What makes a man leave the comfort and safety of his home to spend two years traversing the Arctic Circle alone? Why does South African explorer Mike Horn think nothing of walking paths that have led others to their death? MARTIN VENGADESAN talks to this record-breaking adventurer about testing the limits of human endurance.

FOR most of us, life is about the steady accumulation of wealth, comfort and status, and the denial of our own mortality is something of an asset in maintaining these trivial pursuits.

As a Herculean athlete who speaks seven languages and a rather handsome gent to boot, Mike Horn has all the attributes it takes to make it in the corporate world. Yet he prefers to deliberately put himself in situations where his life is in jeopardy.

When he made his fortune at the age of 25, Horn simply gave it away to take on the life of an adventurer. It flies in defiance of conventional wisdom, especially when one considers that Horn is a happily married father of two, but when I spoke to this remarkable man, I was left in no doubt that his is an admirable philosophy that only few mortals can live by.

The rugged man of adventure and his trusty Panerai Luminor Arktos. Inset: What he looks like when he doesn’t need his beard for protection against the elements.

On Oct 21 last year, Horn became the first man to circumnavigate the Arctic Circle. It took him 26 months – the last four people who attempted the feat died.

Yet, it is merely the latest accomplishment of a man who already holds the world record for the fastest descent of a waterfall on hydro-speed (a small polyurethane raft); he has descended the Amazon River, paraglided in the Andes, and circumnavigated the Equator.

“I’m not scared of dying,” began Horn, in a thick Afrikaans accent in an interview conducted during a brief stopover in Singapore recently. “We have, on average 12,000 days on earth, and I think you should do as much as you can. During my Arctic expedition, there were times when it was easier for me to die than to stay alive.

“But a man can do so much more than he thinks he can. The will to win for me is stronger than the fear of losing. It has to be, because if you lose, you die.

“I am far more afraid of something happening to my family than to me. Without my wife and kids I might never come back from an expedition. They give me the support to go and something to come back to.”

Indeed, Horn’s family has had a long time to get used to his restless ways. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 16, 1966, Horn’s first major adventure involved riding a bicycle over 300km to visit his uncle’s farm. He was aged just eight!

“It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get there,” he said with a laugh.

Horn felt trapped in apartheid South Africa. “The situation in South Africa was one of the things that made me want to leave. Our generation was living with the consequences of decisions not made by us. For example, I wanted to participate in the Olympic Games but I couldn’t.”

A talented middle-distance runner and tri-athlete, Horn also made the South African junior cricket and rugby teams but there was no one for him to play against!

“My father was a Springbok (South African international) in rugby and cricket, yet he didn’t get to prove himself. I just wanted to test myself. I do what I do because it makes me happy. If not, I would be like a lion in a cage.”

After completing his studies at the University of Stellenbosch, Horn worked in market management and soon found that he was a natural at it.

“I was importing and exporting fresh produce and in just five months, I made all the money I needed to live comfortably, but I gave it all away. I wasn’t interested. I don’t want my car or my house to own me.”

At that point, in 1990, Horn decided that his future lay outside South Africa. “I just wanted to get out,” he recalled, “and so I went to the airport and in 1990 you could go to only three places. I decided to go to Tel Aviv, but there were no tickets left. So I tried Switzerland and there was one ticket left. I got on the plane and there’s where I live today.”

When he’s not out risking his life, Horne leads a blissful life in Chateau D’oex with his Kiwi wife Cathy and their two children, Annika and Jessica.

Horn catching the wind with his ‘kite’ to help him cross the ice wasteland of Russia faster.

Horn worked as a ski instructor, and river and mountain guide before making the decision to be a full-time explorer.

“It started about 12 years ago,” he explained. “A watch company approached me and said ‘Can we do an ad of you diving off a waterfall?’ I said ‘sure’ because I did that everyday. And that’s how it started. People also want to know what you’re going to do next. One thing leads to another.

“But financially it’s very tough. I have a lot of sponsors like Panerai and Mercedes Benz, but my sponsors pay for my equipment. I don’t get a salary. And believe me, my life is not insured!”

Aside from his open manner, refreshing approach to life and absolutely crushing handshake, one of the things that struck me most about Horn was his impressive skill as a linguist. As with most of his attributes, he treats it as if it was the most natural thing on earth.

“This is important because I travel a lot and it breaks down barriers ... when you speak to someone in their language, you get a completely different approach. I learnt Afrikaans and Zulu in South Africa, my wife is from New Zealand so we speak English, we live in Switzerland so we speak French and German, I learnt Spanish because I spent a lot of time in South America and on this recent expedition, I picked up Russian.”

After doing so much, what could possibly be next on the cards for Horn? A spell in space perhaps?

“I’d go to space in a second,” he laughed, “if someone pays me.”

But he’s not done with terrestrial exploration yet. “I want to go around the world again, but this time, from the North Pole to the South Pole. I also want to see the seven wonders of nature, one on each continent; you know, amazing jungles, deserts, rivers and mountains.”

While his feats require substantial physical strength, Horn feels that the emotional strength of an adventurer is even more critical to his success.

“You have to entertain yourself and I talk to myself a lot. All the decisions are made by you, so you need that second voice, ‘Mike, are you sure?’ It’s a comforting effect. Mental strength is a big thing in the Arctic or you can go mad like an ape in the bush.

“But you must be aware of your emotions. I cried a lot on that trip,” he said with disarming honesty, “It’s a release. One day I walked for 16 hours and found that I had only moved 3m from where I started because the ice was moving. A man is not allowed to cry in theory but when he’s alone, he can.”

Horn is rapidly gaining a name for himself in Switzerland, not least after he won a Laureus Award for Best Alternative Sportsman of the Year in 2001. Does such a man have heroes?

“Anybody who did anything out of the ordinary, whether it’s business or sport, they all stand out as individuals who walked the same path. But my biggest hero is my father (who died when Horn was 10).

“I believe a child should have two important things. Roots to know where he came from and wings to fly. My mother gave me roots and my father, wings.”

Finally I had to ask why the clean-shaven Mike Horn in Singapore looked so different from the rugged, bearded man in the publicity photos.

“Ah, the beard,” he laughed. “You need it up in the ice. And of course not being recognised is good. In Switzerland, I was watching TV in a bar and I saw my face, and then somebody started telling me about myself.?”