I had only been in Alaska two years when I decided to start Alaska Channel. One of quandaries I faced was how to gain the trust of dozens of hoteliers and advertisers whose support I needed to be successful. To them, I was somewhat of an unknown, a newcomer with a starry-eyed vision to create an Alaska visitor TV channel. Alaska may be 20% the size of the continental U.S., but socially it’s just one big small town. And if you’ve ever lived in a small town, you know how long it can take to gain the locals’ trust.
So I had an idea: I decided I needed to produce a great promotional video, and I needed a well-known personality to serve as my on-camera host. The name of Colonel Norman Vaughan immediately came to mind. I had never met the Colonel, but I had read about him, and I knew Alaskans revered him. I didn’t really have a solid introduction, so I decided to just call him and pitch my idea. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll serve as your host. If you want to film me running my dogteams, come up to my cabin at Trapper Creek this weekend, and we’ll go out and do it.”
Wow! I was excited. And I was also incredibly grateful. The video came out great, and it apparently worked—Alaska Channel’s going strong 12 years later. Norman did me a huge favor, and now it’s time for some lucky American corporation to return him the favor. Let me explain.
Norman Vaughan grew up in Hamilton, Mass, just north of Boston, the oldest child of a conservative Boston society family whose lineage traces back to America's Founding Fathers. In 1927, Norman was a sophomore at Harvard. One day he was talking with his roommates in his dorm room when someone dropped the evening transcript on their coffee table. “Byrd to the South Pole” said the paper. “I’ve got to go” said Norman.
The next day he went to Byrd’s house, but Byrd wouldn’t see him. Norman enlisted the newspaper reporter to help him pitch his case: “I’ll train your dogs free for a year. No obligation. But if you like my services, you can bring me to the Pole.” Norman dropped out of Harvard, lived the winter in a drafty glass gazebo, and fed and trained Byrd’s 97 huskies. Impressed with Norman’s abilities, Byrd not only brought Norman on as chief dog handler for his famous South Pole Expedition, but also named a mountain after him; Mount Vaughan rises 10,302 feet above the Scott and Amundsen Glaciers in the Hays Mountains of the Queen Maud Range of Antarctica, 248 miles from the South Pole.
Since then, Norman’s life has been seven decades of nonstop adventure: He raced dogs in the ‘32 Lake Placid Olympics, rescued soldiers by dogteam in the Battle of the Bulge, ran his first Iditarod at the tender young age of 72, taught Pope John Paul II how to mush, and married his wonderful Carolyn whom he met out on the Iditarod Trail in 1985. For his 89th birthday, he returned to Antarctica to climb his namesake mountain; it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
Norman’s been a free spirit in many ways, but there’s one admonition his mother gave him as a young child that he’s strictly obeyed: “Don’t drink alcohol until you live to be 100.” Well, next year, Norman reaches drinking age, and for his hundredth birthday—you guessed it—he’s going back to Antarctica to climb his mountain. And when he gets to the summit this time, he’s going to celebrate by uncorking a bottle of champagne and swilling down one hard-earned glass of bubbly—the first sip of alcohol in his life.
Tell me this: What champagne maker could pass up this opportunity to tie together two centuries of American legend? To sponsor the longest running adventurer of the 21st and 20th centuries? To honor the last surviving member of the 1928 Byrd South Pole expedition? To help out one heck of a deserving guy? His mother created this extraordinary opportunity through her wise counsel, and all of us in Alaska hope someone steps up to the plate and takes it.
Some other fun links:
- Here’s a rough edit of the original Alaska Channel video segment we shot at Norman’s cabin in 1993. Even though he has only a couple lines, it took him all day to get it right.
- Here’s a segment Alaska Channel produced about Norman before his successful 1994 Mt. Vaughan Expedition.
- Norman and I at his 99th birthday. I was so excited for him. More than anyone I know, Norman epitomizes the adventurous spirit of Alaskans. His motto is "Dream big and dare to fail." Other pictures from the party.
- Map showing Mount Vaughan’s position in Antarctica
Norman’s expedition website that AT&T Alascom so generously put up for him.
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