Arctic Cowboys set to launch Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

Arctic Cowboys set to launch Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

Jeff Wueste, West Hansen and Rebekah Feaster, the Arctic Cowboys, pose with their Epic sea kayaks this week before launching their Northwest Passage kayaking expedition. Photo courtesy Rebekah Feaster

After four days of waiting out gale force winds, the Texas-based trio of paddlers known as the Arctic Cowboys are poised to launch their attempt to kayak the entire Northwest Passage.

“Winds have died down. Water is clear of ice and all lights are green for us,” expedition leader West Hansen said this morning from the small Inuit community of Pond Inlet on the western side of Baffin Bay, where the team arrived last week.

If all goes as planned, they’ll head out on their roughly 2,100-mile expedition tonight. At about 9 p.m. EDT, a local resident will shuttle the paddlers – Hansen, 60, along with teammates Jeff Wueste, 62, and Rebekah Feaster, 31 – and their gear two-and-a-half hours by boat to Button Point, a small outcropping on Bylot Island at the western edge of Baffin Bay. They’ll either start paddling at about midnight, or overnight in a small cabin at the point and officially launch Tuesday morning.

Darkness won’t deter them. The sun doesn’t set this time of year in the Arctic, and as they make their way south and west, they’ll paddle based on how they feel and how many miles they’ve covered, instead of just by daylight. (See their route here.)

Along the way, they’ll face a slew of challenges, including drifting chunks of ice, storms, frigid water, and, potentially, polar bears. The team is carrying bear spray, a bear horn, flares, an electric fence to set up around camp, and a 12-gage shotgun for protection.

Northwest Passage kayaking expedition details

Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

Snowcapped mountains and glaciers are visible across Eclipse Sound from Pond Inlet, where the Arctic Cowboys are preparing to launch their Northwest Passage kayaking expedition. Photo by Rebekah Feaster

Hansen expects the expedition – his third after a 2012 expedition down the entire Amazon River and a 2014 trek down the entire Volga River, both with Wueste – to take about two months.

The kayakers plan to cover about 40 miles a day this time out. If all goes well, they’ll reach Tuktoyaktuk, a small hamlet in the Inuvik region of Canada’s Northwest Territories, by late September. (Track them here.) If the expedition pushes into October, Hansen says the team has the cold weather paddling experience needed to handle it.

“As we’ve shown in Russia, we can paddle in snow and ice conditions,” he says. “We don’t see that happening, but if it does, we’re good for the last couple hundred miles.”

About two weeks into the adventure, they’ll reach the Bellot Strait, a treacherous, 16-mile, steep-walled channel known for swift currents, a dense population of polar bears, and drift ice that could act as kayak-wrecking torpedoes. Somewhere in that area, they should encounter fellow Austin adventurer Robert Youens, who is attempting to cross the Northwest Passage – heading the opposite direction – in a jon boat. He’ll provide any needed support to the Cowboys, who have also shipped boxes of resupply goods to a point farther along their route.

Other attempts have failed

Arctic Cowboys

Jeff Wueste and Rebekah Feaster check their kayaks after they arrived in Pond Inlet last week. Photo courtesy West Hansen

Unlike other paddlers who have attempted to traverse the Northwest Passage in a single season, the Arctic Cowboys are starting in the northeast and heading southwest, so they cover the coldest, iciest, and most difficult sections of the journey first. If they’d gone the other direction, they could have been turned back by ice-clogged passages just as they neared the finish, Hansen says.

His theory will be tested this season. Another adventurer, 50-year-old Karl Kruger, of Orcas Island, Washington, who hopes to become the first person to navigate the Northwest Passage by standup paddleboard, is traveling the opposite direction. He launched on July 24 and said this week that the navigation is difficult with so few landmarks and constant daylight.

Related: Texas’ craziest endurance paddler is taking on his biggest challenge yet

Unplanned delays and exploring the culture

The Arctic Cowboys’ launch this week can’t come soon enough for Hansen, Wueste and Feaster, who left Austin to drive to Canada on July 15, then got delayed in Ottawa for a week due to complications shipping their gear farther north. That pause tacked $10,000 in unexpected hotel, meal, shipping, and flight expenses onto the expedition tab, which Hansen initially estimated at about $45,000. (To donate, go here.)

After arriving in Pond Inlet on July 25, the team spent a few days finalizing permits and fine-tuning gear. Then the bad weather set in. They’ve been pinned down in an apartment provided by locals while they wait out the winds, which are predicted to ease tonight.

Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

The population of Pond Inlet is about 1,500. Photo by Rebekah Feaster

That lag time gave the paddlers a chance to experience some of the local culture. The landscape is desolate but beautiful, they say, with no trees and lots of dirt, rocks, and fields of stubby grass and small flowers. Chunks of ice are floating in Eclipse Sound, just offshore. The town itself, whose population is about 1,500, consists of a scattered collection of ramshackle but sturdy buildings.

Related: In two weeks, the Arctic Cowboys will leave Austin to kayak the Northwest Passage

“(The ice) is kind of cool to look at,” Hansen says. “The water is very placid and there are big snow-capped mountains and glaciers in the distance.”

They’ve also been tuning into a Canadian comedy called Letterkenny, and sampling local fare like caribou, narwhal, Arctic char, and a type of traditional flatbread called bannock. “Narwhal is a bit chewy,” Hansen says. “We ate it raw, and it tasted good, but after chewing a while you just have to swallow gristle. The caribou – I loved it. It’s like venison but less gamey, and very rich.”

Temperatures have hovered in the mid- to upper 40s – more comfortable than the sizzling heat the team left behind in Texas, and, according to Hansen, perfect for kayaking.  Forecasts call for a continued warming trend into the month of August, too, which should work in the team’s favor. Already, leads – or narrow gaps in the ice through which the kayakers can squeeze – are opening along their route.

“We feel really good,” Hansen says. “There’s less ice along our pathway now than there was a week ago.”

Related: Arctic Cowboys add female paddler to 2022 Northwest Passage expedition

Once they pass Bylot Island in the next few days, the islands that make up the Canadian Arctic Archipelago will provide more protection from storms blowing in off Greenland and Baffin Bay, reducing the likelihood of more weather delays.

“If we get through the first month, we’re home free, pretty much,” Hansen says.

Ready to start the Northwest Passage kayaking expedition

pond inlet arctic cowboys

The Arctic Cowboys have been pinned down in Pond Inlet for the last week, securing permits and waiting out gale force winds before they launch their Northwest Passage kayaking expedition. Photo by Rebekah Feaster

As for now, the paddlers are antsy, and eager to get moving.

“I’m worn out. Honestly, I need to get out there and start camping to charge my batteries,” Hansen says.

Feaster and Wueste second that notion.

“We’ve kind of been going stir crazy over the last week, and I’m just ready to get on the water and do it,” Feaster says, adding that she’s looking forward to seeing things most people will never see, like narwhals, seals, beluga whales, and orca in the wild.

“This is so beautiful and so different than anything I’ve paddled in before,” Wueste says. “This ice paddling is going to be new to all of us … but I say we have the best watercraft for this kind of travel in these conditions.”

With the permits secured, the paperwork finished, the boats rigged, and the duffels loaded, the Arctic Cowboys are inches away from doing what they came here to do – dip their paddles into the chilly Arctic water for hours at a time.

“We’ve made amazing progress starting in Austin, Texas, and now we’re staring at the Northwest Passage,” Hansen says.

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Nothing goes as planned when you’re training for the Texas Water Safari

Nothing goes as planned when you’re training for the Texas Water Safari

training for the Texas Water Safari

Part of Pam LeBlanc’s race team pushes their boat around a log while training for the Texas Water Safari. Pam LeBlanc photo

When you’re training for the Texas Water Safari, stuff goes wrong. And it did this week.

