Glen Ellyn native uses North Pole trek to encourage others

Glen Ellyn native John Huston says he has no complaints about his trek to the North Pole.

Oh, sure, there were subzero temperatures and deteriorating ice conditions. And, yes, he got only three hours of sleep during the last 66 hours of the trek.

But the bottom line is he and expedition partner Tyler Fish were living their dream when they completed that 475-mile, 55-day journey in April 2009 to become the first Americans to make it to the North Pole entirely on their own, pulling sleds with all their supplies behind them.

Now Huston, who with Fish has written a book about the journey, “Forward: The First American Unsupported Expedition to the North Pole,” is telling audiences that the lessons of that journey can be used by anyone taking on a challenge.

“The North Pole looks like any place on the frozen skin of the Arctic Ocean. Instead, it's about the journey to get there,” Huston said at a recent meeting of the Glen Ellyn Woman's Club. “I think people can push their limits and reach their own North Pole.”

Suburbia to Arctic

Now a resident of Evanston, the 35-year-old graduate of Glenbard West High School admits his former classmates might have thought him an unlikely candidate to become an Arctic adventurer. Studious and hardworking, he was into music, tennis and soccer.

“I just started camping when I was 19, after high school,” he said.

But even in high school, Huston had what it takes to set goals and follow through, said Randal Hendee, a retired Glenbard West teacher who had Huston in his creative writing class and helped edit his former student's new book.

“When he got interested in something, he really got into it,” Hendee recalled.

Huston's interest in outdoor adventure grew through his years at Northwestern University in Evanston, where he earned degrees in anthropology, history and geography. After college, he worked as a wilderness expedition instructor at Outward Bound in Ely, Minn., for six years. While there, he had the opportunity to learn about polar expeditions firsthand.

“There's probably been more people who have gone to the North Pole in Ely than any other place,” he said.

In 2005, Huston went on a 1,400-mile ski and dogsled expedition in Greenland with a team of Norwegians who restaged a 1911 race to the South Pole against a British team. He led an expedition to the South Pole in the winter of 2007-2008.

By spring 2009, he and Fish felt ready for what Huston calls the “granddaddy” of polar expeditions, the North Pole. Taking to heart what he had learned about the successful Norwegian expeditions of the past, he had spent nearly four years preparing and fundraising.

“You create your margins for success by how well you prepare,” he said.

He strapped on heavy tires to pull around Chicago's lakefront to simulate the 300-pound sleds loaded with supplies he would haul behind him in the Arctic.

Mental preparation was just as important, Huston said. The partners adopted the values of optimism, humility and responsibility to one another and the environment to guide their expedition.

Paying $60,000 to charter planes from Chicago to Ellesmere Island in Canada, where they would begin their journey, they stepped off on March 2, 2009, into a temperature of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. In the first 17 days, they skied 45 miles.

“It takes a lot of patience,” Huston said. “It also can be fun. If I allow myself to really get in the moment, I feel like a little kid.”

They put on wet suits to swim through water when there was not ice to ski across. Huston fell into water once without his wet suit when he failed to take his usual precautions.

“We really felt bad about it,” he said. “It cost a lot of time and energy.”

The partners had their squabbles, but came out better friends, Huston said. Taking the advice of a mentor, they had resolved to say nice things to each other.

“It sounds so dorky,” Huston said, but added that the shared jokes and banter were important. “We don't even really admit how hard it is out there.”

While on the ice, he spent 70 percent of his time daydreaming about food, Huston estimated. Their diet was rich, but unvarying. Consuming 7,000 or more calories a day, they feasted on fat-laden pemmican stew and snacked on butter, deep-fried bacon, nuts and fudge bars.

By journey's end, Huston had lost 30 pounds and found it hard to keep warm because his body fat was gone.

Crossing huge blocks of ice that kept drifting south, the partners found themselves a discouraging 55 miles from the North Pole on day 52. With only a little over three days to go, they came up with a plan: forego sleep.

“As soon as you admit failure, it's basically over,” Huston said.

They made it to their goal with eight hours to spare. They had to use a GPS and walk in circles to locate the North Pole at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Then they snapped pictures, hugged and went to bed.

“It was a great feeling,” Huston said. “It was more of a feeling of awe and wonder at the energy and output it took to get to that place.”

A previously scheduled Russian helicopter picked them up and took them to Norway, where their first stop was a supermarket.

“I ate four Snicker ice cream bars like right in the aisle,” Huston recalled.

Moving forward

Since his return from the North Pole, Huston has guided British scientific expeditions on the Arctic Ocean, served as a guide and instructor at Outward Bound, and worked with Northwestern University's outdoor orientation program. He and his writing partners spent 18 months working on the book on the North Pole journey.

Huston, who also does motivational speaking and works part-time in commercial real estate, said his next major expedition will be on Ellesmere Island, Canada, in 2013. He and a Norwegian colleague plan to kite ski the steps of past expeditions, while doing some new exploring of their own.

“I think challenging myself is a great way to go through life,” Huston said.

Huston's book sells for $40. To order the book, or for more information on him, visit northpole09.com.