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Reporter: Sonia Kruger

Producer: Angus Llewellyn

Tom Smitheringale: I have to risk death everyday just to have a chance. Face polar bears and the ice, the cold - that is the biggest danger of them all that exceeds everything else, that’s a killer.

SONIA KRUGER: It’s not where you’d expect to find an Aussie but here on the frozen sea of Frobisher Bay in Canada, Tom Smitheringale is training in the toughest conditions imaginable. We’re sixteen and a half thousand kilometres from Perth and right now it’s 25 degrees below zero. And in just a couple of days, Tom will be heading that way to the North Pole into temperatures of minus 50 and he’ll be all alone.

SONIA KRUGER: So Tom, why are you doing this?

Tom Smitheringale: This is the final frontier and the pinnacle of human endurance. I have an opportunity to be the first Australian and only the third person on the planet to achieve a milestone like this, so I’m very lucky.

SONIA KRUGER: And why is it important to you to be the first Australian to do it?

Tom Smitheringale: As a kid I’ve always been fascinated by the old black and white photos of polar explorers and the tales of daring do and they continue to fascinate me. I wouldn’t call it an obsession.

SONIA KRUGER: A love.

Tom’s adventure begins months earlier in Perth. Sand instead of snow is helping him build strength for the long months ahead. Tom works as a personal trainer and according to his English mum Jackie, he’s always had big dreams. A year ago he told her he was heading north.

Jackie Smitheringale: Tom and I were having coffee and he simply came out with. He said, what do you think if I were to go to the North Pole? I said, well that’s a new idea.

SONIA KRUGER: And he’s already had an adventurous life. Joining the British army, serving with the Queen’s company. For months on end he’s pulled a makeshift sled through the night when it’s cooler to reduce the risk of losing body fat.

And this, drinking a glass a day of olive oil to keep his weight up.

Tom Smitheringale: I think the weight loss will be extreme. I will lose up to 20 kilos.

SONIA KRUGER: In the 40 degree heat of a summer’s day, he heads to the coldest place in Perth, a dress rehearsal for one of the coldest places on earth.

Weeks ago, Tom left for this….a frontier town called Iqaluit, on the edge of the polar wilderness. Moe than halfway around the world it’s his final training base.

Matty what do you locals here in Iqaluit think of adventurers?

Matty McNair: Basically they have a term for all these crazy people that come up- polar madness.

SONIA KRUGER: Matty McNair has a touch of polar madness. She’s an explorer- an arctic legend who’s twice been to the North Pole by dog sled. But even Matty hasn’t done it single handedly.

We do keep asking Tom why he wants to do this, what are your thoughts?

Matty McNair: I think it was Malorey that I’m quoting and he said if you ask the question, you would not understand the answer.

SONIA KRUGER: But Matty, didn’t Malorey die on Everest?

Matty McNair: Yeah but we’re all gonna die.

SONIA KRUGER: Across this frozen wasteland Matty takes us to see Tom who has spent days and nights getting used to the extreme weather.

Matty McNair: It’s short window of time and it’s extremely cold, the challenges are much greater going to the North Pole than to the South Pole so I think that’s why Tom chose it.

SONIA KRUGER: As Tom prepares to head into the deep freeze, in spirit at least, he’s not alone. His epic journey is being followed every step of the way by Aussie school kids.

Oh, cute all of your skis have been decorated.

Tom Smitheringale: Yeah so these have been done by the girls from MLC.

SONIA KRUGER: Because they’ve asked you some interesting questions haven’t they? What’s the one thing everybody wants to know apart from why are you doing this?

Tom Smitheringale: The one thing everyone wants to know, one of my favourite questions that I get asked by the kids is do you get to win anything? I think that’s a great one.

SONIA KRUGER: Surely a medal or something!

Tom Smitheringale: Yeah but they love talking about what polar bears look like, can I bring one home. When I gave the kids these skis, I gave them the brief that they had to be decorated with things that reminded me of home.

