“[I suffered] a succession of shivering fits
which I was quite unable to stop and which took possession of my body until I
thought my back would break, such was the strain placed upon it.”
That is Apsley
Cherry-Garrard writing in his fascinating book The Worst Journey in the World [1922] which is his first-hand
account of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctica expedition.
The Terra Nova Expedition, so named because of the vessel they travelled
in, was ostensibly an endeavor for science but, at its heart, it was for man
vs. the elements glory in an age of Great Explorers.
Cherry-Garrard’s
account is compelling, tragic, and, in more than a few sections, of high
pragmatic instructional value. We can learn far more from the wise moves and,
in many cases, the mistakes of actual men and women living in the raw than from
all the theories and suppositions on the planet put together.
Cherry-Garrard’s tale
of enduring the hazards of cold weather is not particular to him. He was a
hearty, robust man well up to many polar tasks. His was not a tale of a “weakling”
or an isolated tale of suffering; most all polar explorers were subject to such
back-arching shivering, the perils of frostbite, and the other punishing
side-effects of being a human in extreme cold.
And yet…on the exact
same Terra Nova Expedition we find Mr. H. G. “Birdie” Bowers. “Birdie” slept
soundly in the same subpar tent right next to Cherry-Garrard all through the
night. While Cherry-Garrard was suffering back-arching shivering “Birdie” slept
in sub-zero temperatures without need of the eiderdown lining of his fur
sleeping bag.
Aside from sound
sleep, a seeming “all rightness” with the cold, “Birdie” also never suffered
from frostbitten feet as so many others on the expedition did. Captain Scott
himself says of him that he had “never
seen anyone so unaffected by cold.”
So, what was it that
set “Birdie” apart from his fellow polar explorers?
According to all on
the expedition, each morning he would strip nude in the icy Antarctic air and
douse himself with buckets of ice water and slush.
His companions were
horrified by the practice and yet, “Birdie” seemed to thrive.
But, anecdote is not
proof. Did the practice itself aid “Birdie’s” constitution or was there some
other mechanism at work?
Let’s go to another
polar account, this one from the wife of explorer, Robert Peary. Josephine
Peary accompanied her husband on an arctic endeavor and her “from the outside” observations
prove quite valuable. The following is from her memoir My Arctic Journal [1893.]
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| "Birdie" Himself |
Setting the scene,
Mrs. Peary tells of spending the night in an igloo with some of the native
guides and their families. She describes vividly the cramped conditions, the
snowy floor and icy walls; she is, confessedly, a bit discombobulated by the
lack of decorum, robust close-quarters and, well, the key bit follows.
“Of course, the addition of our stove, together with the visitors,
brought the temperature up rapidly, and to my dismay the Eskimo ladies
belonging to the house took off all of their clothing except their necklaces of
sinishaw, just as unconcernedly as though no one were present.”
The stripping nude
“Birdie” style that so discomfited Mrs. Peary was a rather common practice. We
must not forget that although the quarters had two stoves at work and the shelter
was filled with bodies, the floors were still snow and the walls were still
ice.
The practice of nude
or near nude cold exposure to build tolerance is not particular to polar cultures
[or a wise handful of polar explorers.] One can easily call to mind the
Scandinavian and Russian practice of communal saunas followed by nude rolls in
the snow.
Historical accounts of
young Spartan warriors training and enduring au natural in all conditions abound.
Cold training was even
valuable to cultures one might not expect. Take for example the testimony of a
western Apache warrior named Palmer Valor who told of his mother’s insistence
that he swim often in icy streams as a boy. She told him: “If Mexicans or other enemies should come here you will get scared and
be no good if you don’t make yourself brave by swimming in the cold water.”-p.
42, The Way of the Warrior
There are many studies
[the majority military studies as one might expect as soldier and sailor
hardihood is vital] that demonstrate that regular cold exposure does indeed
increase the cold tolerance and cold weather performance of subjects.
Now how might this
cold “training” be working?
The mechanism is assumed
to be capillary reaction and a bit of psychological hardihood. Just as lack of
aerobic exercise allows the major circulatory system to atrophy, capillaries
atrophy without the fluctuations in temperature this species evolved under.
This is Scott Carney
from his book, What Doesn't Kill Us: How
Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our
Lost Evolutionary Strength
“Weak circulatory muscles are a side effect of living in a very narrow
band of temperature variation. The vast majority of humanity today—the entire
population that spends the bulk of its time indoors and/or whose only
experience when it gets too cold or too hot is wearing state-of-the-art outdoor
gear—never exercises this critical system of their body. Even people who appear
physically fit, with lean muscles and chiseled abs, might be secretly hiding
weak circulatory muscles. And the stakes are huge: In the long run, circulatory
diseases contribute to almost 30 percent of the world’s mortality.”
Again, sounds
plausible, is there additional back-up to this hypothesis?
A Disease of
Civilization?
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| Finns Enjoying Robustification |
Be definition, a disease
of civilization is any malady that does not appear to exist in extant indigenous
populations still living in not quite First World conditions. The hypothesis holds
that diseases of civilization are self-inflicted maladies, the by-product of persistent
living inside the bubble of the marvels of our comfort-easing technologies.
Reynaud’s Syndrome is
a condition where the fingers [and toes] turn white, then blue, then red in
sometimes quite mild cold exposure. It is due to the capillaries shutting down
so completely in the face of cold that almost no blood gets to the tissues.
Once blood flow returns it can be quite painful.
[Disclosure: I
“suffer” from Reynaud’s Syndrome, my fingers have shut down in temps of 50
degrees during autumn yardwork.]
The condition is
little known in Northern countries [Canada, Scandinavia etc.] it was originally
assumed that the colder counties took better precautions in dressing for
weather. Put to the test, children were found playing outside sans gloves and not a sufferer amongst
the population. In other words, a bit of “Birdie” style hardihood cures what
ails.
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Frost-Bitten Fingers
|
Reynaud’s syndrome and
other cold maladies [chilblains and the like] can be lessened, reversed,
“cured” by cold exposure. [I have found this to be so in myself.]
It seems that human robustification
to cold is far more plastic than we may at first realize. There are, of course,
limits to enduring physical stressors but the evidence of history, myriad cultural
practices, and military studies clearly shows that the bubble of comfort can be
expanded greatly.
The research shows
that it is the robustifying effect of the exposure itself that drives the
tolerance-mechanism. There is no need for esoteric breathing or other
consciousness altering practices; like improved VO2Max, it is a side-effect of
putting in the work- no mysticism needed. Like “Birdie,” like the Eskimo women,
like Palmer Valor, the key is simply voluntary regular exposure.
[For additional
explorations of Indigenous training see this blog. For pragmatic drills and
tactical applications of these ideas see our Black Box Subscription Service.]
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