Benjamin John Saunders (born 5 August 1977 in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

) is an English polar explorer, endurance athlete, and motivational speaker. He led the first return journey to the South Pole on foot via Shackleton and Scott's route in 2013–14, and skied solo to the North Pole in 2004. Saunders has skied more than 3,700 miles (6,000 km) on polar expeditions since 2001. He holds the record for the longest human-powered polar journey in history (2,888 km) and for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton (1,032 km).

Biography

The elder of two boys, Saunders grew up in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, was educated at the

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...

, and worked as an instructor at the John Ridgway School of Adventure. He is a Fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, an Ambassador for the

Prince's Trust The Prince's Trust ( cy, Ymddiriedolaeth y Tywysog) is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are u ...

, a Patron of British Exploring, a supporter of The

Duke of Edinburgh's Award The Duke of Edinburgh's Award (commonly abbreviated DofE) is a youth awards programme founded in the United Kingdom in 1956 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, that has since expanded to 144 nations. The awards recognise adolescents and young ...

and the Orchid Cancer Appeal, a past Honorary Vice-President of the Geographical Association, and an honorary member of the Cordon Rouge Club. In July 2016 Saunders was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the University of Northampton. Saunders has contributed to publications including ''Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century and 'The Middle of Nowhere published by

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 1972, they embarked ...

. He also spoke at the 2005 and 2014 main stage

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

conferences.

Expeditions

North Pole

Saunders first attempted to reach the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...

in 2001 on a two-man unsupported expedition led by

Pen Hadow Rupert Nigel Pendrill Hadow known as Pen Hadow (British, born 26 February 1962), is an Arctic region explorer, advocate, adventurer and guide. He is the only person to have trekked solo, and without resupply by third parties, from Canada to the ...

that started from the

Arctic Cape The Arctic Cape (russian: Мыс Арктический, ''Mys Arkticheskiy'') is a headland in Severnaya Zemlya, Russia. With a distance of 990.8 km to the North Pole, the Arctic Cape is sometimes used as starting point for expeditions to ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The pair were unsuccessful in attaining the Pole but reached a point close to 87° North, after 59 days on the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. In April 2003, Saunders completed a 240 km solo round-trip to the North Pole from the temporary Russian ice station,

Barneo Camp Barneo (russian: Лагерь Бaрнео) is a private temporary tourist resort located on Arctic Ocean ice near the North Pole. When it is occupied for a few weeks in April, it is the northernmost inhabited place in the world. It was fi ...

. In spring 2004, he set out to make a solo and unsupported crossing of the Arctic Ocean on foot, following a planned route from the Arctic Cape to

Ward Hunt Island Ward Hunt Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean, located off the north coast of Ellesmere Island near the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. The island is located just from the geographical North Pole. The northern cape of Ward Hunt Islan ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, via the North Pole. Saunders was dropped off by a Russian

Mil Mi-8 The Mil Mi-8 (russian: Ми-8, NATO reporting name: Hip) is a medium twin-turbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1968. It is now produced by Russia. In addition t ...

helicopter on 5 March 2004, reached the North Pole on 11 May 2004, and was picked up on the Canadian side of the Arctic Ocean by a

Kenn Borek Air Kenn Borek Air is an airline based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It operates regional passenger and cargo services, contract operations in the Arctic and Antarctic and aircraft leasing. Its main base is at Calgary International Airport. It chart ...

Twin Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada, which produced the aircraft from 1965 to 1988; Viking Air purchased the type certificate, then restarted ...

ski plane on 14 May 2004. Saunders' claim to have reached the

solo in 2004 is disputed by ExplorersWeb, a website maintained by explorers

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

and

Tina Sjögren Tina Sjögren is the CEO and co-founder of Pythom, a Swedish-American aerospace company based in Bishop, California. She is the first woman to complete the Three Poles Challenge - summiting Mount Everest (1999) and skiing unsupported to the Sout ...

, 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. ExplorersWeb listed Saunders' 2004 journey to the North Pole as a "partial expedition" on their database of expedition records. In 2004, Australian explorer

Eric Philips Eric Philips OAM (born April 1962) is an Australian polar explorer, adventurer and polar guide. Philips has completed ski expeditions across icecaps on Greenland, Ellesmere Island, Iceland, Svalbard and Patagonia icecaps. He was the first Aust ...

argued that this categorization of expeditions may have been a factor in the death of Finnish explorer

Dominick Arduin Dominick Arduin (1961–2004) was a Frenchwoman who disappeared in her attempt to ski to the North Pole. In 1988 Arduin moved to Finland. For 15 years she worked as a guide in Finnish Lapland and received dual citizenship. She said that she had g ...

, who died at the Arctic Cape 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... we should not be pressured into feeling that our efforts fall short of somebody else's parameters." On 27 March 2008, Saunders set out from Ward Hunt Island, Canada, with the aim of setting a speed record. The current record, 36 days 22 hours, was set in 2005 by a team guided by Canadian

Matty McNair Matty L McNair (born in Pennsylvania, United States) is an American explorer. She now lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada on Baffin Island, where she runs her company NorthWinds. Among her many accomplishments Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island ( iu, script=Latn, Umingmak Nuna, lit=land of muskoxen; french: île d'Ellesmere) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. ...

South Pole

Between October 2013 and February 2014, Saunders and Tarka L'Herpiniere made the first return journey to the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

from

Ross Island Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by New ...

on the same route attempted by

Sir Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of An ...

on the

Nimrod Expedition The ''Nimrod'' Expedition of 1907–1909, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was the first of three successful expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton and his second expedition to the Antarctic. Its main target, ...

, and by

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

on the

Terra Nova Expedition The ''Terra Nova'' Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objec ...

. At 1,795 miles (2,888 km) the Scott Expedition is the longest human-powered polar journey in history. Saunders and L'Herpiniere set out from Ross Island on 26 October 2013, reached the South Pole on 26 December 2013 and finished their expedition at Ross Island again on 7 February 2014. The journey was not unsupported, since some supplies had to be delivered by air on their return journey.

Robert Swan Robert Charles Swan, OBE, FRGS (born 28 July 1956) is the first person to walk to both poles. He is currently an advocate for the protection of Antarctica and renewable energy. Swan is also the founder of 2041, a company which is dedicated ...

OBE and Falcon Scott (Captain Scott's grandson) were patrons of the expedition.

Publications

References

External links

Ben Saunders' website

The Scott Expedition website
* *
"Why did I ski to the North Pole?" (TED2005)
*
"Why bother leaving the house?" (TEDSalon London Fall 2012)
*
"To the South Pole and back – the hardest 105 days of my life" (TED2014)

by Jane Oddy, ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', 29 February 2004
New York Times article on Ben Saunders

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080207053825/http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/780 Terra Cognitaby Joanne Ramos, '' Intelligent Life'', December 2007
Ben Saunders
by Andy Bull, ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

'', March 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Saunders, Ben 1977 births Living people English explorers Explorers of the Arctic English bloggers English motivational speakers People from Plymouth, Devon English polar explorers Graduates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst British male bloggers