Passage'two Siblings. Two Sails. 3000 Kilometres. One Epic Pilgrimage
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By Margo Pfeiff ‘Oh, for just one time, I would sail the left: lee narraway right: right: lee narraway left: Northwest Two siblings. Two sails. 3,000 kilometres. One epic eri C MC pilgrimage – blow by blow. >> nair 46 up here maY 2012 maY 2012 up here 47 - PassagE’ lan D RY KITE-SKIING: NORTHWEST PASSAGE LEE NARRAWAY technicolour Arctic butterflies against a deep blue April sky, six kites soar across the flat white landscape of Vic- toria Island. Behind them they tow skiers, zigzagging and whooping in the spring sunshine as the Nunavut community of Cambridge Bay dwindles to a speck in the Likedistance. Then, four of the kite-skiers – an “escort party” of locals – turn back, shouting wishes for good wind. The remaining two, siblings Eric ERIC MCNAIR-LANDRY and Sarah McNair-Landry, wave and keep moving east. Just a few kilometres further on, they spot half a dozen muskoxen. Sailing slowly over the rough sea ice, their options are limited: They have no choice but to move directly toward the herd, thinking they’ll Matty remembers the kids pitching run in the other direction. Surprisingly, they gallop closer, then stop. ding, skiing and kayaking, bivouacking in 20, they skied with Matty to the South buggies. It was an epic a tent on the back deck, lighting up Each time the skiers approach, their kites billowing in the sky, the ani- tents on the tundra, and meeting up with Pole, becoming the youngest people to do trek, powered entirely by the MSR stove for dinner, checking mals run briefly, then stop to watch. “Herding muskoxen with kites,” polar bears. “When they were little, they’d so. Three years later they joined Ameri- the wind – and at night, Eric says to his sister. “That’s gotta be a first!” Finally, they pause to let watch Richard Weber [a leading polar can explorer Will Steger on a 2,250-ki- bunked down in their their GPS unit and radioing their ABOVE: For the three the muskoxen amble off. guide] training for a North Pole trip, ski- lometre dogsledding expedition from dusty tents, they began co-ordinates to their base camp inside. months it took brother The siblings haven’t been able to pause much on this trip. It’s Day ing back and forth across the sea ice on Resolute Bay, Nunavut, up and down the discussing other kite- and sister Eric and Sarah McNair-Landry to trek the 36 of their quest to kite-ski the length of the Northwest Passage – 3,000 Frobisher Bay outside our back door,” says length of Ellesmere Island. They’ve also powered adventures. When they were growing up, explorers and expe- Northwest Passage, home kilometres through the most legendary corridor in the Arctic. Eric, 26, Paul. “They’d beg to go out and join him, crossed the Greenland ice cap four times, ditions were the stuff of dinner-table conversation, and few treks were as was an expedition tent and Sarah, 25, had left from the Beaufort Sea village of Tuktoyaktuk, and we wouldn’t see them the rest of the for which National Geographic named revered as Roald Amundsen’s groundbreaking Northwest Passage trip. pegged to the ice. RIGHT: Northwest Territories, and expect to arrive in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, at day.” Matty remembers the kids pitching them its 2008 Adventurers of the Year. Sailing west from Davis Strait in 1903, it took Amundsen three winters When winds weren’t in their favour, they stowed their the edge of Baffin Bay, two months from now. Their next stop is Gjoa a tent on the back deck, lighting up the Ironically, though, the first seeds of to become the first person to navigate that legendary route, arriving in kites and man-hauled east. Haven, 400 kilometres away. MSR stove for dinner, checking their GPS their Northwest Passage expedition were the Beaufort Sea in 1906. Eric and Sarah decided they would re-trace unit and radioing their co-ordinates to sown not on ice, but sand. In 2009, Eric Amundsen’s path – but would do it in the opposite direction, and in a Despite their youth, Eric and Sarah are old hands on the ice. their base camp inside. and Sarah were traversing Mongolia’s single season, using kite-skis and going flat-out from west to east. They’re the wunderkinds of famous polar guides Matty McNair and Paul Over time, their make-believe became 1,200-kilometre-wide Gobi Desert, rid- They assembled sponsors: Ozone Snowkites would provide 14- Landry, and were raised in Iqaluit, where family outings meant dogsled- real. In 2005, when Sarah was 18 and Eric ing over the dry plains in kite-powered metre paraglider-style kites, National Geographic would