John Huston

Chicago, Illinois USA, Age 32

John is a wilderness and arctic expeditioner, experiential educator, writer, world traveler, cross-country ski racer and fledgling historian. A graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, he worked as a wilderness expedition instructor at Outward Bound Wilderness, in Ely, Minnesota for six years. During that time he slept outside 200 nights a year, led expeditions in all seasons, trained sled dogs, developed educational curricula and read about polar exploration history as much as possible.

In the past few years John has also completed two multi-week winter expeditions on Hudson Bay and taken every opportunity to travel in the arctic and sub-arctic regions.

In the spring of 2005, John completed a 1400-mile ski and dogsled expedition on the Greenland Ice cap with a team of 4 Norwegians. The expedition was filmed as part of a documentary film project in which British and Norwegian expedition teams re-ran the 1911 race for the South Pole. The competing teams used 1911-period clothing, equipment and food like the original teams, led by Englishman Robert F. Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen.

The documentary series has aired on the BBC in England, and is slated to show on the History Channel in North America and the BBC worldwide. The Norwegian team, led by accomplished polar explorer Rune Gjeldnes.

During the spring and summer of 2006 John worked as expedition manager for the One World Expedition, the first expedition to reach the North Pole in the summer.

During the 2006/07 winter John lived in Baffin Island for 4 months working as the expedition base camp manager for the Global Warming 101 Expedition led by Will Steger.

During this past winter, John led a 57-day, 720-mile ski expedition to the South Pole for NorthWinds Adventures. View the expedition web journal. After embarking from Herecules Inlet at 80 degrees South latitude, team arrived at the South Pole on January 23, 2008. Slowed by abnormally heavy snows and two weeks of white out conditions during the first half of the expedition, the team sprinted through the last 300 miles in 20 days.

After a two weeks of rest back at home in Chicago, John and his expedition partner, Tyler Fish, ventured to Baffin Island during March 2008 to train for the North Pole '09 expedition. John is currently busy giving expedition presentations and fund raising.

» John appears at our 2008 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis