Norway has always been a hatching place for explorers. Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen, who were into polar expeditions (among other things), as well as Leiv Eriksson(see picture), the Viking explorer who’s said to have discovered America centuries before Columbus – they all sprung from Norwegian soil…
Even today, not a month goes by without someone going off to climb the Himalayas, walk over Greenland, paddle over the Atlantic to New York in a canoe or skate to the South Pole.
Mind you – they’re not alone. Everest climbing is an industry, it seems. Apparently, some routes are so cluttered with what climbers have left behind (No toilet facilities, and not much by way of dustbins, either…) that the “wilderness factor” is sadly decreased…
Many of these activities are pure gambling, too. I hope they’re all able to get some form of high risk life insurance.
I’ll never be able to understand why someone would rather spend 4 months walking across the Antarctic, risking their life, than being with their family, but there you go – there’s no accounting for taste.
There have always been great explorers, and their service to mankind is immeasurable. With so little left unexplored, perhaps the risk is the main attraction these days…
Stumble it!
