In 1968, decades after Peary’s and Cook’s competing stories emerged, a Minnesota insurance salesman named Ralph Plaisted was sitting in a bar, talking to a friend about snowmobiles. His friend said that if snowmobiles were so great, he should be able to ride one to the North Pole. Plaisted accepted the challenge. Thus began one of the most improbable expeditions, led by one of the unlikeliest adventurers, ever made to the Pole—a journey by Ski-Doo that ended up being the first to indisputably reach 90° North latitude. We’ll look at how Ralph Plaisted did it.
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03/05/21 • 38 min
Mental Floss Presents: The Quest for the North Pole - Triumph by Snowmobile
Transcript
The Quest for the North Pole is a production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. It's April and an insurance salesman from Minnesota named Ralph Plistead is looking down at his feet. He's standing on an ice flow in the Arctic with ten thousand feet of frigid water below, and the ice is getting softer. Plystead looks around. Miles of ice covered oceans surround him in all directions. He's only days into his attempt to reach the North Pole, and thin
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