Jean-Louis Etienne and Will Steger depart King George Island for the start of the 1989-1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition. Photo: Jacqui Banaszynski
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Think South: How We Got Six Men and Forty Dogs Across Antarctica
Chapter 1: The Leaders
"If Will is the dog, then I am the cat," said Jean-Louis to explain their differences. "The world can be divided into brushers and non-brushers,'" said Will, describing the way Arctic and Antarctic explorers treat their ice-encrusted clothing before entering a tent. "Jean-Louis is a brusher. I am a non-brusher." Polar opposites, one could say. For me, it didn’t matter. Despite, or perhaps because of the two men’s dissimilar personalities and approaches, we always landed right side up.
COOL STUFF FOR READERS
Map of the expedition’s route. Including the expedition’s cache locations and resupplies.
Video: Will and Jean-Louis, Emotional finish at the end of the expedition (minute 6:28)
Video: Expedition crosses a snow bridge above a massive crevasse from the expedition film's B-roll (minute 5:32)
Website: WillSteger.com
Website: Jean-Louis Etienne’s biography
Photo: Will Steger shows the anticipated expedition route in one of his innumerable presentations on the road.
Video: Jean-Louis Etienne’s account of his first encounter with Will Steger on his way to the North Pole (minute 25): “We survived, I think, because we did not speak the same language.”
Article: New York Times Magazine portrait of Will Steger in 1995 as he prepared for the first dogsled traverse of the Arctic in a single season, from Siberia to Canada by way of the North Pole.
Video: Jean-Louis Etienne’s description of his career and his next project: the Polar Ocean Data Project.
Website: 1996, Will Steger was named the first National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and earned the National Geographic John Oliver La Gorce Medal, awarded only nineteen times in National Geographic’s history.
Article: Will Steger on the first days of the Trans-Antarctica Expedition and the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf 20 years later, MnPost.
Article: Bio of Will Steger from the Guardian newspaper.
Video: NBC Today Show feature on Will Steger’s career.
Website: Virtual tour of Antarctica from Shackleton 100