Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
Don Walsh, Ph.D.
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Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President Don Walsh, Ph.D. |
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RESEARCH COLLECTIONS
INTERVIEW with Norman D. Vaughan MED'31 Page 2 of 2
KATZMAN: Would you tell me a little about the geological party? VAUGHAN: Well, Larry Gould was the second in command of the expedition, and he was a great man. He was a professor at the University of Michigan and he was going to lead. He was a geologist, and he wanted to see what was in the mountains and wanted to take samples of that. Goodale, Clark, and I were with our dog teams, and we went out on that trip to help Gould make a physical survey of the mountains. One of the discoveries was that the mound had the same soil, the same complex in the rocks, that was in South America and in Africa, and it showed that the folding of the earth had folded this mountain range all the way from South Africa across the Antarctic and out the other side. So that was pretty interesting, to know that the earth had folded this ridge all the way, and yet part of that ridge was under water. And of course the contents of the rocks was fascinating to Gould. He'd analyzed them and knew what they were made up of. KATZMAN: Did you actually see Byrd fly over the pole? VAUGHAN: Oh yes. We knew he was coming by radio and we were all poised, looking to the north from where he was coming, and suddenly we saw this black spot, and it didn't appear to be high in the air at all. It was very low. And I said to one of the fellas, Gee, he's not going to land here is he? And they said, no, they didn't think so. It wasn't a good landing place. There was too much rough ice. Yet he was following our trail out, and the nearer he got to us, the lower he seemed to be. And when he got over us, he dropped something, and what he dropped was the size of a shoebox, about that size. It had a homemade parachute on it, and the parachute opened, and it floated down. We went over, picked up the box, and sure enough there were two things that we expected to find, and we did. One was a message from our families which Byrd had arranged to get and put in that box, and the other was some brownies that the cook had made for us. KATZMAN: What about the crevices? VAUGHAN: Well, they were just large cracks in the ice, and they came as the glaciers were moving. When a glacier moves down a mountainside, the greatest friction of course is on the bottom, holding the glacier back from moving on down. And until that gets wet, it doesn't slide very well. But the pressure and the weight of the glacier is enough to melt the bottom part, and it does get melted into water. Once it's in water, it moves because there is no friction, and then it freezes again right away. It doesn't move very fast. It just slowly glides its way down the mountainside. KATZMAN: I know you had a sad occurrence with your dog Belle there. VAUGHAN: You mean eating a dog? Yes, that was kind of shocking to me. I had never seen that before. KATZMAN: What is it like living in constant daytime? VAUGHAN: I didn't think it was hard to adjust to. I got used to it. Some people found it odd. Walden did, for instance. I remember he didn't like it at all. He was itching to get out of that, “Isn't there some way you can send me home?” [laughs] What an explorer he was! KATZMAN: Describe the storms you experienced there. VAUGHAN: That was kind of terrifying because you couldn't go out. I remember one time during a blizzard, it was time to feed the dogs in the afternoon, late. We fed them once a day, and I didn't dare go out and feed the dogs, even though I had the food right handy. But I got a quarter of a rope and tied it around my waist and went out and fed the dogs. And I dragged the rope behind me, and that rope kept me in control so when I wanted to go back in again, I just turned around and followed the rope back into the tent. In the meantime they had uncoiled the rope as I pulled and needed it to go further on to feed the dogs. But the dogs were all under snow, and the only way I found them was because I knew where they were. I stepped on them and up they came, one at a time. Then when I gave them a cake of food, they were so cold that they didn't eat it. They just took it out of my hand and just didn't chew on it. Laid it right there in the snow, and they went back to sleep, and I supposed when they woke up, they ate it. KATZMAN: Do you recall the flag ceremony with Byrd at Little America? VAUGHAN: Yes, it was a good little ceremony, putting the flag up at our camp that we had built. I was lucky enough to be right beside Byrd, and he gave me the flag to hold and hook onto the lines that were going to pull it up, all that sort of thing. KATZMAN: Tell me about the parade in New York after you returned. VAUGHAN: Well, Byrd sat in an open car. The top was down, of course, and he sat in the