SONIA KRUGER: As night falls, we set-up camp. In his two sleds is everything Tom needs to survive for two months.

Tom Smitheringale: Ok Sonia this is my home for the next 60 days.

SONIA KRUGER: Wow, cozy! What’s al the writing on the wall?

Tom Smitheringale: This is Dr Zeus.

SONIA KRUGER: Is it?

Tom Smitheringale: Yes.

SONIA KRUGER: Which one?

Tom Smitheringale: ‘Oh the places you will go’, it’s about how life is for the living and the day belongs to those who seize it.

SONIA KRUGER: At night, the temperature drops another 10 degrees. The heat from the camp stove warms the tent. Dinner is freeze-dried beef stroganoff.

That’s good. Here you have some, you need it. I guess what follows naturally after that is that you have to go to the bathroom after that, we haven’t spoken about it. So how do you do that?

Tom Smitheringale: You know that pot we cooked with? That has a dual purpose.

SONIA KRUGER: Don’t, don’t even joke about it!

Tom’s training is brutal, it has to be. The terrain is constantly shifting.

Matty McNair: In the North Pole there’s no land up there. You’re travelling on pack ice, this is ice that’s moving and shifting all the time. In fact it’s a bit of a race between the time the lake first hits northern Canada when the plates can bring us in, to the time that the ice is breaking up all around you and the plates can’t get you out.

Tom Smitheringale: Many people have attempted this and have been unsuccessful. People crack or they die.

SONIA KRUGER: And only two people have made it.

Tom Smitheringale: In the history of polar exploration, that’s correct.

SONIA KRUGER: Those odds are pretty….

Tom Smitheringale: Slim. Yeah I like those odds.

SONIA KRUGER: You like those odds?

Tom Smitheringale: Yeah. I think for me fear is a great motivator. I need to be afraid, I need to be intimidated. Nobody gives their best effort if they’re not asked for it and nothing challenges more than the fear of death.

SONIA KRUGER: And one of the biggest challenges will be crossing the parts of the Pole where the ice has cracked.

When there’s no way around, Tom will have to swim for it.

Can you imagine how cold that would be? He could have to do this up to ten times a day. The closer he gets to the North Pole the greater the likelihood he’s going to do this every day, ten times a day.

Is there ever any danger Tom that the sled could fill up with water and drag you down?

Tom Smitheringale: If the sled is tipped over, that’s a possibility but the sled is very buoyant.

SONIA KRUGER: And if they did fill up with water?

Tom Smitheringale: Then it’s curtains, that’s the end of the expedition.

SONIA KRUGER: What are the odds of Tom making it?

Matty McNair: His chances- maybe 50/50.

SONIA KRUGER: As others have found before, the polar ice is not the only killer. There are also polar bears. Tom is carrying a gun to frighten them off, that’s if he sees them first.

Polar bears, we need to talk about them. Can they really smell you?

Tom Smitheringale: Yeah of course. They have a very acute sense of smell so they can probably smell me up to two kilometers away.

SONIA KRUGER: I’m be scared right now about my eyelashes snapping off because you’ve got icicles all over your eyelashes.

Tom Smitheringale: Is it a good look? Well I can feel them when I’m on the ice because you blink and your eyes don’t open and that’s when you know they’re there.

SONIA KRUGER: They actually stick together.

Tom Smitheringale: Yeah they stick shut so.

SONIA KRUGER: And in your nose, you’ve got a few nostril icicles!

Tom Smitheringale: Oh really? Thanks for pointing that out.

SONIA KRUGER: And so into the wild Tom goes. Two months on ice- pain and danger await and so does the moment when he can stand alone on top of the world.

Tom Smitheringale: Giving up is not living, giving up is death.

SONIA KRUGER: With all the things that we’ve talked about- polar bears, ice, how would you least like to die?

Tom Smitheringale: How would I least like to die? That’s a good question. In a dressing gown in a reclined chair with the blinds pulled, that’s how I’d least like to die.

SONIA KRUGER: So better to go as an adventurer.