North Pole Debate
Saunders' claim to have reached the North Pole solo in 2004 is disputed by ExplorersWeb, a website maintained by rival explorers Thomas and Tina Sjogren, who consider only expeditions that begin their journey on land to be valid. His 2004 expedition started 70 km north of Siberia's Cape Arktichevsky, with his online journal reporting 50 km of open water north of the Russian coastline that prevented him starting from land. This 70 km head start represented just over 5% of his total journey. ExplorersWeb therefore listed Saunders' 2004 journey to the North Pole as a "partial expedition" on their database of expedition records In 2004, Australian explorer Eric Phillips argued that this categorization of expeditions may have been a factor in the death of Finnish explorer Dominick Arduin, who died at Cape Arktichevsky in March 2004: "I can't help but think that this tragedy permeated as a result of the pressure placed on adventurers to have their expeditions regarded as unsupported. Again, Explorers Web and others are placing undue pressure on the adventuring community by categorizing expeditions on their achievements. Of course decisions must be made in the face of what we sense, not what others will think, but we should not be pressured into feeling that our efforts fall short of somebody else's parameters."
Read more about this topic: Ben Saunders (explorer)
Famous quotes containing the words north pole, north, pole and/or debate:
“—Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole. . .
And now what? Why, go back.
Turn as I please, my step is to the south.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There’s very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who’s had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“I wouldn’t take the Pope too seriously. He’s a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)
“Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)