backseat, and I have forgotten whom he had with him but they were not members of our expedition. They were politicians who wanted to ride with Byrd, so they got on both sides of him, and then he put us in the second car right behind him. And of course he did that so he could point out to those politicians three of his men all together and describe what we had done. So that was nice for him. And then behind that were other cars. Everybody piled into the cars. If they had been spending the night there with Byrd, they were eligible to get those cars, ride in the parade. And so the parade went one car behind the other down Wall Street and through the financial district, and that's where all the telephone books were ripped up and papers flying around. Then somebody got very brave and threw a whole book at us out of some window. They are heavy. KATZMAN: Looking back on that whole adventure, is there anything else you'd like to say about that experience? VAUGHAN: Well, of course, you could say it was the biggest thing in my life because nothing has even equaled being anything like that. But I would say that it followed my character because I had tried to emulate Byrd in what he represented to us. It's often been said that he had done a lot of drinking. I didn't see any of his getting drunk at all. I lived right there with him. But he gained that reputation without fact, I think. KATZMAN: I'd like to hear about your receiving the Congressional Medal. VAUGHAN: Well, it was just very exciting to have Byrd call us all on the poop deck of the City of New York. He had us all there, and he said he had a very serious thing to talk about, that people had been given these wonderful gold medals from Congress. Our name was on each medal and it said what we had done, that we had gone to the Antarctic and been early explorers and had the support of the whole country and that sort of thing. And then unfortunately in one of my divorces, my wife --and I don't know which one--took the medal and didn't give it back to me. I don't have mine. KATZMAN: Do you think that it's important to have an organization devoted to exploration, like The Explorers Club? VAUGHAN: Oh, yes, of course, it is! It's important so that there's a record made of where people go and what they do and all the unusual places in the world that they find to go. And there's a paper out that we have called the Expedition News. It's published by one man who makes a business of it, and it gives news of all the expeditions that are in the field and what they are doing, how far they've gone, what they've accomplished. That seems to be awful good reading and historically good. KATZMAN: Tell me a little bit about your experience at the Olympics in 1932. VAUGHAN: I think having my dog team there was part of the reason they made a discussion about having a dog race, and so it was decided to have a dog race, and of course, I was in it, and that's how I got into the Olympics. KATZMAN: I'm also curious about your experience in WWII, at the Battle of the Bulge. VAUGHAN: Well, that was pretty exciting. It was just like any other fella at the frontlines. You were being shot at all the time. I was lucky not to be involved in getting hit. So were the other two fellas that were friends that I brought into this work, and none of us got hit. We didn't get the Purple Heart or anything like that. You think, God, this may be the last day I'll be able to breath. I was there principally for writing out the leaflets. I was involved in leafleting which was an organization devoted exclusively to writing leaflets for the enemy with two efforts, one, to get the enemy to surrender, and two, by their surrendering, it gives them a chance to be defeated because if they gave themselves up that's the same as shooting a man. If they gave themselves up, we took them over as honorable prisoners of war. That eliminated that person from the enemy. KATZMAN: Is it true you taught Pope John to drive dogs? VAUGHAN: Oh sure, I gave the Pope a ride. [laughs] He just stood at the back of my sled. I called him a dog driver, but he didn't do any driving because the dogs didn't know him. I figured if he called to the dogs, they would have looked around and said, Who the hell is that? KATZMAN: What's the story behind the Iditarod? VAUGHAN: I'll tell you what happened. Originally, Nome had a diphtheria epidemic, and the children were dying like flies up there. So it was decided to send this diphtheria drug to Nome. But they used it all up and had to send for more, and the only way they could get more up there was to send it from the States. They could fly airplanes this time--I want to get that clear--but there was no landing place. And we weren't smart enough to figure out doing it by parachute, so it had to be done some other way. And the other way was to send the serum by the train that goes from Anchorage to Fairbanks via Nenana. So they did that, and when the train got to Nenana, the conductor passed the valuable serum to me to