Contemporary Authors

• Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea - 2017 Greystone Books, https://smile.amazon.com/Rowing-Northwest-Passage-Adventure-Rising/dp/1771641347/ref=sr_1_2_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519516164&sr=8-2&keywords=Vallely%2C+Kevin

• Kevin Vallely - http://www.kevinvallely.com/pages/about

  ABOUT:

  In 2003 Kevin Vallely was named one of Canada's leading adventurers by the Globe and Mail. His adventuring resume is stacked with compelling expeditions to all parts of the world including skiing Alaska’s 1,860 kilometre Iditarod Trail; scampering over Vancouver Island’s West Coast Trail in record time (10 hours, 13 minutes); attempting to bike and climb the island of Java’s 13 -10,000-foot volcanoes (a trip cut short when post-9/11 Indonesia became too dangerous); competing on the only Canadian team to finish the last and most difficult Eco-Challenge adventure race held in Fiji in 2002; retracing a 2,000 kilometre Klondike-era ice-bike route through the dead of an Alaskan winter, and most recently, with teammates Ray Zahab and Richard Weber, breaking the world record for the fastest unsupported trek from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole.

  Kevin is a member of the esteemed Explorer’s Club and was an Explorer’s Club Flag Recipient for his attempted traverse of the Northwest Passage in 2013. His book Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear and Awe in a Rising Sea was published by Greystone Books in 2017.

  Kevin is a registered architect and runs his own company Vallely Architecture. He graduated from the McGill University School of Architecture in 1988 where he was awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada medal as top graduating student. He’s a recipient of a Commonwealth Scholarship to Cambridge University.

• ExplorersWeb - http://www.explorersweb.com/polar/news.php?id=21396

  xWeb interview with Kevin Vallely, the Northwest Passage, the iconic crux to the northern sea route

  Posted: Apr 15, 2013 01:42 pm EDT
  (Correne Coetzer Update Apr 16, 2013 01:12 pm EDT) Already 15 years ago the seed for a traverse of a part of the Northwest Passage under human power in a single season was planted in Kevin's mind, by none other than Jerome Truran, one of the world’s top downriver paddlers in the 80’s.

  In July Kevin Vallely, Paul Gleeson, Frank Wolf, Denis Barnett and their rowboat are off to Northern Canada to attempt a traverse of the Northwest Passage [Ed note update Apr 16, 2013 01:12 pm: from EDT from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, to Pond Inlet, Nunavut] under human power in a single season; which has never been done before.

  Busy with finishing off the boat and designing cool houses, Kevin told ExplorersWeb about how the idea to row this part of the Northwest Passage took shape, how the crew teamed up, and about their route.

  ExplorersWeb: Where did the idea come from?

  Kevin: The idea was suggested to me by a good friend of mine named Jerome Truran. Jerome, a South African, was one of the world’s top downriver paddlers in the 80’s and he was a member of Piotr Chmielinski’s first decent team that ran the Amazon River from source to sea back in 1985. Truran was the ringer brought along to make it through the really tough white water sections. (Some of your readers have likely read Joe Kane’s best-selling book Running the Amazon. Jerome’s the dude on the front cover running the Acobamba Abyss.)

  Fifteen years ago Jerome mentioned the idea to me in musing that a traverse of the Northwest Passage under human power in a single season was one of the last great adventure firsts still left undone. It caught my attention right away in part because it came from uber-adventurer Jerome but it also because of what it represented. This was the Northwest Passage, the iconic crux to the northern sea route from Europe to the Orient, the passage I learned so much about in school, the passage that, through the quest to find it, shaped my country of Canada. I was struck by the idea.

  At the time, a decade and a half ago, the concept was simply theoretical as there was no way it was possible with the ice conditions. Since then climate change has transformed the arctic and because of it, to our minds anyhow, a traverse can now be done.

  It wasn’t long ago that the Northwest Passage was sole domain of steel-hulled ice-breakers. We hope that the very fact that we’re planning to make this traverse completely under human power in a row boat, without sail or motor, in a single season will scream to the fact that things are changing dramatically in the Arctic.

  We’ve partnered with the Irish wind turbine and solar power company Mainstream Renewable Power. The name of our expedition is The Mainstream Last First.

  ExplorersWeb: How was the team put together?

