On Epic and Not

Before I was lucky enough to get a spot on this crew, I didn’t know much about the Northwest Passage and even less about the Canadian Arctic. I suppose I knew the passage was a thing shrouded in mystery for years and that people died trying to get through it, but I’m sure I didn’t know much else. I certainly couldn’t have named which explorer conquered it first. As it was for most of the vessels in the world, the Canadian Arctic just never got on my radar.

Since late February, I’ve been absorbing everything I can on the place. Though only about a quarter of the miles on this trip will be through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, I wanted to know more, a lot more, about it. After reading all the required histories of the attempts and multiple first-hand accounts of modern sailors making it (and not) through Northwest Passage, My opinion going in was confirmed. Like so many other epic challenges conquered by mankind, what I learned about the “search” for and the “discovery” of the Northwest passage has cemented my opinion that the words “epic adventure” very often describe an act of stupidity.

One of the widely accepted truths by any half-serious student of the Canadian Arctic is that the local Inuit population knew exactly where the “passage” was and exactly how often it was open or not. They knew every possible route through their islands. They had been traversing these waterways on foot and by kayak for centuries, maybe thousands of years before Sir John Franklin was born.

Franklin was the British Admiralties sixth choice captain to lead an expedition to “discover” the passage and fill in the blanks on the maps in 1845. Three years later, after almost immeasurable suffering, all 129 men were dead, and the ships lie at the bottom of the sea.

Franklin’s 2nd in command was Francis Crozier, an experienced officer with years in the arctic before the 1845 expedition and he actually spoke a good deal of Inuktitut. If, instead of pushing into the archipelago trying to “discover” the way through, they would have just stayed in Greenland or across the bay on Baffin Island and talked to people, they could have filled in every blank on the map with local knowledge, learned exactly how often (and not) the way through was open to ships, and claimed victory on their mission.

Like so many failed attempts at discovery (Franklin’s in the arctic, Scott’s at the South Pole) the true cause of the tragedy was not the vast arctic wilderness with its harsh conditions and desolate landscapes, it was hubris. It was the oldest stupid in the book, and it sounds something like, “What do you know, Savage, you don’t even speak the King’s English. Harumph. “

While the 129 men of the Franklin expedition were starving and dying of scurvy on King William Island (Qikiqtaq), the locals were raising babies and toddlers on that same island and in the same conditions. Death wasn’t inevitable.

Roald Amundsen’s success in the Northwest Passage was all about his willingness to learn from the locals, to respect their knowledge and mimic their methods of survival in that harsh place.

To date, since Roald Amundsen took the first non-indigenous vessel through the passage in (1903-1906) only 430 maritime transits of the Northwest Passage have occurred.  Fewer than 300 vessels have made the trip.  This of course is the number of outsiders who have made the trip. The residents are out there all the time.

An Adventure, Certainly, But Not an Epic One

120 years later, and in particular over the past 15 years where a warming climate made it possible for John Pennington to sail through with his (very) young son, do we get to call this particular trip “epic?” I don’t think so. Certainly we are traveling to a remote and dangerous part of the world, but mostly because it is remote. Like all voyages anywhere, it has risks that must be managed. But before we set out from Portland, I’ll tell you this – if this trip becomes at all “epic” it will be because we screwed something up. With modern technology along with daily updates from the Canadian Ice Office, we’re going to have huge advantages in managing those risks. We will have every available tool to make good decisions. We have the right boat. We have a crew of considerate and experienced people with zero things to prove.

The views will be epic, the landscapes and wildlife; once in a lifetime (for us), but the trip?

Amundsen left Oslo, Norway on June 16th, 1903, aboard his purpose-built ship, the Gjoa (pronounced ‘Joe”), with six other men, to research the magnetic North Pole and, if he could, transit the long-elusive Northwest Passage.  He made his way through the Canadian Archipelago almost half-way and then was iced in for 2 full years. The third summer the ice thawed enough to free his ship, and he landed in Nome in August of 1906, three years later.  To send word back home to Oslo, Amundsen drove a dogsled (something else the locals taught him how to do) over one-thousand miles – it took two months – to send a wire to Norway to announce his success. That means Amundsen left home in 1903 and his family had to wait three years and over four months to find out if he was still alive.  

On the trip Sarah-Sarah is taking, our cells phones are going to work. We’ve got satellite connectivity and three backup systems. Trackers will report our position …constantly. We’ll stream live video to our Facebook followers whenever the mood strikes us.  We’ll watch movies on Netflix if we’re bored enough. We’ll get daily ice and weather reports, often complete with satellite imagery. And with the arctic right outside the well-insulated FPBs 19-millimeter windows, we’ll eat dinner most nights, I am sure of it, in shorts and T-shirts.

A northwest passage trip is rare – less and less so every year – but I’m not able to call it epic. It requires planning, preparation, and (to do in in comfort) privilege. Once in a lifetime?  Maybe.  An epic adventure?  Sorry, but when I read any book written about a “Northwest Passage” trip that attempts to connect itself in any way to Amundsen or any earlier explorers or that goes on and on about the narrow escapes, usually of their own making, my bullshit meter pegs to ten. This trip is like every other trip, fail to plan and prepare, make bad decisions about which boat to take or the weather you’re willing to face, problems will arise.

Like all offshore passages where distance and remoteness live, there is an increased risk. And I’m not downplaying the very real hazard presented by the ice, but it becomes a problem when you ignore it as a risk – true of all risks – and not a minute before. We are a crew of fortunate, well-equipped visitors; not adventurers. I hope we are lucky enough to meet some of the awesome locals who call those epic views home.