Cold Fires Up Arctic Adventurer

Northwestern Magazine, Fall 2007, by Ryan Haggerty

John Huston (WCAS99) thrives on frozen terrain and by challenging himself to ski and sled across the coldest spots on earth.

Evanston isn't exactly located at the edge of wilderness, but that didn't stop John Huston (WCAS99) from making the outdoors a major part of his undergraduate education.

Huston, now an arctic expeditioner, discovered his love for the outdoors the summer before college. After arriving at Northwestern, Huston and some fellow students founded Project Wildcat, a preorientation program that sends new students on camping trips across the country.

More than a decade later, both Project Wildcat and Huston are still going strong.

Huston, born in Evanston and raised in suburban Glen Ellyn, Ill., has devoted his life to exploring the coldest corners of Earth, from Antarctica to the North Pole. This November he will guide a small expedition on a 60-day trek to the South Pole, traveling by ski while pulling loaded sleds across the frozen terrain.

That trip will be a warm-up for the expedition that Huston and a fellow explorer, Tyler Fish, will undertake in March 2009: an unsupported ski trip from the northern tip of Canada to the North Pole, a route that only 22 people have ever completed.

Read the rest of the article here.