Laurie Skreslet has become the first Canadian to climb to the top of the highest mountain in the world. Along with two Sherpa guides, Skreslet, 32, safely reaches the peak of Mount Everest, even though he chooses to climb up the risky southern path. He spends 33 minutes on the summit.
In a Toronto Star interview on Oct. 28, 1982, Skreslet said, “As I pulled up, it was the first time I thought: ‘Wow, I’m on top of the world. There’s nothing on the surface of the earth that’s higher.’”

• At 8,848 m, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. The excruciatingly thin air slows mountaineers to a crawl, weakens judgment, dulls thirst and appetite and endangers their lives. At the top, only one-third of the air’s usual oxygen is available.
• In summer 1982, Skreslet and 19 other mountaineers set off to climb Mount Everest, in the Himalayas on the border of Nepal and Tibet. The Canadian Mount Everest Expedition took five years to plan, $3 million to fund, and 27 tons of equipment to outfit.

• Four team members – a Canadian and three Sherpas – died in the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, the part of Everest every climber dreads. Skreslet bruised three ribs helping to recover the body of Canadian team member, photographer Blair Griffiths. Six of the original climbers turned back.

• The Canadian team was the 21st expedition to successfully climb to the top of Mount Everest. Some 46 had attempted the feat. Only 100 climbers had made it to the summit before.
Two days after Skreslet, Pat Morrow became the second and only other team member to reach the peak.

• Born in Calgary, Alta, on Oct. 25, 1949, Skreslet was introduced to climbing in 1970. By 1972 he was a member of a successful expedition to Huascaràn (6,768 m), Peru’s highest mountain. He climbed in expeditions almost every year after, in South America, the U.S., and the British Isles. After becoming the first Canadian to stand atop the world, he also attempted Kangchenjunga (8,586 m) – the world’s third largest peak.

• Skreslet was also part of the 1986 Canadian Everest Light Expedition, in which team member and fellow Canadian Sharon Wood became the first North American woman to reach the summit.

Medium: Television
Program: The Journal
Broadcast Date: Oct. 5, 1982
Host: Knowlton Nash, Reporter: Russ Patrick
Duration: 2:00