Posted: Mar 05, 2007 01:20 pm EST
(ThePoles.com) In a few weeks time, Bob Cochran will team up with Jerry Kobalenko on a major Arctic trip from Canada to Greenland.

Bob stands out like a sore thumb among his fellow urbanite friends in Los Angeles, who contemplate his passion for the frozen northern areas as the ultimate extravagancy of sorts. However, in a chat with ExplorersWeb, Cochran shows a very personal approach to polar exploration. Check out what this self-described “extreme bachelor” has to say.

ExplorersWeb: You are from LA — do your friends understand your upcoming trip?

Bob: My California friends do not understand the trip. People in the Consumer Age know more about Disney World than about their world. I am always asked about penguins and where we will "stay" in the Arctic, and there is a tendency to confuse the Arctic, the Antarctic, and, believe it or not, Alaska. Everyone chatters about global warming. Additionally, a trip such as this requires an expenditure of resources of all kinds, which is incomprehensible. Imagine you're at the gym, for example, appreciating some girl on the mechanical skier. Imagine, then, that she's going to be there for nine or ten hours...

ExplorersWeb: Jerry says he won't shoot polar bears until they practically kiss him on the forehead, do you agree on this strategy?

Bob: I agree with Jerry that the bear must die only as a final resort. I defer to Jerry's experience and expertise in virtually everything, and, as a former United States Marine, I know how to hold my fire...

ExplorersWeb:Jerry admitted to us that he is a luddite but now he's bringing a satphone — was that your idea?

Bob: Jerry may be a luddite, but I am far more primitive than he is in spite of my city-boy trappings. I didn't know what a satphone was until I met him.

ExplorersWeb: In one of the images, you’re smoking a fat cigar — isn't that against California state law?

Bob: I started when I was 13 years old. It is not illegal, but it is frowned upon by health-conscious Angelenos.

ExplorersWeb: Jerry has backpacked, man-hauled his sledge and kayaked through the Arctic regions for years. You have done a couple of arctic kayak trips and one 400k sledding expedition. Where and when?

Bob: I kayaked in Alexandra Fiord in the summers of 2001 and 2003 on pilgrimages to the Greely sites on Pim Island, and I sledded for the month of May, 2005, with Jerry around the Southwest corner of Ellesmere. It was on the 2001 trip that he and I met, and our friendship evolved into this sort of partnership as a result of the 2005 odyssey.

ExplorersWeb: Are you aware of the Cook/Peary controversy, and if so, what's your take?

Bob:I am fully aware of the Cook/Peary controversy. I grew up on the heroic version of Peary's exploits, and I am not in agreement with the revisionist tendencies of our time which are now all but defeatist in nature. The philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset notes that events take place in action; not in analysis, not in imagination, not in history or philosophy, not in probability or likelihood, not even in documentation or "proof"; but IN ACTION. It is hard for me to believe that men such as Peary and Cook, who lived and traveled so extraordinarily, would squander the meaning of their endeavors with untruth. However, we will never know.

ExplorersWeb: What's your biggest fear in the upcoming expedition?

Bob: A trip like this involves immense commitment, including the emotional, and a couple years of planning and preparation. My greatest fear is always that it will not take place.

ExplorersWeb:Your expectation?

Bob: My expectation is that, as before, we will live a second, full, delirious life beyond the boundaries and trammels of the everyday life which so often means so little to us.

ExplorersWeb:What do you expect will be your first meal in Greenland? And back in LA?

Bob: After a day of Arctic sledding I don't care what I eat, but I favor Jerry's recipe for potato gruel with cheese cubes. In May of 2005, I returned with an intense desire for bacon and eggs, and champagne sipped from that hollow between the collar bones of beautiful women. Who knows this time?

ExplorersWeb:Who are you? (Family, work, age, hobbies)

Bob: I am the assistant principal of counseling at an adult school in Los Angeles. I am a native Californian and spent my bored and bookish childhood preparing for life in the nineteenth century, it now seems clear. I spend a lot of time at work, but my hobbies are hard exercise, surfing, reading and contemplation, and chasing women. This latter pastime, with its extremes of expense, hardship, and cold, prepares one well for Arctic travel, and as I write this I yearn for the warmth and friendliness of Ellesmere.

I am an extreme bachelor, 57 years old, and have college degrees in History, Education, and, believe it or not, Cinema, and have a commission as an officer in the United States Marines.

Starting in March, 2007 Canadian Jerry Kobalenko and American Bob Cochran will ski 700 km from Canada to Greenland, following Frederick Cook's 1909 route from his winter den on Devon Island to the abandoned hunting site of Annoatok in northwest Greenland. The 40 to 50-day expedition will follow along the edge of the North Water Polynya.

Jerry Kobalenko is facing his 15th sledding expedition – actually this will be his 30th self-propelled arctic journey -- including kayaking, canoeing, and backpacking. Jerry’s partner will be Bob Cochram, from LA. Bob kayaked in Alexandra Fiord in the summers of 2001 and 2003 on pilgrimages to the Greely sites on Pim Island. Then Jerry and Bob teamed up for a major sledding trip around the Southwest corner of Ellesmere in May, 2005.

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