Erling Kagge | “My North Pole”: The competition has begun

Isn't Norwegian Erling Kagge overdoing it with his extreme adventures? He reached the South Pole on a solo expedition in 1993, climbed Mount Everest a year later, and in 1990, without sled dogs or motor power, he and a friend made it to the North Pole on skis.

He has now written a very personal book about this: "My North Pole." And he proves that not only can he climb and withstand the cold, he also knows how to write fascinatingly and captivatingly, vividly conveying to his readers the risky undertakings of the two-man expedition, the dangers, deprivations, emotions, disappointments, the suffering as well as the moments of happiness, and the sublime feeling of being at one with nature. A literary masterpiece.

The author, born in Oslo in 1963, was a lawyer, studied philosophy at Cambridge, founded a now renowned publishing house, is married, and has three daughters. He knows a striking amount about "his" The North Pole, which of course belongs to humanity, not just to two or rival states, but has a firm place in the imagination of many peoples. He lets his readers share in the voyages of modern-day North Pole explorers and reports on the races to the pole, some of which ended tragically. He explains that there are many North Poles. On the one hand, the geographic North Pole, where the meridians intersect. On the other, the magnetic North Pole, which is constantly shifting due to the Earth's sloshing liquid iron core and will reverse itself in a few hundred thousand years, so that the compass—if there is still anyone alive who uses one—will be pointing south. And he speaks of the astronomical North Pole, marked by the Polaris.

Along the way, Kagge and his companion take the time to admire and observe the Arctic's astonishing biodiversity, flora, and fauna, including frost-resistant plants and cold-resistant animals in the air, water, and on the ice. The author also, of course, addresses the disastrous human-caused changes that global warming is triggering in the Arctic.

Even though the Polar Sea is becoming an increasingly frequented shipping route, this trend is by no means welcome, but rather worrying – not least because of its geopolitical implications. Beneath the vast masses of ice and water lie raw materials in which various states have an interest. The battle for exploitation has long since begun. And it is being fought more mercilessly than the old contest to be the first to reach the pole.

Erling Kagge: My North Pole. A Biography. Translated from Norwegian by Ebba D. Drolshagen. Insel, 495 pp., hardcover, €28.