The presentation Ice Bears and Islands took place at the Roxy Theatre on Friday night; the night described what started as a dream of adventure guide Jamie Sharp. The journey discussed was born in the summer of 2009 when he took a job as a kayak guide in Norway. He heard about an archipelago made up of four islands and situated along the 80th parallel, about halfway from Iceland and Norway, in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. When Jamie discovered that the circumnavigation had never been achieved before, he knew he had to do it. The question was, could he find a crew of characters willing to embark on the dangerous journey?
The presentation took the viewer through the challenging trials they went through, such as close encounters with walruses and polar bears, and the threat of glacial cliffs looming overhead for stretches as long as 160 kilometres at a time.
The stunningly harsh environment was nothing to tread lightly about. The edge-of-the-world adventure needed to be calculated with careful precaution. This was extreme territory and if something went wrong up there, it would go really wrong.
Sharp’s sense of adventure was contagious at this screening, and as the crowd of paddling enthusiasts gazed on in astonishment, I knew the wheels were turning and paddling expeditions were transpiring within each one of them.