Ann Bancroft talks with MPR’s Stephen Smith about her life as an adventurer. She has accomplished much in her career including that she was the first woman to go to the North Pole and was the first woman to go across the ice to the South Pole.
Part 4 of 4 of an interview with Ann Bancroft as part of the Voices of Minnesota series.
SPEAKER: As an intrepid explorer, those are, I'm sure, terms that have been applied to you, what are you afraid of? What scares you?
ANN BANCROFT: Oh, I have the normal fears. I have the fear of failure every day. I'm afraid to take on new expeditions because there's always that element of, what if I don't make it? And if I have people following me now, I mean, in some ways I have more fears now that I've been somewhat successful at what I do. I am going to fail at times.
SPEAKER: And the stakes are higher.
ANN BANCROFT: And the stakes sometimes feel higher, and I have to remind myself that they really aren't. What people expect doesn't always equate to what is real, and I have to buck that.
My challenge to myself is to keep going and to keep trying new things, regardless of the fact that it may blow somebody's image of me, It may blow my own image of me.
SPEAKER: Now, people are always interested in the private or domestic life of a public figure.
ANN BANCROFT: Yeah.
SPEAKER: You moved here to this old farm on the St. Croix River, and you're rebuilding a wonderful old farmhouse with your domestic partner of some years now, right? Pam Arnold?
ANN BANCROFT: Yeah, five years.
SPEAKER: Is the fact that you are a lesbian and you live openly in this relationship something that is important to you or something that you make a point of as the public figure of Ann Bancroft, or is it completely beside the point?
ANN BANCROFT: Well, I wouldn't think that it's beside the point. There are two important things, I think, for me. The first one is that what I noticed in the North Pole trip is that there was no acknowledgment of someone that I would leave behind. If the question was, Are you married? and if I would answer that no or no, not traditionally, that would be the end of it.
But the men were able to bring forth their wives publicly on stage oftentimes, and their girlfriends, and there was never-- number one at that time, I was extremely fearful of it being known.
I was scared to death of losing a teaching job that I even no longer had, and I didn't know how that was going to play out. So it's being very honest, number one, that I leave someone behind, and that it's difficult for both parties.
The other issue that I think where it's important for me, and it comes out in, in the issue of sexuality, it's the same way it plays out as being a woman. It isn't something that you just shrug your shoulder. It is a big deal for some people. And as long as it is, I'm going to have somewhat of an agenda.
My agenda, first and foremost, is to be honest now because I realize that in my silence, I was doing me a tremendous disservice, and of course, anyone around me. But it's very hard to stay your course and to be who you are and to do the things you want to do if you're trying to constantly maneuver around people's attitudes.
SPEAKER: So how does Pam support the work you're doing? I mean, there's that old cliche of behind the intrepid male explorer, there is a faithful woman usually back at home keeping the home fires burning. Is she out mushing with you? Are you guys kind of a--
ANN BANCROFT: No, we're not a mushing duo yet, but she's extremely supportive in that-- she's a graphic designer. So she would do all the graphic design needs that an expedition has.
SPEAKER: She do your T-shirt?
ANN BANCROFT: Does the T-shirts, the posters, the logo.
SPEAKER: That's great.
ANN BANCROFT: But really, just allows for me to dream about these things. And it's a struggle for her, I think, because it means going away. It means going away to a place that she's not totally familiar with. So the dangers are perceived in a different way than I would perceive them.
So I think it's a struggle for my family and for the people around me that really love and care for me because they got to let you go. And I think that that's very difficult.
It's easier to be the person that leaves on these adventures and sort of shuts the rest of the world out and just gets into that survival mode. It's very hard to stoke the fires it home, to keep the interest up, to keep the finances coming. I mean, you get sucked into all of that. You can't stay separate from that.
SPEAKER: And the people at home, including your person here, Pam, are people who have to live with your death in a way much different than you as an explorer. And death is a real issue when you're--
ANN BANCROFT: Absolutely.
SPEAKER: --out crossing the Antarctic. They have to live with the real pain of death, which is what happens afterwards.
ANN BANCROFT: Yeah, and they have to do it in a very public way, in a certain way. I mean, they are sharing you with your supporters and the public. I think that that's everybody's struggle is, how do we stay on our own course and keep navigating through?
My fears are the same as everybody else's. And I do get the question of, well, now that you've gone to the North Pole, North and South Pole, I mean, what could possibly be next? I mean--
SPEAKER: So what is next?
ANN BANCROFT: Oh, shoot. I walked myself right into that. I'd like to go back to Antarctica and finish that traverse. The answer comes very quick.
SPEAKER: And is that what's next? I mean, are you planning that trip?
ANN BANCROFT: I'm looking at it. Each one of these trips is something that you soul search with for a while.
SPEAKER: And what year would that be, do you think, if you could?
ANN BANCROFT: Well, now that I'm entering my 40th year, I'm thinking it needs to be in the near future so that I'm still physically able. But I think I need to get a few projects done in relationship to the last trip. That I owe that last trip and its followers the book that they've been asking for and those kinds of things before I can really concretely start letting myself plan the next one.
So I actually haven't let myself get into the logistics of it for fear that I will just put everything from the last one on hold. And then, of course, you won't ever revisit it again.
So the carrot in front of me and my motivation for finishing the book, which is tremendously hard for me to do because it means sitting down at a keyboard, is to say, you finish this book and then you can plan. So now I'm still in that dreamy stage.
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