Dream Trip: Traverse the High Arctic, Canada

Will Steger
Polar Explorer

“The Inuit or Eskimo people call this area the land of hardship and starvation,” says Will Steger of Canada’s Arctic—in other words, an obvious vacation destination for the famed polar explorer. “For adventure’s sake, I’m stringing together an extremely challenging route, up valleys and rivers and crossing mountains, the whole thing,” says Steger of a 2,000-mile dream expedition that he will undertake during the winter of 2013—14. “A lot of the areas I’ve always wanted to go to and others I want to revisit, particularly some of the native cultures along the way.”

Starting on the Arctic Ocean at the MacKenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories—one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere in winter—Steger will cross thick forests, huge lakes, headwaters of grand rivers most of us have never heard of, open plains, and frozen mountain ranges all the way to South Indian Lake in northern Manitoba. He’ll travel territory he’s never seen but also stop in villages where he’s known three generations of Inuit.

The ever present dangers of bitter cold, storms, and the unknown that would deter less trained individuals don’t phase Steger. In fact, that’s a large part of the appeal. “Go to any wild place, for as long as you can, even if it’s a week or two, and you’ll get a new perspective on your life,” he says.

Visit the National Geographic website to see the article online.