The Latest Expeditions
Published on 10.06.2009 - General Info
Four expeditions are still living out their terrific adventures. Three in Greenland and one that is attempting the North-West Passage.
We are tracking two of them on a regularly basis. They are the South-North crossing of the Emirates NBD Greenland Quest Expedition of the Dubai resident, Adrian Hayes, together with Devon McDiarmid and with Derek Crowe, who nearly failed not to receive his skis in time (see our tracking), and the similar crossing of the two Norwegians, Hugo R. Hansen and Bjorn E. Bjartnes, who, for their part, are attempting the same route, but a somewhat shorter version of it (see our tracking).
Apart from these expeditions, two other adventures have just been started in the Arctic region. The first is the attempt by seven Frenchmen, all tremendous fans of the northern parts of our planet. The skipper and expedition leader, Thierry Fabing, is taking some of his friends aboard his 14-metre yacht, Baloum Gwen ("White Whale" in Breton) - a sloop with an integral centre board and a steel hull. Last year, the same sloop successfully accomplished the East-West crossing of the legendary passage, which was made famous by the late Belgian, Willy De Roos. At a time when, in just a few years from now no doubt, this passage will have become a marine motorway and frequented by commercial shipping and giant container ships of every kind, the expedition is looking to draw people's attention to the need to save legendary regions of our globe. The navigation will last for approximately 80 days. It should be leaving from the port of Sand Point in Alaska on 5 June and finish its voyage at the end of August in Baffin Island's Pond Inlet. We will be reporting on this adventure from time to time. The Arctic Calling website.
Another expedition that seemed to us to be worth mentioning is the "Pole Dreamers" or "Robinsons On Ice" expedition of Emmanuel Hussenet. The expedition is the first part of a sizeable multi-field operation, called "Farewell to the Polar Pack Ice", which will be taking place over a period of four years.
This year's project: it's a question of getting on a slab of pack ice and drifting on it for as long as possible (regrouping of drift ice) from the Eastern coast of Greenland. No motorisation of any kind is required for this expedition. Sea kayaks alone will be used for getting about, and this craft alone will make it possible to move among the ice. A thick and relatively stable slab will be chosen and a precarious camp will be set up on it. This slab will drift southwards but will also move away towards the open sea, where it will be buffeted by the swell, will probably break up, obliging some rapid dismounting and embarking in order to get on to another host slab. The watch will have be permanent for instantaneous reaction to the movements of the pack ice and to any polar bear visits.
This adventure highlights the fragility of man in an environment that is extraordinarily powerful and subject to unforeseeable forces. In a few years' time, there will be no ice slab thick enough to allow such a drift to take place. It is a question of celebrating this fascinating natural environment by approaching it with simplicity and and a certain degree of poetry - without using fossil fuel and accepting the risks inherent in such an odyssey. This expedition can be tracked on the GNGL website. We will also be tracking it in these pages from time to time.
