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Old 09-14-2008, 10:35 PM
rod rod is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 623
Default Re: Arctic Exploration

Barry,

I have been busy with flutes, and a little late in posting my congratulations on your Arctic scene.

I am not a gun person, but I must confess that I felt just a little more comfortable with a 45 magnum back in 1958 when a very young 21 year old member of the Scottish East Greenland Expedition, and deep in Polar Bear country. Poverty was such that I could not afford a down jacket at 73 degrees north. Nine of us were there to explore the Staunings Alps and make some twenty one new ascents of very difficult mountains of the scale where you strapped on your crampons at sea level. Some ascents took 44 hours non-stop (thanks to the midnight sun!) One small can of pemican had to last for many days, at 2 ounces per meal. Those cans had gone to the Himalayas and back to Scotland, where we bought them second hand!

I was in charge of sea transportation, and that meant skipper of a 16 foot row boat and a 4 hp seagull outboard. In this tiny craft men and provisions were transported into the more remote fjiords where our high mountains lay. I calculated that I travled about 1400 miles in that very unseaworthy craft, often getting stuck in the ice as leads would close up with the turn of the tide.

With that preamble, I want to tell you that admiring your wonderful composition of Franklin's predictament, and the brave souls who sought to find him, actually brought sweat to my fingertips, as I relived the 1958 expedition, and another one to the same region with Sir John Hunt (Everest) in 1960. Your scene really drew me in, and back to those days when I was young and stupid and lost eight and a half of my nine lives.

Do you know that great song, " My Lord Franklin" ..... "...only the Eskimo in his skin canoe, was the only one who ever came through...."

In summary .... you composition really works for me....well done!

Rod
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