Explorer Will Steger always felt if someone “told me I couldn’t do something, I always took that as a good sign” to do just what he felt he wanted.

He certainly has the resume. Steger, 73, spoke about many of those unconventional pursuits as the opening keynote speaker at the 2018 Minn-Kota Regional Honors Institute and Annual Convention on Thursday at Riverland Community College.

Steger, known for his polar expeditions, spoke primarily of his seven-month, 3,741-mile International Trans-Antarctica Expedition in 1989 at the age of 45. Steger had also led the first dogsled journey to the North Pole without support in 1986; as well as the first dogsled traverse of the Arctic Ocean in one season from Russia to Ellesmere Island in Canada, in 1995.

Such expeditions fed, and continue to feed, Steger’s love of what he calls, “pushing the edge.”

“Not dangerously so,” he said. “But I have learned that life on the edge was a great experience.”

And he would argue, it was dangerous, too. He spoke of wind chills dipping to 120 degrees below zero and white-out conditions. Despite having buried food caches the previous summer, the team found itself without all the caches and faced hunger. One of the team wandered off the camp at night while caught in a white-out; fortunately, he was found the next morning, alive.

“It really is amazing what you can do when you have to,” Steger said.

Steger, a Richfield native, also learned early that he loved the wilderness and that a 9-to-5 teaching job was not for him, even though he holds a master’s degree in education. He taught science for three years, “but being walled in, it drove me nuts.”

So, after he graduated from St. Thomas University, he began a series of lessons, so to speak, that would get him ready for the expeditions. He learned to rock climb and to wall-climb, which took him to climbing mountains.

“I got a hemp rope from the hardware store and a book from the library” about rock climbing he said.

“I was learning my craft,” he said, adding he was discovering that you have to ask “what’s in your heart; if you know that, that’s what you need to do.”

He also knew he wanted to live in the wilderness — and so, for the past 50 years, Steger and friends have been building his home and winter school where he conducts wilderness programs. He as easily calls himself a builder as well as an explorer. The Ely complex is largely built on recycled or native wood. The structure sits miles off a main road — intentionally.

The style of living had its challenges, he said.

“One, how do you deal with friends, with your community” when you are largely inaccessible. “And two, how do you make a living?”

He ended up tapping loves that were interconnected — breeding dog teams and running a wilderness school.

“I never had sponsors; I just worked hard” to purchase the needed equipment for expeditions.

Steger works as hard as he can for environmental causes — some expeditions were made to help raise awareness. Today, he worries about climate change, whose impacts, he told his audience, “are going to have to be faced in your lifetimes.” He already sees changes in ice at the polar caps.

He challenged the young adults attending the event to work on the issues that need addressing, and to vote. He said if young people who were eligible to vote turned out at the polls, “you could take over the political system,” he said.

“Our adults aren’t doing anything but fighting with each other; we need young people to bring these (environmental) issues forward,” he said.

Steger also challenged them to follow dreams.

“What do you do in your life that’s purposeful?” he asked.

The convention continues today with several events, including keynote speeches by author Jack Nelson Pallmeyer and William Kent Krueger.