Nilo John Haning Speke Memorial

– Excellent! Here it is, just like I remembered.

There, hidden from peering eyes, in the place where he was killed in a hunting accident, stood the monument to one of my idols: Nile River explorer John Haning Speke. To stay warm, Hempleman-Adams covered his nose with the scarf he wore, and leaned over the monument to clear away the ivy covering it. We stood silent. All of us were offroad travelers, sailors of the sea of adventure. Three Britons and three Spaniards, gathered around a memorial stone in a cold, dark night. It was then and there that Laura and I decided to carry out our arctic project.

For my journeys, I’ve even hired psychologists to determine if people are fit for the test. But the beer test is what works best. Drink with a man and in the end he will open up his soul – confessed David later that evening.
We talked a bit about everything and in the end, inevitably, the conversation steered to classic Victorian explorers. Livingstone, Burton, Speke…
– Well, Speke died about a mile from here – Hempleman proclaimed – There’s a memorial stone to remember him. We can visit it if you want.

Northabout in the port of Bristol

The next day we went upriver on board the legendary polar exploration sailboat “Northabout”, designed in Paris by Caroff Duflos Naval Architects. The Northabout was built in Ireland in 2000 by Jarlath Cunnane and is entirely made of aluminum. It is a 15X4 meter vessel with no concessions to aesthetics, one of the world’s finest when it comes to sailing in icy waters.

“It’s a tank, everything in it is made to resist”, Mike Steward said about it.

Hempleman-Adams had made the wonderful decision to support our project and contributed with his ship, as Nansen had done with the Fram when he gave it to Amundsen for his conquest of the South Pole. We were ecstatic as we cruised up the River Avon, though an industrial-era landscape and surrounded by a dream crew. Along with Mike, who would be the helmsman, were Pete – a charming fellow brought up in the Merchant Navy, Dave “the Dangerous” and Rob, a very decided-looking young man. We sailed upriver and left the ship in a repair shop where it would be prepared for our budding adventure.

Mars Gaming Northabout Expedition intends to break this record to denounce the quick retreat of the ice field with actions.

Polar bear

Mars Gaming Northabout Expedition Route

Experts in the history of expeditions will travel with the team; the Northabout will retrace the steps of other historical expeditions the likes of those led by Greely, Peary, Ross, Nares, etc. The book resulting from this voyage will give an account of the history of expeditions as well as the highlights from the Mars Gaming Northabout Challenge.

But our most important goal is to raise awareness. The team will carry out journalistic work on the impact of Climate Change both on Inuit culture in settlements like Grise Fiord and Qanaaq and on Nares Strait flora and wildlife. They will endeavor in making society aware of the dramatic situation of our planet.

Grise Fiord is a grain of human sand on an immense island the size of England. Only 140 people inhabit this village which is the only settlement of Ellesmere, the northernmost insular of the Canadian Arctic. The rest is unleashed nature and implacable severity.

On August 8 we marched up the glacier carrying the equipment on pulkas or sleds. We wanted to climb the highest peak in the area. We were in the mountains that surround the Manson polar cap, the so-called North York Land. It is a remote white territory on the map.

There was a movie – an adaptation of a Jules Verne story – that marked my childhood. The movie was about explorers flying over unexplored Greenland in an airship. They discovered, among other wonders, a surviving Viking community, plus a bay lost in time and mist where the whales were going to breathe their last breath.

Everyone has a plan until it gets spoiled. I had a plan. I had been watching the ice charts, the satellite images of the Sentinel – sent and analyzed by the expert Íñigo Orue – and the charts and had observed the following: the Strait of Nares is like a bowling alley.

On day 1 a speed boat was presented in front of the Northabout. It was a visit. The hunter Pullaq Ulloriaq and his daughter Bebiane honored us with their presence on board.”The Inuit are tight and distrustful of foreigners. It’s hard to get in touch,” some experts had warned.

The ice chart, an indispensable tool for anyone traveling on icy seas, gave rise to some hope: even Cape Alexander, the westernmost point of Greenland, only a third of the surface of the water was covered with ice. Enough for us. So we marched through a white maze dodging icebergs thanks to the skill as helmsman of Aitor Basarrate.

They say that any polar adventure involves some kind of suffering. On July 27 we started our first major battle against ice. And we lost it. I will never forget the crash of the ice against the helmet. Runs from the beds to deck. And the long hours of hopeful and nervous glances trying to peer out into the ice maze.

There are few experiences in life more disturbing than seeing an iceberg appear in the fog. We saw it on the third day of navigation from Upernavik to the north by the bay of Melville; Of course, it was not the first floating block of ice we came across; But this was veiled in mystery by an oleaginous haze, typical in this area of ​​the Baffin Sea.

An Inuit wedding is a strange mix between tradition and modernity. They emphasize the traditional costumes: The grooms dress old fashioned, he with white anorak and she with a colorful coat; And both in sealskin pants and boots. We were fortunate to be invited to his wedding by Nunarleq Mathaussen, a pure Inuit who married Ane, a local girl with Nordic features.

People come to the Arctic in the hope of seeing new and wonderful things; To bring in his pocket money to tell that really worth it.

The lucky ones attend a northern aurora, spot a formation of whales or discover the polar bear at the time of breakfast with a seal; But what is really unusual is to see is two Basques carrying on a dingui – a standard Zodiac – and with a poke in their hands fighting against an iceberg.

If the Mars Gaming Northabout Expedition succeeds, it will be the first time a Spanish team has reached the Geomagnetic Pole. But the most interesting is the territory where the bet will be developed. Authentic “door of the white hell” the Strait of Nares (which the expedition intends to cross) was the passage chosen by numerous expeditions throughout history to reach by sea the North Pole, because it was mistakenly thought that behind the ice barrier, a warm sea existed.

Adventures begin in the most unlikely places. The Mars Gaming Northabout Expedition came to being one haunted night, in the middle of the countryside, somewhere between the English cities of Bath and Bristol.