Rochdale man completes 60-day trek to North Pole

Rochdale-born Martin Hartley on his expedition to the North Pole

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Rochdale-born Martin Hartley has just returned from a gruelling 60-day expedition to the North Pole.

Renowned as one of the leading travel photographers in the world, he went on the mission in a team of three, covering 483 miles in freezing and precarious conditions, and is one of only a handful of people to cross the ice on foot.

The trio eventually reached their final destination on 12 May with just hours to spare before a spotter plane picked them up from the ice.

His job has taken him around the world, to places such as Brazil, Namibia and Oman, and he calls his camera “a passport to many people’s lives”. He has also won Travel Photographer of the Year in 2003 and 2005 in various categories. Added to that, he has drawn praise from famous British adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes who said: “Martin Hartley’s ability to take beautiful powerful photographs in the most difficult places to survive on our planet is inspirational.”

Rochdale Online reporter Paul Finnerty caught up with him to find out how he is readjusting to bustling urban life after two months of almost total isolation, and asked how he came to have what he calls “the best job in the world”.

“Coming back to TV, politics and newspapers was strange,” he reveals, “and it was the first time I had ever missed the news, but it was good to be free of daily life distractions.”

Martin, who grew up in Norden, Rochdale, was into photography from an early age. He was runner-up Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 1987, aged 19, before getting the opportunity of a lifetime to climb Mount Everest in 1993, after winning a writing competition through the Rochdale Duke of Edinburgh scheme. It was the first time he left Europe and he hasn’t looked back since.

His first expedition to the North Pole was in 1999, after a chance meeting at a talk he was giving. “A man from the USSR asked me if I wanted to go ‘up North’. I didn’t know at the time that he meant the North Pole. Since 2003 I’ve either been to the Arctic or Antarctic once a year,” he recollects.

Martin explains that the motivation behind this trip, for the Catlin Arctic Survey 2010, was not only to capture some amazing images, but to collect sea water samples to determine the Carbon Dioxide levels in the Arctic Sea.

“The Arctic Ocean is the most sensitive part of the planet and there’s lots of information there about the food chain, or what they nowadays call the food web,” he says.

Conditions in these parts are fierce, and Martin, now based in London, told how much a task he faced just to take photographs.

“More than the deserts and the jungle, the Arctic Ocean is the most difficult place in which to take photos. Below 50 degrees you have so little time to stand still and it is very difficult to take a picture. Even if you breathe the lens freeze and after that a picture is impossible to take.”

As well as being pushed to his limits physically, the 42 year-old had to remain mentally strong too.

“With just two other people it doesn’t take long to become boring and it’s not easy to be patient in a tent not much bigger than the back of an estate car.”

For his next expedition he is on a photo assignment to the Pacific, with particular focus on the Solomon Islands. The aim of the organisation he will work for is to encourage local fishermen to fish in a more sustainable manner and on a smaller scale.

“Not many people do what I do,” says Martin, and he warns would-be photographers that sacrifices have to be made to get to where he is. “There are so many travel photographers out there and so much you can get online. Competition is horrifically fierce and it’s not a way to earn money, but definitely worth it.”