  Kevin: Paul Gleeson and I met at an outdoor festival where we were both speakers. Paul rowed the Atlantic in 2007 and his hometown of Limerick, Ireland is where my parents are from. We met a week after the festival to chat about upcoming adventures, Paul with the intent of picking my brain about Antarctica – a place he wanted to head – and me with the intent of finding a little bit more about ocean rowing with the idea of traversing the Northwest Passage. I threw the idea out to him at the end of our meeting and left it at that. He called me a week later saying he’d thought of nothing else and, presto, the trip was born.

  We each selected a teammate to join us. I asked friend and adventurer Frank Wolf who, without a doubt, is one of Canada’s leading adventurers and Paul asked friend and fellow Irishman Denis Barnett, a newcomer to the expedition world but a young guy having all the passion and focus to be the perfect teammate. Our team was set.

  ExplorersWeb: How does your training program look like?

  Kevin: I’ve been doing adventures since the late 90’s and have found myself skiing, biking, paddling, ice-biking, trekking, running and even riding elephants across various landscapes. In recent years my close friend Ray Zahab and I teamed up on several expeditions where ultra-running played a major role - South Pole, Lake Baikal, South America. I love running and it’s always a major role in my training. I’m still running now but have consciously decreased the volume preferring to mix it up with lots of cross country skiing over the past winter and now a gradual build-up of work on the rowing machine. We’ll have our boat built soon and we’ll be training on that until we leave.

  ExplorersWeb: Tell us about your boat please? Are there any modifications for the ice waters?

  Kevin: Ocean rowing boats are specifically designed to deal with the unique conditions of an oceanic environment. They need to be tough, fully self contained with the ability to self right in the event of capsize. Our boat has been designed with slightly different considerations in mind. Ultimately we’re not rowing an ocean but rather rowing through an archipelago where wind and ice will play the major role. Our hull shape will differ from many traditional ocean rowing boats and is reinforced with Kevlar to potentially withstand encounters with ice.

  ExplorersWeb: How will your route be?

  Kevin: Our route takes us from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. We’re very specific on these two locations as, in our mind, they represent the crux of the northern sea route from Europe to the Orient - the Northwest Passage.

  The explorers of past, those who went in search of a northern sea route across the Americas, would round the southern tip of Greenland and head north looking for an entry west. Henry Hudson thought it was at the southern end of Baffin Island. He was wrong and stumbled upon the enormous inland sea that would later bear his name. Others would find countless dead-ends until finally the mouth of Lancaster Sound was revealed as the entry to the Passage.

  When Roald Amundsen made the first successful crossing of the Northwest Passage from East to West in 1903-06 he finished by anchoring near Herschel Island at the mouth of the Mackenzie River (a short distance from Tuktoyaktuk, NWT today) and skied 800 kilometers to the city of Eagle, Alaska, to send a telegram announcing his success at making it through the Northwest Passage. The puzzle had been solved.

  We want to make it very clear here that we’re not trying to row the entire northern sea route from Pacific to Atlantic but rather the Northwest Passage, the route through the various islands of the Canadian archipelago that represented the crux to the mariners of yore trying to navigate across the top of the world.

  ExplorersWeb: How many protected harbors are on your route? What are the other dangers you are preparing for?

  Kevin: There will be protected harbors along route and we plan to row relatively close to land for most part for ease of retreat if things turn particularly nasty. Travelling closer to land affords a greater possibility of viewing wildlife too, something we wouldn’t want to miss.

  We will have large crossings to make of course and will time these as best we can with stable weather and ice conditions. Our intent is to move with determination, prudently.

  Work: Residential designer.
  Family: Wife Nicky and two daughters Caitlin (9) and Arianna (7)
  Hobbies: Hanging out with my girls.
  Favorite music: Everything from Johnny Cash to Paul Oakenfold
  Favorite Food: Indian
  Latest read book: Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
  Best adventure yet: Skiing to the South Pole with Ray Zahab and Richard Weber
  Dream destination: The Great Himalayan Trail

  5 top accomplishments in your life:
  My wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters.
  Being awarded a Commonwealth Scholar to Cambridge University in Architecture.
  Skiing it to the South Pole in 2009 and breaking the speed record to boot.
  Designing of a number of cool buildings in my professional career.
  Living the life I want to live.

  The person who inspire you most:
  My dad. He exemplified to me the spirit of truly being your own person.

  Previously was reported that Ray Zahab was part of the team, but he is not joining them anymore as he is undertaking a Gobi Traverse instead, Kevin told ExWeb.

  We got to know Kevin Vallely for the speed ski record to the South Pole with Ray Zahab and guide Richard Weber, the speed run across Lake Baikal in Siberia with Ray, and for their ultra running across deserts and more.

