70 Hours of Celebration and Impact (Happy Birthday, Ann!)

An important recurring theme throughout my life – beginning from before I can even remember – is my mom having my back. 

As she told it, for the first several years of my life, I did not speak when others did. I was very physical, and although I couldn’t walk yet, I was all over the property on my knees and palms (I loved rotten apples in the orchard). 

She ended up creating a cage for me to keep me from climbing the bookshelves and later felt ashamed that she caged her second kid. The lack of talking was more serious – to others. She explained that in good time my words would come – that there was nothing wrong and that she knew I was tuned into the world from my attention/observation.

My mom was always in my corner when things seemed off or tough or off the map. 

At the ages of 10-12, my family was off to Africa. Living in Africa strongly influenced my life then and continues to this day. The experience opened my eyes to a grand, wonderful, complex world.

We lived in the countryside filled with exotic animals we had once only seen in children's books, and warm, wonderful people who invited us in. Fond memories include stamp collections, reading, writing letters home, games with no TV – a two-and-a-half-year camping trip of sorts.

Of the hundreds of memories in that short 2 1/2 years, one of my favorites is when I caught a dormouse, and it became my friend. I raised it in my closet in a shoe box. Since I was off to school each day, it would have to come with me. I wore a uniform (a hang-up of the British) and it lived during the day inside my dress, mostly around the waist, but occasionally it would poke its head out of my top button.

I got away with this for months. The sad ending involved my house cat, who breached the shoe box one night as I slept. 

In 7th Grade – newly back from Kenya, I wrote the St. Paul Como Zoo and told them I was uniquely qualified to be a foster parent to a giant cat. My handwritten letter explained that all the animals I had raised or been in contact with while living in Africa gave me perfect qualifications to raise a baby… something.

My mother posted the letter to the zoo, thinking this was a non-starter, and nothing more was said. I received a letter back some weeks later that they would keep my letter on file, but at this time did not need a foster parent.

Time passed, and I indeed got a call that three lion cubs had been born and they needed a foster! Of two males and one female I could pick. My mom drove me to Como Zoo on a crisp morning to pick up my girl, Amonie ("peace" in Swahili). I struck a deal with my mom that I needed to take this on, but she would back me up while I was in school.

So, at the crack of dawn, in the darkness, I sat with Amonie to try to get her to take a bottle. While at school, my mom would feed her, and upon returning from school, I would take over. 

My mom taught me to be a momma lion with a hot washcloth to stimulate her bowels like a momma lion licking. I would sit in the darkness of the morning when she wouldn’t take the bottle yet and cry, thinking she might die, and then – pop! She took it.

She imprinted on me and while at school would hang in my bedroom and shred my pillow as she cuddled it… (I still have the pillow).

Amonie and my mom taught me you can’t have the things you love forever. I would have to give her back some months down the road.

Hardest lesson, EVER: to love, but let go.

In 1974, after graduating from high school, I spent the summer far north in Canada canoeing with five other girls. By the time I came home, I was late to the start of my first semester of college.

After writing them asking to start the second semester, I was floating around in Minnesota. I decided to take three classes at the University of Minnesota and try out for their basketball team.

After two rounds of tryouts, I was cut, and my bubble was burst. After being the best player in high school, I was not even in the running on a bigger stage. But as luck would have it, I joined a different team.

On a fluke, I landed a job that lasted through Christmas as a Golden Gopher mascot. My job was to hand out golden medallions to kids – trying not to make the young ones cry out of fear for a giant gopher, and never take my head off regardless of how hot it was in my suit (I sometimes snuck to a parking ramp and pulled the head off to get a little air).

Best job I ever had!

So much of my life has been punctuated by public expeditions.

1986: The North Pole Expedition – gave me my start and an understanding that through these experiences, I could blend my two passions.

Expeditions and Education: AWE in the 1990s, eventually morphing into ABF. And then, the Antarctic crossing in 2000-01. More would follow off the ice.

In 1986, we all put a small stone in our pockets from the tip of Canada as we pushed off onto the Arctic Ocean – a reminder of home and terra firma. Every expedition since I have carried a small stone in my chest pocket.

While in Cape Town waiting to embark to the Antarctic ice for 100 days, I visited Robin Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. I stood in his concrete cell with no words and stared at the pile of stones – still there – that he was instructed to crush each day under the hot sun. 

Without much thought, I picked up a small stone that I would carry across the ice cap. I knew that when things seemed impossible some days on the ice, I could touch my hand to my heart where the stone was and think that there were much harder things to endure than putting one foot in front of the other to get across Antarctica.

That touchstone would help push me along when I most needed it. 

Years later, I flew to New York to receive an award. This happened to be during New York Fashion Week.

I was dropped off at a really nice hotel next to Central Park. Dressed as my typical self with Birkenstocks and blue jeans for travel, and didn’t fully grasp that the hotel would be filled with fancy people.

Once checked in I went to my "room," which turned out to be more like an apartment, with a living room, bedroom, and two bathrooms!

The phone rang and the woman from the front desk started talking about the fact that she had upgraded me. Then she started saying that she “wasn’t supposed to talk to guests like this," but she “just had to tell me how much she liked my body of work."

As she gushed, I tried to interject that she had the wrong Ann(e) Bancroft! She hung up before I could straighten her out. I wondered how she thought the short, blue-jeaned person was remotely like the other…

Needless to say, I stayed in the suite. 

On the eve of my 7th decade, what I feel absolute about (amongst this turbulent world) is that I am beyond rich in family and friends and the solace of where I live (State of Minnesota) and my home in the woods.

Each day, I find something that tickles my funny bone. Each day, I find magic on my walks of wonder, even when I might be distracted, I get pulled in.

This richness helps me to navigate with hope and a layer of serenity. 

I am off to have an ice cream!

xoxo