Victorinox North Pole '09John Huston, Chicago, Illinois USA    Age 32

This winter John led a 57-day, 720-mile ski expedition to the South Pole for NorthWinds Adventures. The expedition web journal can be viewed here. After embarking from Hercules Inlet at 80 degrees South latitude, the team arrived at the South Pole on January 23, 2008. Slowed by abnormally heavy snows and two weeks of white out conditions during the first half of the expedition, the team sprinted through the last 300 miles in 20 days.

After a two weeks of rest back at home in Chicago, John and Tyler ventured to Baffin Island during March 2008 to train for the Victorinox North Pole '09 expedition. John is currently busy giving expedition presentations and fund raising.

In the spring of 2005, John completed a 1400-mile ski and dogsled expedition on the Greenland Ice cap with a team of 4 Norwegians. The expedition was filmed as part of a documentary film project in which British and Norwegian expedition teams re-ran the 1911 race for the South Pole. The competing teams used 1911-period clothing, equipment and food like the original teams, led by Englishman Robert F. Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen. The documentary series has aired on the BBC in England, and is slated to show on the History Channel in North America and the BBC worldwide. The Norwegian team was led by accomplished polar explorer Rune Gjeldnes.

John is a wilderness and arctic expeditioner, experiential educator, writer, world traveler, cross-country ski racer and fledgling historian. A graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, he worked as a wilderness expedition instructor at Outward Bound Wilderness, in Ely, Minnesota for six years. During that time he slept outside 200 nights a year, led expeditions in all seasons, trained sled dogs, developed educational curricula and read about polar exploration history as much as possible. In the past few years John has also completed two multi-week winter expeditions on Hudson Bay and taken every opportunity to travel in the arctic and sub-arctic regions.

During the spring and summer of 2006 John worked as expedition manager for the One World Expedition, the first expedition to reach the North Pole in the summer (www.oneworldexpedition.com). During the 2006/07 winter John lived in Baffin Island for 4 months working as the expedition base camp manager for the Global Warming 101 Expedition led by Will Steger, www.globalwarming101.com.

Tyler Fish, Ely, Minnesota USA    Age 34

During the 2007/2008 winter season Tyler completed another successful cross country ski racing season, traveled to Baffin Island with John for a month of training for the Victorinox North Pole '09 expedition and continued to coordinate the Outward Bound Wilderness Intercept Program (youth at risk program). He is currently busy readying for the summer Outward Bound season and giving expedition presentations.

According to Tyler, there’s never been a day too cold to strap on some sort of ski. A Minnesota native, as a youth he nurtured his love of winter slalom racing with friends in the frigid cold. He is now an extremely dedicated elite cross-country ski racer and skilled ski coach. Tyler also has a passion for long, wilderness expeditions and an understanding of the relationships necessary for their success. He has paddled several remote Canadian rivers, including the Pigeon River in 2003. He has also participated in two winter ski/dogsled expeditions to Hudson Bay. In 2004, Tyler was expedition manager for the Arctic Quest expedition, a 100-day, women’s dogsled expedition from Yellowknife, NWT to Churchill, Manitoba . He helped the team plan and prepare and managed logistics and communications during the expedition.

Since graduating from Bates College, Maine, in 1996, Tyler has spent eleven years working for Outward Bound Wilderness in Minnesota, Canada and Texas. He is an expert wilderness adventurer, experiential educator, leader and staff trainer. Tyler is comfortable on the whitewater of northern rivers, in the oppressive heat of deserts and in the cold, dark-cold days of winter. Currently he is the Youth Programs Coordinator for Outward Bound in Ely, Minnesota; he trains and supervises staff to run effective, month-long experiences for youth-at-risk. During the last three days of these courses, Tyler runs an intensive parent/guardian seminar in which he helps families develop common goals and then construct plans for achieving them. In this way his technical abilities are strongly balanced by leadership and facilitation skills. He loves to motivate, inspire and help others to discover their own passions and unique abilities.