  This expedition (and other expeditions/ adventures/ projects with RSS feeds) can be followed in the live Dispatch stream at the Pythom App for iPhone/iPad and on Android as well as at ExplorersWeb.

Rowing the Northwest Passage:
Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising
Sea
Colleen Mondor
Booklist.
114.2 (Sept. 15, 2017): p22. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea. By Kevin Vallely.
Sept. 2017. 232p. Greystone, paper, $18.95 (97817716413401.910.916327.
Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the Arctic, perennial desire to test himself physically (his prior expeditions include skiing the Iditarod Trail, climbing active volcanoes in Indonesia, ice-biking through the Klondike, and retracing a WWII march in Borneo), and a burgeoning concern over climate change, Canadian adventurer Vallely came up with the idea of cajoling three companions into embarking on a rowing journey through the Northwest Passage. His previous experience seeking answers to the mysteries of the lost Franklin Expedition provided him with some familiarity with the region, and his determination to speak with residents and learn their thoughts about global warming fueled his desire to pull off what years ago would have seemed impossible. The foursome encounter brutal weather, are nearly overwhelmed by violent waves, and find the trip far exceeds their expectations in difficulty. But they also have many far- reaching conversations with the people they meet, which leave Vallely with a deep respect for local knowledge of the current state of our climate. A rousing combination of science and adventure in the Arctic.--Colleen Mondor
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mondor, Colleen. "Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea."
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• Story Untold
  http://storyuntold.blubrry.com/2018/01/18/kevin-vallely-the-arctic-is-melting-twice-as-fast-as-anywhere-on-earth/
  Word count: 532

  Kevin Vallely: “The Arctic is melting twice as fast as anywhere on Earth”
  January 18, 2018Environment, TravelAdventure, Arctic Exploration, Kevin Vallely, Northwest Passagestoryuntold

  Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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  Kevin Vallely remembers well when he first felt the call of the Arctic. As a child growing up in Montreal, the architect and adventurer’s father would regale him with stories of working as a radio operator in northern Labrador.

  “It was just a brutal, harsh place, yet strangely enticing and magnificent as well,” says Vallely. “He talked about how lonely, and quiet, and desolate it was. It intrigued me: this place that is part of our country, yet so completely out there and inhospitable. It just painted a scene of something so adventurous and unique.”

  He would get his first experience with the Far North in 2000, strapping on a pair of skis to traverse Alaska’s Iditarod Trail. Competing in the first ever Iditasport Impossible — described by Nerve Rush as “the Ironman’s badass uncle who did a tour in Vietnam and went back for vacation” — Vallely and his companions travelled over 1,000 frozen miles from Knik to Nome.

  “I had no idea what I was getting myself into at all,” he laughs. “I mean, the banner across the start line — their motto for this race was ‘Where cowards won’t show and the weak will die.’”

  Vallely completed the race, and three years later, he was back: this time, riding a bicycle from Dawson City, Yukon to Nome, Alaska. Over the ensuing years, the Vancouver-based adventurer would embark on over a dozen expeditions around the world, becoming a World Record-holder for his trek to the South Pole and earning the title of one of Canada’s leading adventurers by the Globe and Mail.

  Still, one elusive ‘first’ remained: traversing the Northwest Passage under human power. Vallely had first entertained thoughts of the crossing twenty years ago, while swapping stories with a friend.

  “Traversing the Northwest Passage solely under human power in a single season was something that no-one had ever even come close to achieving,” says Vallely. “At the time, we both laughed and said it’s impossible.”

  The melting sea ice gave him an opening, and a purpose: If Vallely and his fellow expeditioners could row the Northwest Passage unimpeded, perhaps they could draw attention to the urgency of global warming. Along with three other adventurers — two Irishmen and a fellow Canadian — Vallely set off in 2013 in a custom ocean rowing boat, intent on completing the crossing in a single season. The story has become Vallely’s first book, Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea.

  “It’s the classic canary in the coalmine. The Arctic is melting twice as fast as anywhere on Earth,” says Vallely. “I don’t think we realize how profoundly [things] will change … We need to do something about it.”

  Photo from kevinvallely.com. Vallely’s Rowing the Northwest Passage is available through Greystone Books.

