- published: 09 Jan 2014
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Ralph Plaisted (30 September 1927 – 8 September 2008) and his three companions, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, are regarded by most polar authorities to be the first to succeed in a surface traverse across the ice to the North Pole on 19 April 1968, making the first confirmed surface conquest of the Pole.
Plaisted was a high-school dropout from Bruno, Minnesota, who found success as an insurance salesman. An avid outdoorsman, in the early 1960's he was one of the first Minnesotans to buy a Ski-Doo snowmobile, a then-novel invention of Canada's Bombardier Company, and became a convert and booster of the machine. In 1965, Plaisted drove his snowmobile 250 miles from Ely to St. Paul, Minnesota in one day, which is regarded as the first long-distance snowmobile trek.
Plaisted and his friend Art Aufderheide conceived the idea of reaching the North Pole by snowmobile in the spring of 1966, aiming to make the trip the following year. In April and May 1967 Plaisted's first attempt was thwarted at 83° 20' latitude by storms and open water. The attempt did result in a CBS-TV documentary To the Top of the World, reported by Charles Kuralt, who accompanied the Plaisted team.