French Explorer Sets Sights on Northwest Passage

Last week I shared a story about an adventurous family that will sail the Northwest Passage this summer, but unsurprisingly they won't be alone up there in the Arctic. We've also learned that French explorer Alban Michon will also head to that mythical waterway with plans to help raise awareness of what is happening in that part of the world as climate change alters it forever.

As we've mentioned before on The Adventure Blog, the Northwest Passage is a section of the Arctic Ocean that remained largely frozen shut for centuries due to permanent pack ice. For hundreds of years, explorers searched for a safe way through, in the process creating a faster trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This wasn't possible until recently, when increasing temperatures due to climate change have melted the ice and made the Passage navigable my ships for several months each year. It is now believed that by 2050, the route will be almost completely ice free, creating the trade route long sought, but bringing a number of other challenges along with it.

Michon plans to cross the Northwest Passage on skis, pulling an 180 kg (396 lbs.) sled behind him with gear, supplies, and equipment. When the weather permits, he'll use a kite to propel him along across the ice. He'll embark on the journey in March of this year, and expects it to take about two months for him to travel from Resolute Bay in Canada to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, covering some 1240 miles (1995 km) along the way. He'll be following the same route pioneered by Roald Amundsen, who was the first to complete this crossing back in 1906. It took him and his team three years to make the journey.

Along the way, the French explorer will take video and photos of the fragile Arctic environment in its current state. This will document the impact of warming temperatures on the Northwest Passage. He'll also take samples of the ground, measure the level of aerosols in the atmosphere, and study his own brain activity while traveling in an extreme environment. He'll also analyze plankton living in the area to register the impact of changing conditions on them as well. Michon will even dive into the Arctic water to get a look at the passage from underneath the sea too.

You'll be able to follow Michon's expedition when he gets underway in early March on his website, Facebook page, and Twitter. It should certainly be an interesting adventure to watch unfold.

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Adventurous Family Will Sail the Northwest Passage in 2018

One adventurous family has quite a journey scheduled for 2018. On June 1, Graeme and Janna Esarey, along with their daughters Talia and Savai, will set out from Seattle on a sailing expedition that will take them through the Canadian Arctic as they travel the Northwest Passage.

Graeme and Janna are experienced sailors who spent their honeymoon crossing the Pacific Ocean. They say that the plan has always been to sail with their children when it was age appropriate, and now they are ready to begin those adventures. The plan is to navigate through the Northwest Passage and continue on to Europe, making a journey that few have been fortunate enough to undertake until this century.

The fabled Northwest Passage was long sought by sailors and explorers looking to travel faster from the Atlantic and the Pacific. But due to thick ice and inhospitable conditions, it was closed for centuries. Modern ice breakers made it a more viable option, but the cost of operating those ships is prohibitively expensive. Now, climate change has made sailing the route a real option as it is typically completely navigable by August of each year.

Graeme says the idea for making this sailing expedition came about after speaking to polar explorer Eric Larsen at Outdoor Retailer. The father of two has served as the CEO of gear manufacturer Industrial Revolution since 2011, and Larsen has been a brand ambassador for the company. After speaking to Eric, Graeme headed home with the germ of an idea for taking his family on a major adventure, which they'll undertake on a ship called the Dogbark – a 60-foot racing vessel with plenty of room to spread out, including separate cabins for each of the girls.

Currently the Esarey family is in planning and preparation mode prior to the start of the voyage in June. You can read all about their plans, and why they are undertaking this adventure, on their website saildogbark.com. The site is being updated regularly with blog posts about their progress and should be a great way to follow along with their journey once they embark in a few months.

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Kayaker Begins Northwest Passage Paddle

Summer in the Northern Hemisphere brings new opportunities for adventure, and over the past few years, that has included the opening of the Northwest Passage in the arctic ocean. We've seen several attempts recently to cross that fabled stretch of water, and this year will be no exception. One paddler got underway on Tuesday, and despite good conditions early on, she is already experiencing the challenges of Arctic.

French adventurer Anne Quéméré set off from Inuvik, located in the Northwest Territories of Canada on Tuesday, and reported easy paddling as she made her way through the MacKenzie Delta towards the Arctic Ocean. It was so easy in fact, that she spent 12 hours making good progress, before stopping for a short nap, and then continuing on once again. But yesterday, reality set in, as high winds helped to make progress extremely difficult. In fact, Anne reports that she was paddling for sometime before she looked over at the shore and noticed that she wasn't making any progress. With that realization, she elected to seek shelter from the storm and wait for better weather.

