Lewis Gordon Pugh

Explorer, Swimmer and Environmentalist

Saving the Artic, Saving the Soul

Lewis Gordon Pugh has been called many things: an adventurer, an explorer, a swimmer, an environmentalist, a human polar bear. The only title he rejects is "adventurer," which he defines as "someone filled with a lot of himself."

Pugh, on the other hand, has something serious on his mind when he submerges himself in below freezing water wearing only a swim cap and a Speedo. At the geographic North Pole, he slips into an immense blackness of water knowing that, if things go wrong, he'll be dead in twenty minutes. He dives anyway, to draw attention to the melting frozen seas that are slowly devastating the world environment as CO2 emissions continue to rise.

"I never, ever, ever have any doubt about whether it's worth it," he says. "I want to dedicate my whole life to saving the Arctic."

Formerly a "pioneer" swimmer, Pugh once sought out famous global landmarks, places where he might be the first person ever to swim. But global warming has altered his perspective. "About five or six years ago, I noticed changes in the oceans, increased pollution, less fish and melting ice caps," he says. "I decided that swimming had to be about more than just being first. It needed to have a reason." His swimming has since evolved into a deep-rooted dedication to protecting the natural world by braving its harshest, coldest, and roughest conditions.

The initial bodily impact with glacial waters is excruciatingly painful, and that pain only intensifies as Pugh proceeds. He hyperventilates, sometimes swallowing mouthfuls of salt water. He moves slower and slower with each stroke, losing feeling in his extremities. His team members ski beside him at the water's edge, monitoring his heart rate and body temperature. Predators in the water—polar bears and walrus—present a lurking threat.

The human body's response to this physical trauma is to draw blood away from the limbs and toward the core to protect the vital organs, which continue to work for a while after the extremities have shut down. But the vital organs will not sustain themselves indefinitely. Pugh likens this physiological reality to the fight against global warming. "In defending the earth, we must concentrate on the basics," he explains. "We have to protect the vital areas of the earth."

These "vital areas" are places like the Arctic or the Amazon—entire ecosystems that are changing at an alarming rate. Pugh notes that in the fifties and sixties, environmentalists protected various animal species; in the eighties they protected local areas, like the Great Barrier Reef.

"Now we are protecting ecosystems," he says. "Very shortly we will be protecting ourselves."

Pugh calls his swims "symbolic," but his very real actions demonstrate the depth of his personal commitment to save the Arctic. As a lawyer conversant in legislative issues and accustomed to public speaking, he targets business people, politicians, and religious leaders, believing he will be most influential in these sectors. But his ultimate goal is to make the environment personal for everyone.

Pugh describes his personal victory at the North Pole as a "bittersweet" experience. "Pride is always tempered by a sadness over what we are witnessing," he says. "We fail to take account of why these animals disappear." Swimming in the same Arctic waters as a mother polar bear and her cub, he feels his own connectivity to the environment. "Our very survival depends on theirs," he says.

To Lewis Gordon Pugh, the ecosystem itself is a vibrant animal like the polar bear, straining under the pressures of a changing atmosphere, searching for new ways to exist. Preparing his mind to swim for the cause he has so thoroughly embraced, he listens to "very violent, hard, rap music" in the ilk of Puff Daddy, Eminem, and the soundtrack to Gladiator. "In the Arctic, it's war," he says.

Pugh takes on this attitude of aggression before plunging his body into the stark, freezing waters at the end of the world because he is battling more than predatory animals and hypothermia. He is fighting the inertia of the human psyche in a place where humanity is swiftly and decidedly humbled.