I’m racing on a five-human boat, and two of our five humans live in Colorado, not Texas.

That’s OK. Both Steve Daniel and John Murphy have finished the 260-mile paddling race between San Marcos and the Texas coast before. They know what they’re getting into – extreme exhaustion, sleep deprivation, log jams covered in spiders, the occasional dead and bloated cow, mud, snakes, mosquitos, horrible rashes, sore shoulders, and more.

In their absence, a rotating cast of paddlers has been filling seats in our boat, so Debbie Richardson, James Green and I could train.

But starting position in the Safari is based on how teams do at the Texas River Marathon, a 35-mile race from Cuero to Victoria on May 7. Top finishers at that race get starting slots at the front of the line at the big dance on June 11. But if your entire team doesn’t race in the Marathon, you must start at the back of the pack at the Safari.

No problem, we figured. The way we planned it, our Colorado teammates would fly down for the Marathon and a few training runs. We’d paddle together for the first time and work out kinks before the Safari.

A change in plans

But earlier this week, things turned south. Our Colorado teammates both got sick. They had to cancel their trip to Texas to race the Marathon.

The boat calculus that Richardson had worked out suddenly collapsed and a flurry of rescheduling ensued. Our brains collectively melted down. Hotel reservations, flights – it all had to be cancelled and rescheduled. And with only four more training weekends remaining before the Safari, we have to figure out how to get get in at least one training run with our Colorado contingent.

Tomorrow, Richardson, Green and I are racing in a three-man boat. Come race day, we’ll have to start at the back of the pack, trying to maneuver around slow-moving aluminum tandems and other slower racers. Imagine a 37-foot torpedo picking its way through a minefield of hand grenades.

debbie richardson

Debbie Richardson pushes a canoe under a branch while training for the Texas Water Safari in March 2022. Pam LeBlanc photo

I figured we were doomed. But Richardson, who has finished 12 of the 12 Safaris she started, assures me we’ll be fine. She’s started at the back of the pack three times. And of those three races, she’s finished third, fifth and eighth overall, out of roughly 150 boats.

“We might need a helmet and life jacket (at the start),” she jokes. “But I’m not scared to start at the back wall.”

It’ll be tricky at the start, but we’ll have about two days of non-stop paddling to make up any disadvantage.

Bring it on.

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Jimmy Harvey drops off Arctic Cowboys’ Northwest Passage paddling expedition

Jimmy Harvey drops off Arctic Cowboys’ Northwest Passage paddling expedition

Arctic Cowboys Jimmy Harvey

Jimmy Harvey prepares to paddle on Lady Bird Lake during the 2021 freeze in Austin, Texas. He announced this week he is dropping from the Arctic Cowboys expedition through the Northwest Passage this summer. Pam LeBlanc photo

The lineup of an Austin-based team of paddlers who will attempt to kayak the entire Northwest Passage this summer has changed.

Jimmy Harvey announced this week that he is dropping off the Arctic Cowboys expedition. That leaves expedition leader West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the entire Volga River in 2014, and two others – longtime expedition partner Jeff Wueste and endurance paddler Rebekah Feaster, who signed on to the Arctic trip last month.

Hansen has said he plans to launch the 1,900-mile expedition in late July, and travel from Pond Inlet in the northeast part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Tuktoyaktuk in the southwest. Along the way, the team will likely face polar bears, orca, frigid water, and shifting ice.

Related: Arctic Cowboys add female paddler to Northwest Passage expedition

Hansen predicts that the trip will take about 60 days, finishing in late September. If the Arctic Cowboys make it, they will become the first to paddle through the entire passage in one continuous trip.

“Previous attempts to paddle or row the entire Northwest Passage from west to east were stopped by drift ice which blocked the Victoria Strait – a narrow and shallow island-clogged strait west of King William Island. These ice flows backed up north into Peel Sound and clogged the Bellot Strait, as well,” Hansen said.

