Latest NEWS  Tuesday, January 17, 2012An Odd Couple Travels 1,500 Arctic Miles
By TIM MUTRIE
Erik Boomer and Jon Turk hardly knew each other before they set out in kayaks and circumnavigated Canada’s Ellesmere Island in 104 days, becoming the first to do so. Read full article:
I just received word from National Geographic. "The Nepali team, Babu and Lakpa, nabbed it! There were about 72,000 votes cast. And they came out on top. Pretty exciting and unexpected and wonderful." I want to thank all my friends and family for voting for Erik and me. But at the same time, here is my response to the National Geographic Team; "Of course it would have been a feather in our caps if we had won, but I am so glad that Babu and Lakpa took the prize. In addition to the physical and logistic aspects of their incredible adventure, they had so many economic and social barriers to overcome. This total combination of accomplishments makes their feat so remarkable. Hat’s off to those two."
Moolynaut passed away in early Dec, 2011. For those of you who read, The Raven's Gift, she was the Koryak healer who helped me mend my pelvis. She was born during the reign of Czar Nicholas II, in a near Stone Age existence, and is probably one of the last of the aboriginal Siberian shamans. We all morn her passing, but it was inevitable, just as the sun rises and the seasons change. Along with our sadness it is important to keep the ancient wisdoms alive in this internet crazed, oil soaked world.
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EllesmereEllesmere Island Circumnavigation: 2011 Pre-Expedition Thoughts Below (written a month before we left): To view the the day-by-day expedition blog updates, click here. In 1988, Chris Seashore and I paddled from the south coast of Ellesmere Island, up the east coast and across to Greenland. The story of this adventure is chronicled in my first book, Cold Oceans. I post a few photos from that expedition, below.
It's been nagging me, for the last few decades, that no one in modern times has circumnavigated the island. (Of course some teenagers on dogsleds may have done it a long time ago, but that is a different story.) So I decided to go back to Ellesmere. But with whom? It promises to be a hard trip. A week later, my good friend Tyler Bradt called up, "Hey let's go on an expedition together!" Erik Boomer joined enthusiastically and we had a team. The Strategy: View from March 2011 Ellesmere Island is one of the closest points of land to the North Pole. Regarded by many as one of the last great Arctic expeditions, this circumnavigation will follow the rugged, treacherous coast of Ellesmere for 1,400 miles. We will start in early May, 2011 and sail, ski, trek, and sea kayak during the spring and summer thaw. If all goes well, the journey will take 100 days and we'll complete it by mid August. We thank our major sponsors for making this expedition possible. Eddie Bauer - First Ascent Polartec Performance Grant Wilderness Systems and AT Paddles Please visit my sponsor page to view the entire spectrum of what these and other sponsors are doing for us. The Route Ellesmere Island shown on a world map. Ellesmere is separated from Greenland by a narrow strait, which was the crux of our expedition. The horizontal red line is the Arctic Circle. The vertical red lines show that the distance from the Arctic circle to the north coast of Ellesmere is about the same as the distance from the Arctic Circle to Cuba (except in the other direction).
Below is a more detailed map of our route.
To view the the day-by-day expedition blog updates, click here. |
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