supply some 48 up here maY 2012 maY 2012 up here 49 KITE-SKIING: NORTHWEST PASSAGE SARAH MCNAIR-LANDRY ling with a stranger.” Eric is “We have an unspoken truce that laid back, with a strong techie streak; Sarah, like her mother, we don’t rib or tease one is goal-oriented and competi- another about our differences on tive. Sarah likes to travel on a the trail,” says Eric. “It wears strict schedule; Eric calls her “militant” and refuses to wear down the morale very fast.” ERIC MCNAIR-LANDRY a watch. “We have an unspoken truce that we don’t rib or tease one another about our differences on the “There are no surprises between cash in exchange for photo and the winds are in your favour, it’s a eu- less slogging – and, blissfully, windy days trail,” says Eric. “It wears down the morale very fast.” rights, and Canadian North phoric way to travel. Over the past decade of kite-skiing across landscapes buttered As they zigzagged eastward, friends, family and curious Northern- Eric and I,” says Sarah. would fly supplies into com- and a half, kite-skiing has become the with low, reddish sunlight. They quickly ers followed their progress on blogs and videos Eric beamed onto their “We know our strengths and munities along their route. On favoured method of transport for polar fell into a routine. They pitched tents and website. He described kiting past pingos, foxes and caribou. Near Pau- March 19, 2011, in Tuktoyak- trekkers. Eric and Sarah fell in love with packed them, rolled and unrolled kites, latuk, he wrote about the stench and surreal appearance of the Smok- weaknesses. It’s not the same tuk, they stepped into their skis it a dozen years ago, letting the wind pull gorged on high-calorie meals to stave off ing Hills – a perpetually burning coal-seam smouldering on the coast. as travelling with a stranger.” and strapped harnesses to their them across the icy expanse of Frobisher the cold, and downloaded weather and They encountered abandoned boats that hadn’t made it through the chests. Tethered to their waists Bay. In 2007, they formed Team Pittarak wind forecasts on their satellite phone. passage, one of them with magazines from the 1960s on board. At were sleds, weighed down with as much as 300 pounds of food and (the name means “fierce winds”) to kite Each morning, Sarah would spring out communities along the passage, they were welcomed with open doors, gear. To their fronts they clipped 60-metre lines, at the end of which 2,300 kilometres across Greenland from of the tent, ready to roll. Meanwhile, Eric hot meals and new friends. LEFT: In the tent, the siblings busy themselves were kites as broad as a house. Gusts filled the nylon sails, which rose south to north. During that trek, they would remain in the depths of his sleep- with essentials – gobbling into the sparkling sky. They were off. once covered 412 kilometres in 24 hours. ing bag, grumbling. ON May 7, two weeks after leaving Cambridge Bay, they skied out calories, drying gear, plotting As they set out from Tuk on the North- Although the pair have their differ- onto the wide-open Gulf of Boothia. Lately, travel had been a challenge. their way forward. ABOVE: Kite-skiing in the Arctic can be either a blessing or a curse. west Passage, their distances weren’t ences, they travel easily together. “There Gjoa Haven to Taloyoak was brutal: They were forced to pick their way Eric, tethered to his kite. Once, in Greenland, he set a Where the wind and tides have churned the ice into a jagged battle- quite so impressive. Their aim was to av- are no surprises between Eric and I,” through boulder fields stretching to the horizon. Their sleds took a world record, kite-skiing 595 field, or when the wind dies and the kites are becalmed, progress can erage 42 kilometres a day, the equivalent says Sarah. “We know our strengths and beating. Some days Sarah would unpack dented pots and battered cups kilometres in a single day. be excruciating. But when a smooth white field unfurls in front of you of a marathon. There were days of wind- weaknesses. It’s not the same as travel- and bowls. > 50 up here maY 2012 maY 2012 up here 51 KITE-SKIING: NORTHWEST PASSAGE SARAH MCNAIR-LANDRY Yet they knew they were about to encounter their biggest chal- lenge: crossing the sea-ice from the Boothia Peninsula to Baffin Island. Though only 100 kilometres wide, the crossing would be unpredictable – some years it freezes solid, other years it’s open, churned by swirling currents that give it the nickname “the toilet bowl.” To get a look at it, they ascended to a high point, “double-hauling” over rubble ice by first pulling one sled and then backtracking to get the second.