ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [2 March 2007]

Hi, this is my first entry and my first blog, I hope it's of interest.

For a long time I had a vague dream that one day I'd walk through the High Arctic.  There are a number of reasons why, some I know and some I can't quite explain.

Back in 2004, I was sat on a train commuting from Manchester to Blackburn and I stumbled across a curious advert in the Manchester Metro.  The advert called for volunteers to train for an Arctic expedition to the Geo Magnetic North Pole, and was based on Shackelton's call for volunteers back in the day,.,.it part read:

Men and women wanted for hazardous journey, no small wages, 
self-funding, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success" 

All I read (in the other part of the advert) NO PREVIOUS POLAR EXPERIENCE NEEDED!  Then when I thought,,, this'll do me.

I couldn't try out at the time, but two years later the opportunity to try out for another expedition came up and I went for it not really knowing what I was letting myself in for and not really caring; just following that dream to walk through the Arctic.

So back in Sept 06 I tried out and got accepted into a training squad.  Since that initial weekend I've undertaken training weekends in Dartmoor and Wales working on navigation and camp craft etc and also spent a week in Norway (Jan 07) learning how to cross country ski and undertaken first aid training.

It feels nice to belong to a team and it felt really good when I was offered the opportunity to train.  Sometimes all you need is someone to say, 'You can do this', and a whole new world can open up for you.

So I'm putting all my previous training to test with three-weeks training in Finnmark.  Finnmark is north of the Arctic Circle and is situated in the Aurora Borealis zone (Northern Lights).  It's a county in the northeast of Norway and has Finland to its south and Russia to its east.  Other facts: It has midnight sun from the middle of May until late July. And in the two months of the winter, from late November to late January, the county experiences polar nights where the sun is always below the horizon. As a consequence, there is continuous daylight from early May to early August.

For more info on Finnmark see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnmark