February 17, 2005


Adventurer shares exploits with Graystone students

Writer made 2,500 mile trip by dog sled

By Jeanne Carbone Lewis
Staff Writer

Pam Flowers is a modern-day explorer, once completing a 2,500-mile dog sled run, surviving breaking ice, freezing cold with her beloved canines’ friendship and hard work.

Pam Flowers aanswers Graystone students’ questions. Photo by Jeanne Carbone Lewis

Now Flowers is on another type of journey, traveling to 130 schools and libraries this year, urging students to never give up, even if you’re small like her.

Standing a diminutive 5 feet tall, she earned the distinction of completing the longest solo dog sled trek by a woman and an American in recorded history. In 1993, she and her eight-dog team left Barrow, Alaska alone to cross the frozen roof of the world. Her plan was to retrace the route of Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen’s portion of the fifth Thule Expedition completed in 1922. The destination, the small, isolated Canadian Arctic village of Repulse Bay, 2,500 miles east. She documented her journey in “Alone Across the Arctic.”

Recently, Flowers shared her story aided by a slide show with six separate assemblies of Graystone Elementary School’s kindergarten through fifth grade. The marathon event filled the whole day with exciting stories of her adventures enduring darkness, isolation, one of the stormiest winters on record and even a polar bear encounter.

Marooned because of melting sea ice, she and her dogs spent five and a half months with a family of Inuit people. She finished her journey in 1994 when she and her beloved canines arrived at Repulse Bay, safe and healthy.

“I really like doing this,” said Flowers. “It is so rewarding. It makes you want to be a better person teaching the kids. They can really relate to the being small part—like Anna. And we have a lot of fun.”

Michelle Taylor, literary events coordinator for Graystone, prepared the 803 kids well, reading from Flowers’ children’s book “Big-Enough Anna” and stopping at the crucial point when the smallest sled dog, Anna, fell into through the ice into freezing artic waters.

“We have tough competition with TV and DVDs,” said Taylor. “With reading you have to visualize and imagine. And it really engages the kids because of the dogs involved in the story.”

Flowers’ historic trek is full of stories of sleeping, feeding and caring for her dogs. There are exciting adventures when they were stranded on the ice island and faced their demise. She learned about another culture when an Inuit family furnished shelter, food of caribou and raw fish and whom she spent Christmas with.

Equally important are the life lessons Flowers sprinkles in her lecture aided by a slide show. Anecdotes are reflected through her dogs about the necessity to work together as a team to achieve a goal, the forbidding of stealing or fighting among the dogs, the importance of treating one another with courtesy, of not quitting when things go wrong and the joy of completing a difficult task.

Pam Flowers’ books. Photo by Jeanne Carbone Lewis

The kids learn the geography of Flowers’ journey and that the artic is really a frozen desert. Dougy Dog was the biggest, strongest sled dog but the small Anna became second lead working her way from the back of the team because she tried harder and never quit. It is a lesson not lost of the pint-size members of the assembly.

The modern-day adventurer shared with the kids stories of being marooned on an ice island for five and half months, catching and eating fish to feed the dogs and herself as supplies depleted in the 40-degree below, 21-hour days of darkness.

“Did the dogs ever do anything wrong?” one girl asks when the assembly is opened for a question and answer session.

“There was the time Dougy dog ran after a caribou, over 100 miles he ran!” said Flowers weaving a tale for the kids.

“Did you see a polar bear?” asks a little girl.

“Would you do it again?” chimes a boy.

Flowers plans to continue speaking to school children, sporting goods stores, dog clubs, outdoor clubs and women’s organizations. She has tentative plans to do short dog sledding trips in the future. She lives in Wasilla, Alaska with her three remaining sled dogs; Roald, Sojo and Anna. About the completion of her remarkable journey, Flowers is inspiring.

“I wanted to achieve something major in my life,” she said. “You are never too young to have a dream and never to old to make it come true.”

For more information on Pam Flowers’ books and speaking engagements, log onto www.pamflowers.com.