How I trained to be a polar explorer, in the snowy footsteps of my cousin Sir Ernest Shackleton

Slowly, very slowly, we make our way to civilisation. My face is battered by icy winds and burnt by an unusually bright early spring sun; my muscles ache from shovelling, skiing, and plodding in snow several metres thick - particularly my triceps and upper back, which haven’t seen action like this ski pole use in years. The below-freezing dawn temperature hits my toes and fingers hardest, making the journey back to our hotel a gruelling, heavy-legged, sleep-deprived, ordeal.

After a rough night in a claustrophobic snow hole completing my stint as a “polar explorer”, only the promise of a substantial Nordic breakfast keeps me sane.

I’ve spent the past three days in Finse, a picture-perfect winter wonderland halfway between Oslo and Bergen, on the highest point of the railway linking the two. As the train rises, the forests near Oslo give way to imperious mountains and frozen lakes, plateauing dramatically at Finse, better known to many as the setting for Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Barely a village, Finse, 1,222 metres above sea level, is a collection of small holiday homes – many almost completely submerged by snow in early April – and Finse 1222, a hotel that perfectly blends fine dining with authentic mountain charm.

Finse is of unique historic significance. As the most accessible Antarctic-like (or Antarctic-lite?) landscape, just four hours from Oslo, it was a magnet for Antarctic explorers of the Heroic Era – roughly 1897 to 1922, when great men like Sir Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott rivalled each other in their quest to open up Antarctica. With glaciers, thick snow, unpredictable weather and undulating terrain, it was the ideal location to test the latest dog-sledding and skiing technology and the most up-to-date equipment.

Which is why I’m here. Exactly 104 years before my visit, Shackleton, my great-great-grandmother’s first cousin, stopped by “for a rehearsal in the snow”, according to biographer Roland Huntford. Motor sledges and dog-sleds were toyed with, and skiing was perfected (Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole in 1912, says a British aversion to skiing probably cost Shackleton the Pole in his 1907-09 Nimrod expedition, when he famously turned back just 97 nautical miles from his goal to save his team). Fittingly, the day I arrived coincided with breaking news of a fresh mission to find Shackleton’s sunken Endurance, the ship he and his crew abandoned in 1914.

“I am rather tired but really splendidly fit,” my first cousin four times removed wrote to his wife Emily Dorman from Finse. His skiing, he noted, was “rather hard after my sedentary life at the office.” Unlike the then veteran of two Antarctic quests and countless voyages around the world, I was far from splendidly fit upon arrival – though I did sympathise with the bit about the sedentary office life.

Thus I – and a ragtag bunch of enthusiasts who’d come for the polar exploration boot camp – found myself at the behest of two remarkable men, our “expedition” guides. Tim Jarvis, a 6’5’’ gentle giant, led the first successful recreation of Shackleton’s epic crossing of the Southern Ocean in authentic gear, down to the vessel, a tiny, inadequate rescue boat. On his team for the voyage, and putting us through our paces with militaristic directness and attention to detail, was Barry “Baz” Gray, a Royal Marine who trained mountain leaders across the British Armed Forces and was a cold-weather expert for the Royal Navy’s Antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance (named after Shackleton’s ship).

The night in the snow hole was the trip’s culmination, but there were several activities to contend with in preparation for the big event.

First off, snow shoes. Baz, a man with dry wit, an insatiable appetite for banter, and who I later discovered was going easy on us, showed us the ropes. Snow shoes have been used for around 4,000 years and remain unchanged in concept, if not technology. By spreading the weight across the long oblong platform, they prevent you from sinking in thick snow. Grippy crampons attached to the bottom keep you from slipping on hills.

After getting used to giant feet – they certainly make moving in the snow much easier, though turning is incredibly cumbersome – we progressed to the day’s main activity: dog-sledding. While Shackleton and his main British rival Scott had long used ponies in Antarctic exploration, Amundsen forced Shackleton to reconsider, and Shackleton ordered 100 dogs for the Endurance, 69 of which made the journey to Antarctica.

Dog sledding is extremely fun – but of course it's their logistical benefits that appealed to the explorers. “They’re incredible creatures,” Jarvis told me. “They can do 200km per day, with a top speed of 20 kilometres per hour.” A couple of faceplants notwithstanding, we whizzed around crystal clear Norwegian mountain air, darting between pines, six dogs to a sled. Despite their smell (their ability to relieve themselves while maintaining top speed astounded me), I’m sure huskies like these would’ve kept up morale on Shackleton’s missions. The excitable pups appeared to enjoy their saunter almost as much as I did.

Skiing is elemental to covering distance economically. The Norwegians, says Huntford, saw the South Pole as “the world’s longest ski race”. Shackleton learnt to ski during Scott’s Discovery expedition between 1901-04; I assume he started as shakily as I did. Under Baz’s tutelage, we began cross-country skiing 101.

It looks simple, but getting the right technique - knees slightly bent, not leaning too far forwards or back, poles never planted past your feet - is bloody tricky at first. I managed to stay upright initially, but downhills remain unconquered. “You’re leaning too far back”, Baz yelled; I could’ve sworn I was curling forward.

After some trial and error, I improved, and we began our 40-minute ski to the night’s sleeping area. The better skiers are given chunky sleds to pull the equipment; thankfully, on the upper end of bad, I got off scot-free, the journey itself sufficiently gruelling without pulling a giant tub across a frozen lake and up a steep hill where strong winds develop.

Like a stern dad on a camping holiday, Baz lead us in erecting the tent as quickly as possible, in case a sudden gust of wind should blow it away. It’s surprisingly warm inside, but we weren't going to sleep here. A few metres away was our actual lodging – or would be. Collectively, we took turns in shovelling out enough snow to create a hole big enough four men (Baz’s record is 32 men).

Building the entrance to avoid prevailing winds protects the cave from the worst of the weather, but I wasn’t convinced I’d get a good night’s sleep. “All it needs is a big trigger or someone walking across it, and the whole slope can go, so actually the conditions underneath the surface are quite dangerous for avalanches at the moment,” Baz explained. Cheers, Baz. Sweet dreams.

After some nighttime skiing (by now, I was basically a pro), and a few drams of whisky (plenty of Mackinlay’s Scotch was consumed on Shackleton’s Endurance trip, a case of which was discovered in 2007 and revived into the recently launched Shackleton Blended Malt), we went off to the hole. It was incredibly quiet, and within five minutes I could hear the sound of snoring. I wasn't so lucky. My face was freezing, a sharp bit of ice was wedged under my mat, and I couldn't shake off the not completely irrational fear of the whole thing caving in.

When Baz abruptly awoke us at 6am, in time for an amazing sunrise even a cold so harsh it felt as though my ears had been smacked by a cricket ball couldn’t ruin, I was glad to have seen out a night in the open, freezing wild. It was a taster, however minuscule, of the conditions and challenges Shackleton and his contemporaries faced in their quests to explore the vast, alluring and, for many, deadly continent of Antarctica during the Heroic Age.