She's likely to face more days like that one before her crossing of the Northwest Passage is complete. She hopes to make her way from Inuvik, through the maze of ice and water that is constantly changing, eventually reaching the Beaufort Sea, covering a distance of approximately 3000 km (1864 miles) in the process.


Quéméré is no stranger to adventure, especially those that take her across large sections of water. In 2002, she spent 56 days rowing across the Atlantic Ocean along the Tradewind Route between the Canary Islands and the West Indies. She followed that up in 2004 with a row across the Northern Atlantic that began in the U.S. and ended in France, covering some 6450 km (4007 miles). Later, she would also kite solo across the Atlantic (6700km/4163 miles) and the Pacific (7000km/4349 miles). This latest adventure through the Northwest Passage is just a progression of sorts for her.

Until somewhat recently, the Northwest Passage simply wasn't possible to sail through. But global climate change has made the area much more accessible, and explorers have been taking advantage of that change to visit that part of the world. The passage will freeze shut again at the end of summer, so Anne will have to make good time through the ice. Hopefully she's setting out early enough that this won't be a problem, but conditions still remain dicey on the Arctic Ocean, even during the warmest months of the year.

You can follow her progress on the expedition's official website.

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French Team Pulls Plug On North Pole Sailing Expedition

A few weeks back I posted the story of two French sailors – Sébastien Roubinet and Vincent Berthet – who were attempting to sail from Barrow, Alaska to Spitsbergen, Svalbard via the North Pole aboard a specially designed catamaran that was built to cross both water and ice. At the time, the two men were still making their way north and were facing considerable challenges in the from of inclement weather and waterways that were more choked with ice than they had anticipated. On Saturday, the team elected to abandon their quest due to conditions that were deteriorating much more quickly than they had expected.

According to this story at ExWeb the team ran into problems after they crossed 82ºN. From there they started to see increased ice build up on the surface of the Arctic Ocean which was making it increasingly more difficult to make any kind of progress. On Saturday, August 31 they had only managed to cross .8 miles (1.3 km) by noon. Temperatures had fallen rapidly and the conditions were right for more ice to build up. Worse yet, the forecast said that those conditions would remain the same for the next eight days, which meant little or no progress in the future. It was than that Sébastien and Vincent made the tough choice to pull the plug on their adventure and head home.

Of course, even that won't exactly be easy to do. They are fairly far north and the bad weather conditions continue to hamper them. They also happen to be a long way from land. In fact, as of Saturday, they were just 100 miles from the Pole of Inaccessibility, which is the furthest point from land anywhere in the Arctic Ocean. That means they still have quite a journey ahead even if they aren't going to be able to complete their intended adventure.

I'm a bit sad to see these expedition come to an end. I was hoping to follow them all the way to Svalbard as I really liked the concept of their travels. It's too bad that they won't be able to continue, but it sounds like the conditions in the Arctic have been especially difficult this season, not just for this team but others who have been in the Northwest Passage. Lets hope these two men make back to land safely.

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Polar America Traverse: Across The Arctic By Ski and Kayak

Explorer Yuri Klaver has announced his next expedition and it's a big one. Beginning in July of this year, Yuri will attempt a traverse of the Arctic on skis and in a kayak. The journey, which he calls the Polar America Traverse, will follow a similar route taken by Roald Amundsen in 1906, traveling approximately 10,000km (6214 miles) from Europe to Asia.

In order to accomplish this epic task, Yuri has broken his expedition down into three segments. This July he'll begin on the Kamchatka Peninsula and start heading east, crossing the Bearing Strait and traveling into northern Alaska. He'll start in his kayak and paddle upstream as much as possible before traveling on foot through the Brooks Range mountains. The plan is to use his kayak as a sledge for his gear and to ski to the Beauford Sea, which he hopes to reach by May of 2013.

The second phase of the journey will begin in the winter of 2014, when Yuri will employ the use of kites to cross the Northwest Passage  to Baffin Island, where he'll return to his kayak for more paddling. Then in 2015 he'll wrap up the expedition with a traverse of Greenland, followed by crossing the sea to Iceland.

Yuri is still working out the logistics and details on some of these phases and obviously the schedule could be impacted by weather, finances and other forces. But he is moving ahead with his start in July and has every intention of sticking to his schedule.

Find out more and follow along with his progress at OutdoorEmpathy.com. And watch for an app to track the expedition for iOS devices in the near future.

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