Last year as the end of Uni was in sight and I made the transition into being a professional photographer I visited the outdoors show in order to seek some interesting expeditions and companies to work with and see where in the world I could go. One of the companies who grabbed my attention was Ice Warrior (http://www.ice-warrior.com) who run logistics for large expedition’s, provide safety training for production companies and most excitingly run their own expeditions.
Ice warrior is headed by Jim McNeill a polar explorer with 33 Years experience in professional expedition, and is a truly invaluable person to learn everything from planning and funding professional expeditions to safety and logistics. He has been the main safety and logistical coordinator for many of the BBC NHU productions including Frozen Planet which starts tonight.
Since first meeting up with Jim at the outdoors show I have since been down to the Dartmoor National Park three times in order to partake in training for the High Arctic. The past 10 days have been a series of intensive and practical lectures which have covered everything from the conceptualisation of an expedition through to putting it on and everything in-between.
The course is aimed at ensuring that the teams that ultimately form for the expeditions are competent and capable of the tasks that they will be set, so the course ensured adequate skill in navigation theory, compass, GPS and map usage, Rescue systems and the appropriate rope work needed for the Arctic. The last four days were dedicated to a Rescue and Emergency Care Level 4 first aid course which takes the core values of a standard first aid course and builds upon them for situations where emergency services will not be with you for hours/days. While it is not something you can practically practice everyday knowing a bit more about what to do in an emergency.
Currently I am looking for sponsorship in order to be able to complete the Polar training and join a world first expedition being organised by Jim in 2012. I will be posting more information about this expedition soon.
Sim.
