Exploration
Experience an epic Arctic adventure on Red Bull TV
They found a barely-known Arctic river on Google Maps and set off on an adventure of a lifetime across Greenland to go and paddle it.
Sarah McNair-Landry and her boyfriend Erik Boomer are no strangers to adventure and exploration, nor are they strangers to pushing things to the limit. In one of their latest adventures, documented in Red Bull TV’s Into Twin Galaxies they dealt with a broken back, frozen clothes, racing the clock and the snow melt.
52 min
Into twin galaxies
A team of adventurers undertakes a first-ever kite skiing and kayaking mission across Greenland.
Few, if any of us, have ever truly ventured off the map and into the unknown, but McNair-Landry and Boomer have made a career out of it. We caught up with Sarah and Erik recently to chat more about the quest they undertook in the episode: Into Twin Galaxies.
You guys started your journey out by hiking across a giant field of frozen moguls at the onset of the ice cap, while pulling 45 days worth of gear behind you. But looking back, this was the easiest you’d have it for the entire trip. What came next?
Sarah: I broke my back due to a kite skiing accident early on in the expedition -- a 40 percent compression fracture in my T8 vertebrae. Even though we were able to consult doctors with our satellite phone, we weren’t able to diagnose the problem in the field, which made it a tough decision as to whether I should stay or be evacuated.
Pulling gear across the ice
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Birds-eye view
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Sarah fractured a vertebrae early on
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Navigating the Greenland ice sheet
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Luckily, after the first couple of days I recovered enough that I could kite ski again. With the help and support from Boomer and Ben we were able to complete the trip as a team. It definitely added extra challenges to the expedition for all of us. I was in a lot of pain, and because of the accident it put us behind schedule -- which meant we had to put in some long days of kite skiing.
Can’t imagine that there are a lot of people out there who would’ve kept going.
Sarah: Once I set my mind on something I can become very driven. Some people might call it being stubborn.
You’d think after dealing a broken back Mother Nature would start cutting you guys some slack -- but instead she gave you those snow bridges to tunnel through. How heavily did considering that route weigh on you?
Erik: For me, choosing to go under several snow bridges was difficult -- I couldn’t stop thinking about our team as a whole and the fact that I had zero control over the those things. All I know is that every climber and mountaineer that spends time underneath heavy sheets of ice says to not do it, and if you have to, do everything you can to minimise your time in there. Luckily, there were no close calls. If something had happened, it would not have ended well.
Emerging from a snow tunnel
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How much does fear play into exploration?
Erik: Any worthwhile objective requires a certain amount of risk. For me, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. It’s important to remember that 'fear' and 'risk' don’t always mean 'danger'. Sometimes, the most rewarding, risky endeavour is challenging yourself in a way that makes you feel fear, even if it isn’t actually dangerous.
Film crew roping down cameraman Jochen Schmoll
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Can technology help you alleviate some of that risk?
Sarah: Google Maps has helped scout new areas -- and it's the main reason that we found the two rivers that we call 'Twin Galaxies'. At the same time, Google Maps has horrible resolution in the north and is very outdated (the only images we found were from August 2012), so there was still a lot of unknown in our route. Basically, it gave us just enough info to know there were rivers in the area worth exploring further!
Talking to the film crew
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By the end of your journey, even after all you’d been through, you found an uncharted waterfall line and didn’t shy away from heading right into it with paddle in hand -- how do you mitigate risk as much as possible when doing something like that?
Erik: I analyse and memorise every aspect of the waterfall -- beginning far above the lead-in, to the actual falls and beyond them. I need to know what’s going to happen at any given time if I were to fall off line, and how to cope and deal with any miscalculation or mistake that could happen. But, if I analyse and plan it well enough it usually turns out just how I imagine the line.
Checking out the river
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Heading straight in
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Getting into the river
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Looking down on the kayaker
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Can you recall any instances in this trip where you were humbled -- not by adversity, but by the beauty of the landscape that lay before you?
Sarah: The landscape surrounding the river was beyond our imagination -- the ice canyon was way bigger and deeper than we had previously thought, and the mountains and terrain were a lot more difficult to travel across that we’d initially predicted. The sheer scale of the west coast is what humbled us.
With each new major exploration, does it feel like this world is getting smaller?
Erik: No, not really. Flying out of Greenland I was totally overwhelmed by the vastness of the coastline and the multitude of whitewater, climbing and skiing opportunities that haven’t even been attempted. And that’s just Greenland.
Sheer vastness
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What made each of you want to become modern-day explorers?
Erik: I was inspired by books and movies as a child and dreamt of exploring wild places. At this point in my life, I feel like I have the opportunity to live out those childhood dreams.
Eric Boomer and Sarah McNair-Landry
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Sarah McNair-Landry is one tough adventurer
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Eric Boomer living out childhood dreams
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Sarah: One of my goals is to inspire and encourage other people to get outside and be active. The more time we all spend in the outdoors, the more we learn to care and protect it -- and that’s what’s important to me.