Left: Paul and Sue Schurke of Ely (L) with Hal Greenwood, host of a September 25 fundraiser on behalf of the Schroeder Area Historical Society. Paul and Sue talked about their adventures as Paul explored the North Pole and Sue developed an outdoor adventure clothing company. Above: Greenwood has been politically active for decades, and the lower level of his house is filled with photos and memorabilia of his experiences with some of the world’s leaders.
Hal Greenwood’s house is a treasure trove. It’s a treasure trove of fascinating objects and a treasure trove of memorabilia. It’s a treasure trove just because bighearted Hal lives there. And with that big heart, he opened his home to the Schroeder Area Historical Society on September 25, 2011 for a fundraiser featuring polar explorer Paul Schurke of Ely and his wife Sue, who built an outdoor clothing company out of Paul’s clothing needs and test runs.
Before Paul and Sue spoke, guests were invited to roam Hal’s house to look at everything. Hal and his late wife Carol (sweethearts since the eighth grade) built the 4,200-square-foot post and beam Lindal Cedar home in 1997. Displayed in the lower level are photos of Hal with Hubert Humphrey, Billy Graham, Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, and Pope Paul VI. Displayed are letters to Hal from Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Gerald Ford and inaugural invitations from John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. l Fanciful carvings posing as useful objects are dotted throughout the house: a chandelier graced with deer, a bench flanked by two little bears, a cuckoo clock from Germany, a giant, ornate grandfather clock from the Black Forest. Original artwork, including a George Morrison painting that hung in the Carter White House, is everywhere.
Hal clearly enjoyed opening his home to benefit a good cause for Cook County. “I’m doing it because I really believe in it – all of the North Shore,” he told the group that gathered to hear Paul and Sue Schurke. He was a banker before retiring in Cook County, and he helped finance many of the large businesses in the West End.
Tales from Schurke
As introductions were being made in the living room, a man’s laughter could be heard from the kitchen. Don’t mind Shadow, Hal lsaid, Shadow being his 49-yearold parrot. “I just hope he doesn’t swear too much!”
Many of the people at the fundraiser were friends of Schroeder Area Historical Society supporter Steve Lukas and had come up from the Twin Cities for the event. Lukas went on a dog sledding expedition to Norway with Paul Schurke last year, near the seed bank that is being stored to save the world if agricultural disaster ever hits.
Schurke started his career as a science writer after pursuing graduate studies in environmental journalism. He found his true calling in 1977 when he and a college friend founded Wilderness Inquiry, a nonprofit offering northern outdoor experiences to people with physical disabilities. He loved being out in the wilderness instead of just writing about it. He loved sleeping in igloos, listening to wolves howl, and making friends with the huskies that provided their transportation. He eventually created Wilderness Expeditions, based in Ely, where he and Sue and their family live at Wintergreen Dog Sled Lodge on a peninsula on White Iron Lake at the edge of the Boundary Waters.
It’s been 25 years since Paul Schurke, Will Steger, Ann Bancroft and several others made the first unassisted trek to the North Pole. That was followed by a Soviet- American “adventure diplomacy” expedition that trekked from Siberia to Alaska, leading to the opening of the U.S.-Soviet border in the Bering Strait. Paul worked with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to help China establish research programs in the polar regions and bring the first Chinese team ever to the North Pole. He took a group of NASA scientists to the North Pole in 1999. Two years later he dog sledded through Greenland with polar Eskimos to produce a documentary for National Geographic television.
Paul and Sue’s company, Wintergreen, was named by Outside Magazine as one of the most innovative and influential outdoor businesses of the previous quarter century.
Paul isn’t all about the North Pole or winter camping or sled dogs. Paul loves the history of the Northwoods as well. In 1900, he said, 3,000 people lived in 500 different places in the BWCA.
A love story
A good love story is worth repeating, so Paul told the story of Sweden’s first attempt to send explorers to the North Pole in 1899. Nations were competing to be the first to plant a flag at the Pole. Sweden decided to get its team there via hot air balloon, a technology in which they were world leaders at the time. Nils Strindberg was one of a team of three that set sail with three passenger pigeons. He left behind his fianceé, a popular society woman.
The team was never heard from again. One passenger pigeon made it back with a message that read, “Day Two and all is well.” The pigeon was stuffed and mounted and given to Strindberg’s fianceé.
In 1929, a Russian ship spotted some flotsam and jetsam on an island in the North Sea. Upon investigation, they found a stone cabin with a silken roof and pieces of a balloon basket. They also found journals and a box camera with rolls of films that they were able to develop. The story? The weather got bad and the balloon iced up. The team went down, dragging everything they could a couple hundred miles across polar ice.
They survived for awhile, finding polar bear meat plentiful. What they didn’t know, however, was that the concentration of Vitamin A in polar bear liver is toxic to humans. That’s what killed them.
Strindberg’s lady lover married a British man 12 years later, and they moved to the U.S. where she taught music, the stuffed pigeon never leaving its perch on her piano. She died in 1927, two years before her lover’s remains were found. Her husband had agreed that if his body was ever found, her body would be exhumed and her heart would be transferred to her lover’s coffin. He honored this request when Stricklund’s body was found and buried in Stockholm.
Marriage
Susan Schurke never had to go through what Strindberg’s lover did, but Paul’s first trip to the North Pole was no piece of cake. Temperatures got down to 80 degrees below zero (and Susan’s clothing worked well). About halfway through the expedition, Paul said, it felt like a suicide mission. Disease hit their dogs, a stove lit a tent on fire, the team had discord. “I didn’t think we were going to make it,” he said. He almost turned around and went back because he wanted to get home alive.
Sue and Paul had met when she worked at an adult rehab facility in the Twin Cities. They befriended Will Steger, 10 years older than Paul, who wanted them to get married and move to Ely to run his business while he was on an expedition. Sue’s criterion for a husband was someone who would be willing to bike across the country with her. Paul did one better than that, suggesting that they bike across the South Pacific.
First they helped Will, living in a wigwam miles from the nearest road and growing their own food. “It was really heavy-duty,” said Sue, “but it was so much fun!”
On the bike trip through Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia that followed, Paul kept riding way ahead of Sue, and she got mad. She kept telling him she didn’t know what she would do if she got a flat tire. At one point, she caught up with him as he was stopped on the road because of a flat tire. She cruised right on past. Later, she told him how angry she was, also mentioning all the mail he had been getting from Will along the way. “Why are you getting all these letter from Will?” she asked. “You’re probably planning a trip to the North Pole or something!” Little did she know, but she was right.
The clothing business
Sue didn’t start out as a seamstress. Paul and Will just asked her to design them some North Pole gear. “They said it doesn’t have to look good,” she said. “It just has to be warm!”
Sue’s clothing ended up being not just warm, but beautiful as well. She had a Scandinavian’s love of bright colors and beautiful trimmings and started incorporating these elements into her winter gear. At first Paul didn’t want to wear hearts and flowers, but people loved her designs.
After many years of success in the clothing business, that part of Paul and Sue’s company was sold. Before that, gross receipts between Paul and Sue and Will added up to $10,000 one year. Will would call potential sponsors from a pay phone outside the Ely Chamber of Commerce in the middle of the winter, his sled dog team waiting to take him home. He had the personality and vision to spark the imaginations of the people sitting comfortably in their offices.
Paul and Sue have that, too.
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