As if reaching the North Pole by land isn’t cold enough, try navigating to the destination by water. That’s what Scottish explorer Jock Wishart plans to do–to become the first to lead a five-strong crew through some of the harshest conditions on Earth by way of Arctic waters. His team plans to become the first to row to the North Pole as they navigate 450 miles on a route only now accessible due to global warming and the deterioration of the Arctic landscape.
The route, which will start in Resolute Bay, Canada in July and August of next year, is promoted as being of global significance: It’s both a pioneering maritime adventure and an environmental expedition.
It’s a feat of no small proportion as the expedition, named The Old Pulteney Row, will be the first polar excursion to involve rowing since Ernest Shackleton and his team’s boats saved their lives during the legendary Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1916.
But Wishart and his team won’t have to return to civilization to share the greatest–and most challenging–moments of their adventure. Cameras will follow the explorer from preparing for the row to hauling the boat overland to facing dramatic ice-bound coastlines and shifting sea-ice barriers. Wishart and his crew will have to row for hours in challenging weather and subzero temperatures with little to no rest or shelter, and it will all be caught on camera.
But Wishart is not new to extreme adventure. He’s one of the UK’s leading adventurers and explorers with a successful background in polar exploration, rowing and extreme navigational feats. In 1992 he was part of the first team to walk unsupported to the Geomagnetic North Pole. He’s led a team that established 15 world speed records for powered circumnavigation, and in 1992 he captained a crew that broke the London to Paris rowing record.
Wishart said this rowing expedition will be “the greatest challenge of my life.” And we agree: The parameters of his journey take extreme adventure to an unprecedented level.
[Via: Scottsman]
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