet…..I recommend REAL when it comes to freeze dried food. Tasty and filling!

3. It seems to me that people eat some real crap because it’s light to carry and find it too easy to skimp on nutritional content. How can we find the right balance?

Well, REAL is quite good, actually, but on top of that, eat everything you can get your hands on!

4. What’s your favorite expedition food?

Dried moose heart. Dried fish. Like straganina! Yummy!

5. The kit list for your 2004-2005 expedition along the Kolyma river in Siberia included the following items:

Fishing and hunting equipment

• 1 Rifle, Blaser R90 Off-Road with .3006-pipe [barrel]

• Telescopic sight

• Extra ammunition holders

• 1 Cleaning kit

• 2 Fishing rods

• 60 bullets, lead .3006

• A Couple of baits and wobblers

• Extra line, flys, casting balls

• Float, hooks

• Landing net

• Fishing net

Being Swedish, I’d guess that hunting and fishing is very natural to you but many people in the UK probably wouldn’t consider taking this kind of hardware – especially a firearm. How did carrying it change the expedition?

Lot´s of fresh, nutritious food!

6. What problems did carrying a firearm cause you?

In Siberia, on and off, they, the authorities, thought we were hired guns, mercenaries or/and snipers!

7. When planning the expedition did you have a rough idea how much food you could get by hunting and fishing? Were your ideas right?

No, much more difficult than I thought! A typhoon moved in the second day, we didn´t get anything for the first month!

8. Was the time for food gathering included in your plans? – how did the sometimes time-consuming task of finding food fit in with the objectives of the expedition?

We only fished and hunted before the arrival of winter. Hunting and fishing is also part of who we are, so it is a fulfilling work!

9. It’s very easy to pack some simple, lightweight fishing kit and simple hunting kit such as a slingshot. Do you think the time invested in learning to use these effectively will be worth it?

No, hunting should be efficient and the game shouldn´t be suffering unnecessarily. Always shoot to kill the easiest way, e.g the heart. Fishing, sure, but it is harder. Better to bring a net…..

10. If you could carry one packable hunting or fishing item on expedition what would it be and why?

Knife! Well, it is the most vital item. You can do pretty much everything with it!

11. You’ve done some very long cycle expeditions – how different was the food situation on these?

Well, you can carry more food and roads are most of the time close to settlements where u can fill up!

12. As you know I’m very interested in the connections we can make with indigenous people through the use of primitive skills. If we learned about wild food and hunted, fished and foraged on our expedition how would it change our relationship to the people we meet along the way?

Good question! It would make a dramatic difference, since getting to know local people, indigenous or not, you need to have some very close things to associate with to open the door to their hearts, hunting and fishing is part of their lives!

13. How do you think our expedition food choices affect the environment?

Depends where…….In Siberia, hunting and fishing in a proper way, doesn´t harm, but otherwise, if you by local food, this is of course, helping the local economy. So buy locally! If possible….

14. What’s the worst thing you’re ever had to eat on an expedition?

Well, drinking raw blood with the maasai wasn´t a hit, I can tell you that! Basically due to the heat and other surrounding smells…..like urin…..and also, am now fan of tree slugs in Congo! And my friend Dogan Tlilic´s iskembe soup, am not big on tripe in soups!

15. Have your food experiences while on expedition changed your thinking on how we treat food back in Europe?

Well, being brought up in the countryside and forest, hunting and fishing has been a big part of my life. So Siberia taught me to take care of every single part of the animal, including the muzzle of a moose and their brains…..yummy!

On and off I get an email from somebody who is on his way to do an Expedition and wants to document the adventure by doing a documentary at the same time. Yesterday I had another request to describe how to do it. Well, there´s many ways. I have throughout the years done 3 of them. The last one from Siberia. And during that Expedition I wrote this specific report, which still stands today:

Making a documentary

Making a documentary and TV-program´s in -58°F

25 Jan, 05 – 22:09
GPS-pos: N67°28´ | E153°42´ | Alt: 11 M

It is the 25th of January today and the temperature is -55°F. Unfortunately the temperature seems to be heading downwards again. We´ve both caught a cold and this is due to two types of stress we´re experiencing at the moment. Firstly, the positive stress, because we´re working day and night with a new TV-program to be sent off. And secondly, the negative type of stress, since we know that we´ll soon be outdoors, day and night, for a month to come. We´re really worried this time. Unfortunately, we know what to expect out there.