• Publishers Weekly
  https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-77164-134-0
  Word count: 214

  Rowing the Northwest Passage: Adventure, Fear, and Awe in a Rising Sea
  Kevin Vallely. Greystone (PGW, U.S. dist.; UTP, Canadian dist.), $18.95 trade paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-77164-134-0
  Adventurer and explorer Vallely’s debut takes readers along on his harrowing but beautiful 2013 journey in a custom-made rowboat through the Arctic Ocean’s Northwest Passage, which connects the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This “dance between tranquility and chaos” on the water is not for the faint of heart. Readers follow Vallely from finding partners and sponsors to creating specifications on construction of the four-seat boat to leaving his two young daughters behind to set out. He brings readers deep into the choppy, freezing waters, where his craft is tossed about like a cork at times and narrowly misses huge masses of ice at others. He describes waking up one morning to find “a hundred-by-hundred-foot ice floe that has wedged itself up against our bow.” There are adventures on land, too—wonderful meetings with colorful locals and other hardy expeditioners and encounters with curious polar bears. The trip was ostensibly taken to publicize how climate change has altered the Arctic, but Vallely’s book is as much a history lesson and thrilling travelogue as it is an ecological warning. (Oct.)

• Outside
  https://www.outsideonline.com/1917256/rowing-northwest-passage-because-they-can
  Word count: 780

  Kevin Vallely has seen human remains emerging from the hard, cold earth on King William Island, an Arctic archipelago just north of the Nunavut mainland. In August 2007, the now 48-year-old Canadian adventurer happened upon bones scored with blade marks and cracked open by desperate sailors scavenging for marrow in the depths of cannibalism.
  Vallely was searching for evidence of Sir John Frankin’s tragically failed 1845 expedition to navigate a Northwest Passage trade route from England to the Orient, and although Franklin’s two ships have never been found, unidentified vertebrae and a scapula sit perched, as a memorial, on a stone cairn.
  “The expedition history of doom and gloom up there is very profound,” says Vallely, who previously held the speed record for skiing to the South Pole.
  But the Northwest Passage is increasingly easier to cross, thanks to a dramatic decrease in the volume of sea ice in recent years—more than a 50-percent reduction between 2005 and 2011, according to The Arctic Institute.
  To draw attention to this startling fact, Vallely and his 3-man crew are attempting the first human-powered traverse of the Northwest Passage in a single season. Taking rotations in the two-man cockpit will be Paul Gleeson, an Irishman who rowed across the Atlantic in 2005; Frank Wolf, a Canadian filmmaker who biked, hiked, and paddled the proposed route of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline; and Denis Barnett, a former Irish rally car driver who works in Vancouver’s shipping industry and locked down their deep-pocketed sponsor (Mainstream Renewable Power, a big alternative energy company) through his girlfriend.

  The four men will spend the next 70-80 days rowing a 25-foot fiberglass boat, the Arctic Joule, 1,800 miles east from Inuvik to Pond Inlet. Launching July 5, they're off to a late start, but still have plenty of time before the ice in the Admunsen Gulf fractures so that they can pass.
  Their relatively puny 1,000-pound boat will tackle waters that previously required 5,000-ton icebreakers to cross, an indication of just how rapidly global warming is changing the Arctic.
  At The Economist’s Arctic Summit in Oslo this past March, Vallely gave the keynote address to 150 attendees, from environmentalists to oil tycoons, aboard the Fram, the ship Norwegian explorer Roald Admunsen sailed to Antarctica before reaching the South Pole. No one at the conference denied the reality of global warming, and both sides of the climate change debate are intently interested in how it will affect the Arctic.
  Environmentalists are concerned that decreasing temperatures will melt substantial permafrost, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

  Energy companies, on the opposite end, are paying close attention to the growing accessibility in the Arctic of what the U.S. Geological Survey estimates to be "13 percent of the [world's] undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids." Even more attractive to prospective fossil fuel investors is the fact that this area is not subject to Canada's tariffs and regulations.
  How much of an impact will a "raising awareness" expedition like this have on energy consumption and environmental protection? Climate change skeptics will likely dismiss it as a daredevil stunt enabled by a hefty sponsorship from an alternative energy company—but Vallely hopes that the combination of adventure and observation will provide as powerful a narrative as the 20th-century Arctic expeditions that imprinted on our psyche.
  "To my mind, exploration is about seeking knowledge," says Vallely. "Although we're not exploring a new territory, we are certainly seeking knowledge in a changing environment. We're hoping to go up there and come to terms with what's changing from the perspective of the Inuit people. Rather than a pure adrenaline adventure like a wing-suited BASE jump, we're hoping there's more to this."
  But he won't deny that there's a good bit of serious risk to go around. Rowing a boat for three months in Arctic temperatures might be more plausible today than it was a decade ago, but it’s not a whole lot safer. You still have to contend with monthlong storms, hungry polar bears, and rogue slabs of boat-crushing ice.
  The biggest danger for Arctic sea navigation, particularly in the area west of King William Island, has often been strong northwest winds blowing in layers of multi-year ice, slowly pinning ships and immobilizing them for months on end. Without an engine, Vallely and his crew will have to be extremely careful to avoid getting blown into a slurry of ice, which could destroy their small boat. But in the words of Roald Admunsen, “Adventure is just bad planning.”

• EcoWatch
  https://www.ecowatch.com/rowers-epic-journey-reveals-how-climate-change-is-transforming-the-arc-1881773674.html
  Word count: 815

  Rowers' Epic Journey Reveals How Climate Change Is Transforming the Arctic
  Laura Beans
  Jul. 08, 2013 12:36PM EST

  Mainstream Last First
  Four modern day explorers from Vancouver, BC, began a world-first expedition on July 1, to row the 3,000 kilometer Northwest Passage in a specially commissioned human-powered boat—a feat only possible now due to the melting ice in the Arctic. Global wind and solar company Mainstream Renewable Power is sponsoring the expedition to bring awareness to the profound effects climate change is having on the environment.
  The team of Kevin Vallely, Paul Gleeson, Frank Wolf and Denis Barnett are seasoned adventurers who, between them, have rowed the Atlantic Ocean, canoed across Canada and skied to the South Pole in world record time. They departed from Inuvik in the Northwest Territories in their 25-foot long, specially built rowing boat, The Arctic Joule.
  The four men are rowing in continuous shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week as the route will be in constant daylight for the majority of the journey. They hope to arrive at their destination in Pond Inlet, Nunavut on the east coast of Baffin Island in early fall, some 75 to 90 days after their start.
  This area once represented a closed door for mariners who attempted to navigate the sea route, due to impassable sea ice. This passage has only become semi-navigable for about three months a year in the summer months when the ice of the Arctic Ocean breaks up and melts before refreezing for the winter. The four men have taken advantage of that short window to row the ice-strewn passage.
  “It wasn't long ago that the Northwest Passage was the sole domain of steel-hulled ice-breakers but things have changed,” said Kevin Vallely, lead rower.
  “Climate change is transforming the Arctic and the world. By traversing the Northwest Passage completely under human power in a rowboat, without sail or motor, the Mainstream Last First team will be able to demonstrate first-hand the dramatic effects climate change is having on our planet. Something like this has never been done before. It is only now possible due to the increase in seasonal sea ice melt and deterioration due to climate changes.”
  The rowers' challenge is of global significance as both a pioneering maritime adventure and an environmental expedition. The team is working with scientific research partners at Vancouver Aquarium, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Rangers on a unique and promising collaboration known as the Canadian Rangers Ocean Watch program (CROW) to collect and deliver environmental data about the Arctic Ocean.
  In addition, the team is documenting their journey on their blog and through social media, and have an award-winning documentary videographer to film the trip as well as. They are also engaging with the broader public while away, using their adventure to publicize the melting Arctic and climate change's detrimental impact.
  “With atmospheric [carbon dioxide] CO2 concentrations hitting 400 ppm last month for the first time in 2-4 million years, Mainstream is sponsoring this expedition to highlight the immediate disasters of climate change,” said Sherra Zulerons, country manager for Canada at Mainstream Renewable Power. “This expedition will show people around the world a real-life example of what climate change is doing today. It’s real."
  The melting ice is only the start of the problem, she explained. As the ice melts, it causes massive amounts of harmful gases to be released into the atmosphere. Enormous amounts of methane hydrate have been trapped in the ice for many thousands of years and now that the ice is melting, the gas is being released, causing a huge knock-on effect.“That is why we are sponsoring this expedition,” said Zulerons.
  “In the latest International Energy Agency report it states that if we wait to act until 2020, we will be headed down a path to temperature rises of between 3.6 and 5.3 degrees Celsius before 2100,” continued Zulerons. “Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy will make a big difference in terms of keeping climate change below two degrees.”
  “There seems to be a disconnect between what's actually happening with climate change and what's being done about it. We hope that our expedition will show the world through a real-life example of what climate change is doing today," added Vallely.
  “We believe, as Barry Lopez echoed in his book Arctic Dreams, that mankind has ‘...the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure to not be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes’,” concluded Vallely.
  The sea ice of the arctic has decreased by 50 percent in the last three years alone and in about 15 years this region will be ice-free. According to scientists, this permafrost to perm-melt scenario will trigger numerous feedback loops that will put climate change beyond human control.