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People & Culture

A passage through Ice: Setting sail

  • Jun 20, 2012
  • 251 words
  • 2 minutes
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Two years ago, Edvin Buregren and I hatched an expedition plan to sail into the Arctic to explore the north of Canada and its secrets. The idea quickly grew with our research into the area, as we studied ice charts and satelitte images we noticed new routes were emerging into and through the Arctic.

Our expedition soon became linked to a climate change message in an attempt to sail from Atlantic to Pacific via a new route that we think will clear of ice this year due to polar ice cap depletion.

We put together an expedition boat and set sail from Sweden to Scotland, Iceland and Greenland to test all our gear in the ice and freezing cold of the North Atlantic before the following year’s Arctic attempt.

Now, a year later, we’re in Newfoundland, making final preparations for the expedition for which we set sail this morning. It’s a five-month journey that will see us sail to the coast of Greenland, which we will follow north until the polar ice stops us, then cross over into the Canadian Arctic where we will sail east and wait for favorable ice reports before we try our break through passage into Alaskan waters to complete the expedition in Vancouver.

Over the next five months we will share our adventures and link them to the history of the Canadian Arctic – the culture, explorers, entrepreneurs and personalities of this amazing part of our country.

We look forward to posting our progress.

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