I simply snowshoed on the North Pole — this is how one can, too

Snowshoeing in search of Santa

Upon arriving at the North Pole late Wednesday, we disembarked the ship through a door on its side to take our first steps on the ice, giddily taking pictures next to a sign labeled “North Pole” that our expedition guides had brought along for the occasion.

We walked a perimeter marked off around the vessel, protected by rifle-carrying lookouts scanning the horizon for polar bears (the rifles only to be used as a very last resort). We made snow angels in the ground and sipped hot chocolate at a warming station that the crew set up on the ice.

But it wasn’t until Thursday morning that we started to explore in more depth — and with more toys.

Emerging from Le Commandant Charcot after breakfast, I discovered that the ship’s expedition guides had laid out snowshoes and cross-country skis near the ship’s door for our use in exploring.

The ice at the North Pole was covered in a few inches of snow, some of which had come down overnight. It was nothing my sturdy rubber boots couldn’t handle. But, heck, I was at the North Pole, a Holy Grail destination that had beguiled explorers and adventurers for more than a century, and I figured I needed to look the part.

I strapped on a pair of snowshoes and headed off into the great white nothingness that stretched to the horizon. Somewhere, out there, was Santa, toiling away in his workshop. Or, at least, some monster snow drifts that I could dive into for the ultimate polar selfie.

I didn’t get far.

A sighting of a polar bear near the ship late Wednesday, after passengers had all re-boarded, had left the ship’s guides skittish about letting us wander too great a distance from the vessel.

They had marked off a narrower perimeter around Le Commandant Charcot than the night before.

Still, I made the most of it, crunching across the crusty snow in my snowshoes to the edge of the don’t-go line, walking its full length in an arc that took me from one side of the ship to the other.

As I walked, I tried to take in the scene with all my senses: The sound of the snow squeaking under my feet, the sting of the cold Arctic air blowing on my face, the white-on-white vista where the clouds met the snow.

For someone who loves history as much as the great outdoors, it was a magical moment.

In the footsteps of the great explorers

Barely a century ago, two of the world’s most famous polar explorers, Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, spent months traveling over the north polar ice cap in search of this spot — and, depending on who you believe, never quite got to it.

It wasn’t until 1926 that humans undisputedly reached the North Pole, albeit only during a flyby on an airship. It wasn’t until 1977 that a ship like ours, the Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, reached this northernmost spot.

But here I was, a tourist with no explorer bonafides, tromping around the North Pole, having arrived in warmth and comfort in just days on a modern and luxurious cruise vessel — albeit a very tough one.

Le Commandant Charcot, which is operated by the French company Ponant, a specialist in expedition cruises, isn’t the first icebreaker to take tourists to the North Pole. Before its debut, expedition travel companies would charter spartan Russian icebreakers to make similar trips.

But such voyages remain a relative rarity, and never before have they been operated in such style. By some estimates, only a few thousand people have ever visited the North Pole, and just a small fraction of those have arrived there on Le Commandant Charcot. The ship just began such North Pole trips with paying passengers last summer.