One of the most frequent comments I get from people back home, generally whilst lecturing, and through many emails on this trip, is how in earth did we persuade a camera team to join us on the Expedition and film us at all times. I tell them the truth. We are the camera team. We do every aspect when it comes to producing the documentary. Except the final touch of editing the right colors, the subtitling and graphics. We don´t have the machinery to do that. People seldom believe me. Which I can well understand, since they´re used to adventurers who primarily do sporting Expeditions and lack the knowledge how to film, edit, think dramaturgically and don´t understand the full value of proper sound editing. They´re used to adventurers who have a professional camera man which shows up on and off during the Expedition, or as the general rule seems to be, they do a lot of professional filming during the preparations and afterwards and then use static cut-ins from the Expedition taken by the adventurer himself. All generally shoot from a tripod. There´s absolutely nothing wrong with this. At times it is very exciting, interesting and ground breaking. But when you´ve seen a bunch of the same types of production, it turns out utterly boring. My opinion. I am of the belief that every new documentary should add something new to the general knowledge of daily life and its own genre. The worst, though, I think, is when this type of adventurer considers a production made this way as his own. Unfortunately, this genre of ours, is full of too many self-centered individuals. An adventurer once called me on the mobile a few years ago and asked me if I could assist him with the right contacts at SVT, Sweden´s biggest, most serious and best TV-company.

´´I know how to film!´´ he exclaimed when I told him it was no easy thing for your work or your idea to get accepted, but he continued self-assured: ´´It is dead easy!´´

It isn´t. This adventurer hasn´t, of course, done one single production by himself. And nothing he´s done so far produced by others have appeared on SVT. To be your own camera team is very difficult and I think it is impossible if you don´t make it a life style as I´ve done. And as Johan is doing as well on this Expedition. Every single moment we´re spending in the canoe or skiing, when not thinking about our beloved ones or when one is too tired to think, one has to plan for the next scene. Where to find the right atmosphere, the right light and a scene which can develop and move your documentary ahead. And trying to plan your filming when you get attacked by a 800 lbs heavy bear isn´t easy. And it is even harder to get it on film! Fortunately, we´ve understood a long time ago, how utterly dull we are ourselves in comparison with the people we meet during our Expeditions. But filming other people can even be more difficult. Especially in this extreme cold, which is putting a severe strain on the success of our upcoming documentary and our monthly TV-program´s.

As an example if this, let me tell you about last week when we spent 12 tedious and bumpy hours in a jeep to reach a very interesting village. The temperature was so low that we couldn´t persuade people to stay outdoors more than quarter of an hour, they simply froze too much, so we didn´t get one single decent scene from this visit. And when we do have interesting people in front of the camera, and who on top of that doesn´t get bothered by continues re-takes, the camera fails us. In general, the camera doesn´t cope with the cold more than 10 minutes per day before the tapes freezes solid. And it takes at least two hours every time for the camera to thaw out. It doesn´t seem to help at all that we´ve made a cover from and old blanket to keep it warm! And it is only during the first 30 seconds that you actually can see what you´re filming. After that, all you have in your eye piece is a lot of lines. Once back indoors we leave the camera untouched for four nervous hours until we check what has stuck or not. Unfortunately we´ve lost a great deal of good material due to the cold. But it is not only cameras which freeze. Almost all frostbites that we picked up during our last ski trip from Zyryanka was due to the fact that we were handling the camera too long.

However, even if we get everything we want together and filmed, we still have the worst to come. Namely to safely transport all the material to Sweden and hoping it will be ok once at home in the studio. This fact causes a terrific amount of worry during every Expedition. Much more than attacking bears!

One little snippet from the film can be seen here! 33 763 viewers so far!

Geographic Journal asked me the other day, what ten items of kit I would pick to bring on a Polar Expedition like the Siberianone, executed 2004-05. After a bit of thought, I picked these 10:

1. Thermal underwear, since it keeps your warm even when damp. Incredibly important to pick the right one’s! Probably the most important item for such an Expedition! Termo Original of Sweden produce the best of all thermal underwear that I’ve tried throughout 20 years of exploring. They don´t itch, they’re very durable, comfortable and they keep you warm. Even in Siberia!

2. Axe. Since fuel like petrol just doesn’t work at all when temperatures continuously stay below -50 degrees Celsius, which they do 24 hours a day during Mid-Winter, an axe to supply firewood is essential. Fuel will work, if you sleep with the petrol bottle inside the sleeping bag all night!

3. Matches/petrol. Lighters don’t work at all, matches and petrol needed to get a fire going quickly. There’s no time for mistakes.

4. Boots. We brought three varieties. And we didn’t pick up one single frostbite on our feet! Mainly because we never stood still, but also due to the right choice of equipment. Our ski boots were handmade by Crispi and named Top Expedition (www.crispi.it). When staying in settlements we used great boots from The North Face (www.thenorthface.com ) called Baltoro 400. In the tent we used Russian felt boots called valenkis. Uncomfortable for walking, but very warm and worked well as camp boots.

5. Down jacket. We used The North Face 800. It did the work, but needs to be far bettered. For example, far too small pockets, and biggest size to small. We did have the biggest size they had, but when extremely cold, your movements are slow, clumsy and fingers are normally incredibly stiff, so everything has to be bigger and simpler.

6. Down sleeping bag. We used The North Face Inferno Endurance, their top of the line bag, but comfort temperature is only -40 degrees Celsius, so we also brought a TNF Snowshoe and both worked good enough together. During Mid-Winter our sweat froze on our backs, under armpits and so on and it took 8-10 hours to thaw up in the sack.

7. A compass/maps. I’ve used Silvas Expedition 25 compass for years and it never fails and it worked very well in the extreme cold.www.silva.se Good maps are essential.

8. Good head gear and the same applies to balaclava and facemask. Our major problem. We used wool balaclavas, the TNF balaclavas and Top Hats and we had a facemask made, but none of them worked properly. In combination with each other, relatively good, but not perfect. But the hood on the down Jacket and the Gore-Tex Jacket from the TNF,was sufficient during rest.

9. Working outfit. We had the perfect combination here. The 3-layered TNF Mountain Jacket Summit Series and their Apex Randonne pants never failed us!

10. An assortment of good gloves. We had a variety of gloves. Everything from thin fleece gloves, wool gloves to heavy down mittens, but they didn’t last the full winter.

I first heard about our closest relative, the bonobo, whilst reading a book written by an extra ordinary writer, and a friend,Lasse Berg. If he, instead of being born in Sweden, would have been raised in, for example, the United States of America, he would be a world renowned writer and scientist today. In this book about the origin of human kind, he states that not only is the bonobo our closest relative, but it shows that we instead of becoming such a violent ape, could have copied this dwarf chimpanzee instead of the more aggressive bigger chimpanzee or gorilla. Because, compared to his bigger relatives, the bonobo just makes love to handle any sense of aggression! With anyone. Their kids, same sex, well, anyone around!

“Emmanuel should have seen this!”Kennedy laughed when we sat and watched a group of bonobos eating and lovemaking at the Bonobo Reserve just located outside the capital Kinshasa, “It´s unbelievable!”

Was this our closest relative? Did I feel any connection, like I did when meeting the lowland gorillas? I think even more! It was almost scary! Because when we first arrived to the Reserve, the last stop of this great Tour of Congo, after a slightly traumatic trip by van on terrible roads, we came across a lone male bonobo sitting next to a little pond playing with an empty plastic bottle. Suddenly when he saw us, he stood up and raced up and down the fence, making a noise in the grass with the bottle, which was similar to the one I managed to get as a kid with I taped a piece of cardboard on my bicycle wheel. He ran up and down the fence until one of the local guides we were forced to have from the capital, made an idiot of himself, trying to get the bonobo to perform otherwise. That irritated this fella so much that he took some wet mud from the pond and threw at the  guy. Suddenly he came up to where I was kneeling down at the fence, sat down, lay back on than shoot a glance at me like he wanted to say:

“Why did you bring that dork?”

I immediately felt a connection there, which I have never ever felt together with any other animals. I have been very close to one specific dog, horses, camels, but I have never felt this connection.

Their way of handling any type of stress is just making love to anyone in every position. It was odd sitting watching a group of bonobos being fed bananas by the wardens and on and off, they felt some kind of stress, and just made out, followed by an orgasm. Extraordinary human!