carry by dog team over the same route that the twenty dog drivers had made coming down to get it. So I gave it to the fastest dog team that Nome supplied, and they went to the next town. Each of the fastest teams that the town had assembled carried the serum onto Nome. And even the President of the United States had gotten into that race by urging the towns to cooperate and supply the best they had to move the serum the fastest they could to save the lives that were at stake in Nome. And they did just that. So there were twenty dog teams that moved this serum forward and it got to Nome in time to save, I'd like to say, hundreds of lives. It probably wasn't hundreds, but maybe tens of lives of the kids that were all stricken. Years later I thought, Gee, this is a good route to follow as a race and a good story behind the race. The Iditarod is 1,251 miles. So we organized that, and that became the Iditarod Race. Iditarod was one of the names of one of the towns through which the serum had traveled. KATZMAN: Do you have dogs that you work with now? VAUGHAN: No, I don't work any dogs right now because I have heart trouble. I had a sudden episode of my heart problem, and because of that, I had to give up my dogs. I have one dog only, as a pet, and that's a big omission in my life. But the minute I get so I can walk again, I'm going to get another team. I can't walk without a cane or a walker. KATZMAN: What are the characteristics of a good dog? VAUGHAN: Well, number one is he's got to be a dog that wants to work. He wants to go. He's gotta be enthusiastic. He can't be a lapdog. He can't be a lie around character. He's got to be up and at it when you ask him to be. That's what I think is the greatest characteristic because a good sled dog is always one who will want to pull if he's harnessed and put in a harness. Except, I had one that didn't do that. Just one. He didn't want to leave the boards. He loved the grass that he was roaming over, and he picked that up. And he loved the snow. He'd pick up a piece of snow and play with it. KATZMAN: Do they become very faithful? VAUGHAN: Oh, yes, they're faithful to the owner, very much so. And it isn't easy for one good dog driver to go to another team that's already a good team. It isn't easy for him to take that team on and drive it. He can do it, and the team will change its loyalty with a new driver, but it isn't easy because the dogs get habitually happy working with one person. KATZMAN: Does your wife work with dogs as well? VAUGHAN: Yes, she does. She's been on the Iditarod three times. I taught her about driving dogs and she loves it. KATZMAN: I know you have a mountain named after you. VAUGHAN: Well, it was a mountain named after me by Admiral Byrd sometime ago, and it was very much of an honor to me to have him do this. He got Goodall and Clark and me into his house, the three musketeers. He called us in and said, “I'd love to give you money for all the work you did for me, but I can't, so I'll give you a mountain.” So he named mountains--three of them. Three mountains, right close together, and they are all ten thousand feet high. KATZMAN: Didn't you go back and climb that mountain? VAUGHAN: I did, on my 89th birthday. I went back. I just wanted to. When I got the mountain originally given to me by Byrd, I said, Thank you very much. Later I thought I'd better go down and climb that. It just came into my mind. I love mountain climbing. So I went down and climbed it. KATZMAN: Did your wife go on that expedition up the mountain? VAUGHAN: Yes, she certainly did. National Geographic sent a team with us, and of course the team was taking pictures all the time. When they got back, they made up a movie, and it made a good documentary. It's about 35 minutes. National Geographic said I was the only man that had a geographical feature of this planet named after him while he was living and climbed it--that most of the other mountains that had been named, or all of the mountains that had been named, had been named after people that had died. So that was kind of exciting. Now I want to do it in 2005, but then I'll be 100 years old. [laughter] KATZMAN: What would you say to a young explorer today, someone that is curious about the world? VAUGHAN: I'd say keep on being curious and do something about it. When you find something you don't know, try to see if you can figure out some way to get that knowledge before yourself, and when you get it before yourself write about it and tell everybody so the other scientists will know what you've discovered. KATZMAN: What are the greatest characteristics of an explorer? VAUGHAN: Curiosity. And the willingness to persevere and not give up your quest. And I think it is identified by my motto which is, “Dream big and dare to fail.” So you dream some big operation and then go try to do it. Don't be afraid to try to do it. Because if you fail, it's only a challenge to do it again and do it right.
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