An Interview with Ann Bancroft fromPoles Apart

Ann Bancroft recently spoke with APT about her trip to the South Pole in Poles Apart

Q: In 1993, The American Women's Expedition (AWE) became the first all-women expedition in history to cross the ice to the South Pole. What was your motivation for this remarkable accomplishment?

A: Well, the motivation was a couple-fold. The first thing we were trying to do was traverse the Antarctic continent, and be the first women to do so. As you know, we didn't finish that objective. We got as far as the South Pole. We had to make a very difficult decision, but I think a sound one.

The second objective was to develop a curriculum for school teachers. One of my dreams was to blend my passion for teaching and for kids with my passion for outdoor travel and utilize the expedition as a spark plug for learning. These polar trips use every subject matter under the sun in their execution, planning and preparation. Kids and teachers alike just love adventure and what I would call "real-time learning." We developed a curriculum that is multi-disciplinary including math, science, geography and the arts. We wanted to create a curriculum that was valid for teachers to use about Antarctica and polar exploration. We were hoping we would go into the history category and the curriculum could go on for years to come.

Q: What was the most difficult part of your journey?

A: Oddly enough, I think in some ways the most difficult part of the journey for us started long before the ice in raising the financial support and breaking down the attitude barriers that existed for us particularly because we were women. In most people's eyes, we were small women. People had a stereotype about the size you should be in order to pull a sled across Antarctica. I think the tallest of us was 5'6" and after that we were typically 5'3" or 5'4". So we ran across some real challenges in our planning and preparation in terms of the finances because people were telling us that we shouldn't or we couldn't. Persevering with this was in some ways more difficult than the trip itself.

I would say the challenge for me as the leader of the trip was keeping the four of us together moving towards the goal — getting ourselves to the South Pole. We had one team member with an injury and an illness. It was a struggle to keep everybody moving — you're only as fast as your slowest member. It takes a tremendous team effort to keep going. That was really a struggle on the ice.

Q: Poles Apart documents your trip to the South Pole. What would you like viewers to take away from your experience?

A: That's an interesting question — I don't think I've ever really pondered it that way. I would like viewers to know that we were four people with a passion. We stuck together through a lot of hardship, both mentally and physically, over a long stretch of time on and off the ice. I hope that the metaphor of our expedition and our story (working together, taking lots of little steps to get to a place etc.), resonates for people about their own dreams and the journeys they want to take in life. Challenges in life are a way of drawing us all together. We may have very different challenges that take us to different places. They could be in business, in the arts, in sports or whatever. But I think the themes of trying to communicate, trying to be the best that we can be in terms of rising up (which is what these expeditions push you to do), trying to work together and to persevere over the obstacles whatever they may be, are the same. I hope that those things resonate — I trust that they do. All my polar trips have taught me that the story itself is different within people's lives, but the themes that weave those stories together are very much the same in all of us. I think there's something identifiable there. I hope it charges people up to keep doing their journeys rather than saying, 'I can't do that.'

Q: What would you like to accomplish in the future? Are there more expeditions you would like to embark upon?

A: I'm actually on the eve of an expedition now. Well, we're a year off, but that is very close for us! Liv Arnesen (the woman who I crossed the Antarctic with two years ago), and I are getting ready to break another barrier. We are going to cross the Arctic Ocean next February. It's another 100 or so days long expedition. We're going to leave from the tip of Russia, jump off from land, and get on the Arctic Ocean dragging our sleds to the North Pole. And from the North Pole, we'll head to land again, but this time we'll land in Canada with hopes of trying to traverse the Arctic Ocean. Today our expeditions are really about encouraging and inspiring others to find the mindset to embark on their own expeditions, whatever those expeditions might be. We hope that this message really resonates with people on an international scale.