Viking Magazine - January 2022 - 12

Carefully, and a little anxiously, I opened the tent zipper and looked out.
It was dead calm, with an unbelievable, deafening silence. It was my first
day in the Antarctic without wind. For the first time I had a feeling of being
completely alone. The wind had been enervating, but I had grown used to it,
and it had become a traveling companion.
The wind could vary in the course of the day. In general, a gale or stiff
breeze had blown every day. For some hours, it might drop to a light breeze,
which seemed almost like complete calm. On the first few days, the roar of
the wind got on my nerves. One can get used to most things, but I was worn
out by the noise. During the first half of the journey, the wind blew from the
right; at the halfway point, it was dead against me for three days, before it
veered and came from the left.
I opened the tent door and sat for a long time in my sleeping bag, staring out
at a serene white expanse and a blue sky. Huge snow crystals were glittering
in the sun. I crawled back into the sleeping bag and felt happy, rested, and
satisfied. I was exactly five days away from the South Pole.
So writes Norwegian explorer Liv
Arnesen in her book, " Skiing into
the Bright Open: My Solo Journey
to the South Pole. "
Five days later, Arnesen did
indeed reach her goal of making it
to the South Pole-becoming the
fir t woman to do so alone-on
Christmas Eve " as the Christmas gift
of my life, " she writes.
Though she'd been planning the
750-mile trek for two years, and the
actual journey took 50 days, this
dream had been in the making for
more than three decades.
A DREAM IS BORN
Born in 1953 in Bӕrum, Norway,
Arnesen was taught to love the
outdoors from an early age.
" Norwegians are outdoor people, "
she says during a recent video
call from her home outside Oslo.
" I think it's something in our
blood. There's a saying that, for
12
January 2022
Norwegians, nature is their religion
because we feel so attached to and
close to nature. "
Arnesen's parents encouraged
what would become two of her
biggest passions in life-crosscountry
skiing and polar history-
starting when she received her
fir t pair of skis at age 3 ( " They
were red, I remember, " she says)
and went to the cinema with her
father at age 6 to see a documentary
on Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki
expedition of 1947.
" My plan as a six-year-old was
to travel on all the oceans and
meet kids from all over the globe, "
Arnesen writes in her book. " I also
recall what I thought I should bring
as food on my expedition: all kinds
of chocolate, cake, and the goodies
I loved that my parents only let us
have on Saturdays. I don't recall
whether I had thought at all about
bringing fresh water. The following
year, on a trip overseas with my
family, I experienced seasickness for
the fir t time, killing the dream of
my fir t expedition. "
As Arnesen got older, she
immersed herself in the world of
polar exploration through books,
devouring the stories about Fridtjof
Nansen, Ernest Shackleton, Roald
Amundsen and others who had
faced the " great feats and tragedies
in the Arctic and Antarctic. "
It wasn't until she was 30,
however, that she began planning
an expedition of her own, when
she read a newspaper article about
Carl Emil Petersen's solo ski tour
across Greenland in 1983. " It was
a revelation, " she recalls in her
book. " Carl Emil was a seasoned
traveler, but I knew I was also a
reliable skier with plenty of stamina.
Why couldn't I also ski across
Greenland? "
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS
In April 1991, Arnesen,
accompanied by three other
women, set off across Greenland,
but the trip faced challenges from
the start. Hurricane-force winds
made for whiteout conditions, a
fuel leak left their food soaked in
gasoline and their stoves began
to fail. The final blow came when
the police chief of Godthaab-the
capital of Greenland now called
Nuuk-ordered Arnesen and her
team to turn around, threatening to
revoke their expedition permit and
insurance if they didn't.
Though her fir t attempt was
unsuccessful, Arnesen wasn't
deterred, and in 1992, she and travel
companion Julie Maske became the
fir t women to cross the Greenland
Ice Cap unsupported. Less than
>
Liv Arnesen photographed for Viking
by Thomas Ekström in November
2021 at her home outside of Oslo.
Photo: Thomas Ekström
Viking Magazine - January 2022

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