Arctic Cowboys West Hansen

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the Volga River two years later, paddles through Matagorda Bay in May 2020, while kayaking from South Padre Island to the Louisiana border. Pam LeBlanc photo

To avoid the same conditions, the Arctic Cowboys will start later in the season, giving that ice more time to break up, and monitor ice conditions and navigation options for those areas, Hansen said. They will travel east to west, through the more precarious areas first. That will leave the more open southerly portions of the Northwest Passage for the final leg, as winter closes the northern stretch behind them.

Harvey thinks expedition should start earlier to finish before cold sets in

But Harvey thinks the team should launch earlier, and travel the opposite direction, passing through areas where the ice breaks up early first, and reaching the colder, more frozen sections later.

“I think it’s a mistake,” Harvey said of Hansen’s proposed plan. “July and August are the two best summer months across the whole Northwest Passage.”

An expedition could conceivably make it through nearly the entire Northwest Passage, then get stopped a few hundred miles from the finish at Pond Inlet, he acknowledged.

“But with as warm as its been, it’s pretty certain it will be open this year,” Harvey says. “My theory is why wait until almost August to get on the water and miss the whole month of July? We could be finished by the end of August. September is when the weather starts getting bad – more cold fronts, and average temperatures drop.”

“(Hansen’s) worried about having a late (ice) breakup, but I’m worried about having an early winter,” Harvey said. “He could be 100 percent right and I could be 100 percent wrong or vice versa.”

Just in case Harvey changes his mind, Hansen is leaving the possibility open that he may rejoin the team at any time.

“We’ll miss Jimmy and understand his concerns about kayaking the Passage during the onset of winter weather,” Hansen said. “He’s been a strong team member with the right set of skills that would contribute to a successful expedition. There’s a slight chance he may change his mind, and if so, we’d welcome him back.”

 

 

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Arctic Cowboys add female paddler to 2022 Northwest Passage expedition

Arctic Cowboys add female paddler to 2022 Northwest Passage expedition

Rebekah Feaster, shown here during the 2021 Texas Water Safari, plans to join the Arctic Cowboys expedition through the Northwest Passage this summer. Photo by Ashley Landis/Texas Water Safari

The Arctic Cowboys, a crew of Texas-based paddlers who will attempt to kayak the Northwest Passage this summer, have added a fourth athlete to their team – 31-year-old Rebekah Feaster.

Feaster will round out a lineup that now includes expedition leader West Hansen, along with veteran paddlers Jeff Wueste, and Jimmy Harvey. Joe Watson is the team’s research coordinator. If they complete the expedition, they will become the first to kayak the 1,900-mile passage.

Hansen headed an expedition down the entire Amazon River in 2012 and paddled the Volga River two years later. In 2020, he led a group of kayakers up the Texas coast, from South Padre Island to the Louisiana border.

The Arctic Cowboys expedition – and no, they’re not changing the name despite the cowgirl element – will begin in late July and take an estimated 60 days. The team will paddle from Pond Inlet on the northeastern side of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Tuktoyaktuk in the southwest. Along the way they’ll face a slew of challenges, likely to include polar bears, sea ice, storms, and frigid water.

Rebekah Feaster Arctic Cowboys

Rebekah Feaster drives a canoe during the 2021 Texas Water Safari. Photo by Sandy Goynes Yonley

Feaster brings youth and skill to Arctic Cowboys

Feaster brings solid paddling chops to the team. She has finished the Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile non-stop paddling race from San Marcos to the Texas coast, eight times, and holds the record for the youngest female to complete it solo. (She was 18 in 2009 when she nabbed the record.) She credits her father, a veteran paddler, and canoe teachers Peter and Kathie Derrick, for teaching her paddling skills.

“I like really hard challenges,” she said via a call from Italy today. “There’s something in me that whatever is the hardest thing, I’m going to pick that.”