Visiting the bonobos was the last on our itinerary of a Tour of the great Congo. No doubt, one of the most exiting countries on earth right now. I just have a few profound feelings to share. One just have to go to Congo, before something nasty will happen here again. It is such a volatile country. And, like the bonobo, there´s so many threats of extinction of important species here, relatives of us, the naked ape. Plus that one has the constant feeling of being one of the first foreigners to penetrate the deep forest of this vast country. A feeling you can get in very few countries on earth today. But most important I think, this is really Africa. There´s not a boring second!

With a visionary and a lover of humans like Jeff Willner at its helm, Kensington Tours is really in the forefront of what good tourism should be today. Brave, makes a difference, helps a country, builds bridges and creates trips which open peoples minds. I am indeed honored to be a explorer-in-residence for this extra ordinary visionary company!

Have a look at this slideshow of this great country and you will understand even more!

”Uff, uff!” he said and turned his back towards us, heavily slumped down on his back lazily and started chewing away on his main diet this time of the year, leaves. He wasn’t at all interested in our presence, almost seemed bored and fed up with being a star.

Suddenly, his wife gave a call of distress and Chimanuka, showing that his enormous size isn´t a problem, flung himself like an agile chimpanzee down the tree, hit the ground with a thump -30 centimetres from where we stood in a paralysed silence- and raced through the bush like a rhinoceros and growled his orders of silence!

When he had done his duty as the sole leader of this family of lowland gorillas, he just sat down in the thick under growth and the only part of his body we could see, was his gigantic head. Chimanuka was the undisputed leader of this family consisting of him, 17 females and 14 young ones of different ages. He’s name meant Happy Swahili and had been given to him by the park rangers after he by pure luck was found after the very destructive civil war that plagued this area 1997. A devastating war that killed at least 3 major family’s in this little area where these unique gorillas habitat and where reproduction isn’t neither an easy thing or taken for granted. The gorillas were basically killed as food. And in a war where a human life had little value, a gorilla, of course, even less.

“Uff, uff….”

Suddenly Chimanuka stood up on all four and slowly made his way just passed us and headed into the growth again, looking for a new feeding place. Very agile he then swung his way up a thin tree and it was hard to believe that his weight was at least 240 kg:s. (Approx. 500 pounds) There he stayed throughout our visit in Kahuzi-Biega National Park. We had an hour and a half to visit these our close relatives and it is a very profound feeling of seeing these primates which are so different to us, but still so very close. They definitely feel very human with their behaviour and the way they look. I felt very close, almost protective of them and even though I am a hunter, who kills wild animals for food, I could never shoot or kill a gorilla. It would be like killing a human. Impossible!

“We’re guarding them 24 hours a day” ,the chief ranger told us, “All rangers come from this are, so we know the forest well.”

Kahuzi-Biega National Park is probably the least visited gorilla habitats in the world. It is, of course, due to that it is place in what is globally seen as a volatile region of Congo and the world. For this reason, there’s very few tourists, it’s unspoilt and feels very fresh. In my eyes, I couldn’t have ended up in a better place to visit this closest of relatives for the first time in my life. It just has to be felt this feeling of meeting your original family!

“I can tell you” , the chief ranger continued, “that this is the only place were tourist always see gorillas and never, ever have to walk for more than an hour to find them. I have worked here for over ten years and always seen gorillas when taking tourists.”

Just getting to the park entrance is an adventure and extremely entertaining! After leaving the bustling and magnificently located city of Bukavu, one follows the stunningly beautiful Lake Kivu, passing through these fantastically dramatic, lively Congolese villages on relatively good dirt roads and climbing up to 2200 meters to the park. One of the best rides in my life!

For me returning back to Congo after passing through here on a bicycle 21 years ago is very emotional. And do you know what? It is still the most exiting, lively and most African of countries on earth! Like Yemen, it is flaunted as extremely dangerous in media and by embassies on the Internet, but like Yemen, this is only in certain parts of these big countries and, I guess for the same reason, probably the two most entertaining, interesting and humane countries on earth right now.

Congo has to be experienced!

I just missed Olly by a day……will we meet on the active volcano Nyarangrongo? In a few days you will know! At least I have met Chimanuka!

Please see this slide show from Congo!