Furry FeetNotes: The Sojourn and Polar Exploration
Annie Dillard and Winnie the Pooh exegete Earnest Shackleton and our earthly journey
Alaskan Fjords and Glaciers
Ernest Shackleton is an enigmatic figure. From the first time I read about the man, I watch his relentless journey south with morbid fascination. I don’t understand the drive to put his life and the lives of his crew at great risk to say they’ve put a flag on the pole of the earth.
Shackleton had no lack of volunteers. His well-written (albeit apocryphal) classified ad gives away the spirit of the expedition. It’s a case study in effective copywriting if nothing else.
Men wanted for hazardous journey.
Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.
Safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in event of success.
Polar expeditions were all the rage of the 1890s, the peak of the colonial era. There are morbid yet entertaining stories of English gentry explorers packing crates of bone china and literal silver spoons for their dog sledding adventures to the North Pole. Neither they nor their silverware ever made it.
While fascinated by these stories of polar exploration, I never understood them. I can appreciate the drive to do something that’s never been done, exploring the wild frontier, etc. But the risk involved seems a lot to me. It’s why I’ll never climb Everest. While I love climbing mountains, that’s not the way I want to leave this world. Nor do I desire my frozen remains to be found floating on an arctic ice flow.
I would not have replied to Shackleton’s mythical advertisement.
The spiritual connotations associated with the history of polar expeditions are abundant. Much having to do with the utter lack of preparation, or worse, the wrong sort of preparation. (Annie Dillard's essays Teaching a Stone to Talk expand on this beautifully. This is one you should have in your library.) This history of polar expedition does indeed contain supposed “men of valor”, like those who responded to Shakleton’s advertisement. It’s also littered with the bodies of the foolish. Wealthy and arrogant men who thought facing the extremities of polar exploration was nothing more then a trip on Queen Mary. Some failed to bring extra bootlaces, but did manage boxes of fine china and silver.
True story.
We visited Alaska a few years ago. Of all the places I’ve been in my life, it was certainly one of my favorites. It's the closest I’ve been to the North Pole (Other than flying over it on the way to Asia a couple of times). Having been there, with its crags and crevasses, fjords and glaciers, I understand polar fascination a little better. It’s still not the way I want to leave the earth, but if the earth has a soul, it may be best felt at the poles. That’s what Alaska felt like to me. Fire and ice. There’s something magical about glaciers.
The sojourn is both a literal spiritual activity and a metaphor. It’s what we do while traveling. And what we do while visiting this planet, even for those who've never leave the county they were born in. With the sojourn, there’s a quest. A search for truth, authenticity, and beauty. I say the end of the quest is finding everything the Creator reveals to us in the person of Jesus. The problem being, we’re so incredibly ill-prepared for such things, we have no idea what it is we’re coming up against.
Our expedition to the Pole is much like the Englishmen who decided that silver spoons were more useful than compasses. Or, perhaps, a bit like Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Eeyore, and Rabbit with all his friends and relations. They went on a polar expedition, as well. On their afternoon journey through the 100-acre Wood, Pooh found a long stick to help little Roo out of a stream.
Turns out he found it. He found It.
“Pooh,” he said, “where did you find that pole?”
Pooh looked at the pole in his hands.
“I just found it,” he said. “I thought it ought to be useful. I just picked it up.”
“Pooh,” said Christopher Robin solemnly, “the expedition is over. You have found the North Pole.”
“Oh!” said Pooh.
From The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
There you have it. The North Pole discovered.
That’s what it feels like sometimes in this ongoing search for truth and beauty.
We’re often ill-prepared.
We’re often children playing in a world of adult-things we know nothing about.
And sometimes, the answers are right in front of us.
We just need eyes to see and ears to hear.
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B.
This is my every Sunday-ish newsletter containing bits and bobs of what I’m reading, writing, watching, thinking, and experimenting with this week. Every month or so I also send complete notes from a book I’ve read, so you can decide if you want to read it too. Like the old version of Cliff’s Notes. But more Hobbit-like. Furry feetnotes.
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