In advance of the 40th anniversary celebration of the 1986 Steger International Polar Expedition, Ely-based team members Will Steger and Paul Schurke remembered the community’s contribution to the internationally- acclaimed trek.
The 1986 expedition is the only confirmed unsupported dog sled voyage to the North Pole. The team accomplished the trip without GPS.
Steger said the idea came to him on an earlier expedition with Bob Mantell, who would later join the 1986 trip.
“I realized no one had ever done the Pole unsupported. Everyone said it was impossible,” Steger said.
“It caught the imagination of so many people because we were doing it on the seat of our pants, on a budget. All the authorities said we were not going to make it,” Steger said. “That really motivated me. I knew I could do it with the team we had.”
“This whole experience, all 40 years of it, underscored how unique Ely is that the adventure network up here fostered something of this magnitude,” Schurke said.
Ely’s designation as an end-of-the-road community is far from a throwaway marketing phrase, Schurke said. It’s a reality that helped the expedition materialize through the town’s cultural emphasis on winter.
“If you look on Google Earth and follow that straight line 2,900 miles from here to the top of the world, there ain’t much in between,” Schurke said. “It’s woods and wilderness, tundra and sea ice all the way from here to the top of the world.”
There are approximately one dozen dog sled teams in the area, Schurke said, with some mushers making a business out of it and others keeping dogs for recreation or racing.
“Ely is kind of a relic in the dog sledding world,” Schurke said. “Here today we still have a greater concentration of dog sledding than any community I know of, including Arctic Canada.”
The town once had a sign at its entrance proclaiming Ely the dog-sledding capital.
Ely’s All-American Championship Sled Dog Race, which drew 100-plus dog sled teams and tens of thousands of spectators to town at its peak, captured Schurke’s attention in the late 1970s. He moved to Ely in 1982 and has never looked back.
Since 1970, Steger had lived at a remote off-grid cabin on Picketts Lake, three miles from the nearest road and on land he purchased in 1964.
“I was part of the old Ely community back then,” Steger said. “I came of age in the community. It was really special.”
Schurke recalls dogsledding in winter from Steger’s homestead to the Chamber of Commerce building to make expedition-related calls at the payphone. The pair would tie their dogs outside of Zup’s while stocking up on groceries.
The community pulled together to help make the expedition a reality. Local shop owners and outfitters provided supplies. Schurke remembers vacuum-sealing trail lunches in the basement of Cliff Wold’s Sheridan Street storefront. Steve Smrekar’s high school shop class helped construct five polar sleds for the team.
“The experience is so entrenched in our minds, and it wasn’t all about the hardship of the expedition. It was the incredible support we got here locally,” Steger said.
Steger recalls receiving an invite from National Geographic in the mail in 1983, which required him to purchase a plane ticket to travel to their location. While walking from the post office, Steger encountered Leonard Zupancich on the sidewalk.
“He said, ‘I always wanted to support you.’ He said, ‘I’m going to give you $300. Follow me to the bank,’” Steger said.
“The town really embraced the trip, and that made us feel so good that it wasn’t only us,” Schurke said. “There was this whole network of people behind us, people like us who had embraced life in the winter woods up here.”
“We felt like the whole town was a team cheering us on,” Schurke said. “That made a big difference.”
The team arrived back home after the expedition to a large parade and celebration.
“That was the coolest thing in my life,” Steger said. “I never thought I’d be a part of a parade.”
The expedition led to a spin-off of local businesses, including Wintergreen Northern Wear, the Steger Center, Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge and Steger Mukluks.
“We shouldn’t ever take for granted what we have up here, the incredible culture and wilderness,” Steger said. “The rest of the world does not have that.”
Ely’s Historic State Theater will host a 40th anniversary North to the Pole team reunion event at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9. The public may purchase tickets to attend.
Attendees will view the first-ever big screen showing of National Geographic’s North to the Pole! documentary, followed by a team question-and-answer and a Stony River dance concert.
