Jon and Erik: Circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island
Jan 19, 2012
Sponsored by AT and weilding AT2 Superlights Jon Turk and Erik Boomer completed the first modern day circumnavigation of the desolate Ellesmere Island in Wilderness Systems Tsunami 135 kayaks.
To stave off a breaching 3,000-pound walrus from the cockpit of a small sea kayak, Erik Boomer recommends using the paddle.
“Sort of like a Heisman stiff-arm, hit him in the face and try to feed him the paddle,” he said. “Then start paddling.”
The first 600 miles of the Ellesmere Island expedition had not been so sporting — lots of marching along on skis with skins, towing the boats.
“Kind of a goofy sea kayak trip, because we haven't been sea kayaking
yet,” Jon Turk said via satellite phone 38 days into the journey. He
added, “At every moment, we expect the possibility that we're going to
run into big trouble.”
Opposite Greenland along the ice-choked Nares Strait, Ellesmere
(population 146) is the northernmost isle of the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago and the most mountainous island in the Arctic Circle. “It's
stacked with fatty mountains,” Boomer said. Ellesmere, the world's 10th
largest island, is also something of a jewel of Arctic exploration, its
rugged and icebound 1,500-mile perimeter rarely traveled before.