Feaster hasn’t paddled since last July, but is training for an Ironman triathlon taking place this June.

“Honestly, when I was trying to decide if I wanted to do this, my initial answer was yes, absolutely,” Feaster said. “Then I started thinking about it and I was, ‘Oh shit, that sounds kind of miserable – and polar bears and whales and I don’t know what else is up there.’ And I don’t like cold water. It’s definitely going to be tough for me. I’m a Texas girl and I love heat.”

Hansen is confident in her abilities. He describes Feaster as a “badass paddler” who is “probably faster than the rest of the team.” She’ll bring the advantages – and disadvantages – of youth, he says, and notes that her personality and ability to rise above the fray are spot on for joining the group.

“The life experiences of a woman are different than that of men, so Rebekah’s potentially different perspectives or approaches with regard to expedition nuances or decisions in the field will be a welcome change from the decisions we’ve made during previous expeditions,” he says.

Feaster eager to add female perspective to adventuring

Rebekah Feaster Arctic Cowboys

Rebekah Feaster will attempt to paddle the Northwest Passage with the Arctic Cowboys this summer. Kate Tart photo

Feaster agrees.

“They’ve always had just dudes on the team for this type of adventure,” she says. “When I have to deal with my period and all the things that involve adventuring as a female – I think it’s going to be good for them. I think it will help them appreciate women in the crazy adventure world. I think they need some young blood on the team as well. I’m looking forward to it.”

She says she loves laughing, and the Arctic Cowboys are known for their story telling capabilities and senses of humor.

“They’re just old geezers who are ridiculous,” she says. “I’m looking forward to them making me laugh, because I know that will happen a lot.”

She says she’s also prepared for “come to Jesus moments” and confrontations.

“I will cry at points, but we’ll have to work through it,” she said. “I feel like I’m going to have some miserable moments where I have to dig deep. But this kind of feels like next challenge. This is a totally different kind of adventure that’s going to break me in a lot of ways, but in a good way.”

Feaster graduated with a music degree from Baylor University, and is a pianist. As much as she’d like to bring her instrument on the trip, she’ll likely have to leave it behind. “The weight seems like a bit of problem, though maybe I’ll bring a harmonica,” she says.

Feaster is currently living in Italy, where her husband is serving a two-year assignment as an F16 pilot with the U.S. Air Force. She’ll travel to Austin in July to join the Arctic Cowboys team.

 

 

 

 

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First – and last! – at Town Lake Race No. 3

First – and last! – at Town Lake Race No. 3

​When I finished the Texas Water Safari with two partners in 2019, I swore I’d never do the 260-mile paddling race again. Yet here I am, girding my loins for the event, a long-distance canoe race that starts at Spring Lake in San Marcos and finishes in Seadrift on the Texas coast.

To prepare for the fun, I’ve been trying to get some butt time in my canoe. Today, James Green took the driver’s seat while we raced the third race in the Town Lake Race Series.

Related: Porcupines, a crunched canoe and big fun on the Devils River

Town Lake Race

Gena McKinley relaxes after finishing Town Lake Race 3. Pam LeBlanc photo

We finished both first and last in our category, pro aluminum – which only means I’ve raced a canoe before. It’s the same finish position that Deb Richardson and I nabbed a couple of weeks ago, during the second race in the series.

Today’s course started at the boat ramp at Festival Beach, ran up to the Interstate 35 bridge, folded back east along the boardwalk, and turned back again just in front of the island near Longhorn Dam.

We made three loops on the circuit, which gave us a good view of all the other racers. Also, I quit paddling halfway through the race so I could take some pictures before proceeding. (Hey, I was just out there for the training.)

John Baltzell puts on the free race series each year; it’s part of the Texas Canoe and Kayak Racing Association’s lineup of races.

Town Lake Race

Ian Rolls and Jeff Glock head toward Longhorn Dam during Town Lake Race 2. Pam LeBlanc photo

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