Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea by Kayak [S-25-6]

Join Eileen Visser (Biology, SLU) as she describes the first single season human-powered traverse of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This elusive sea route was long impassible due to thick year-round ice but climate change has opened the channels between high arctic islands, allowing their four-person team to cross the 1800-mile Northwest Passage in 103 days. More travelogue than science but will address changing conditions in the arctic and their implications while focusing on the adventure of tackling sea ice, wind, cold, and polar bears to experience this once in a lifetime immersion in nature.

Eileen Visser is an Alaskan, having grown up in Valdez in a log cabin with no road access, electricity, running water or telephone (until 16 yrs old). Her undergraduate studies were in Biology at University of Notre Dame with summers at UNDERC field station in Land O'Lakes, WI researching mosquitoes and dragonflies. Her MS was in Biological Oceanography at North Carolina State in Raleigh with fieldwork in the Chesapeake Bay at Virginia Institute of Marine Science working on the effect of eelgrass habitats on blue crabs. Her Ph.D. work was in Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at University of Washington, Seattle looking at post-settlement juvenile Dungeness crab, followed by a project with the Army Corps of Engineers. She teaches natural history and ecology of ADKs, Natural World, and General Biology at SLU and is a certified EMT and member of the Parishville Dive & Rescue teams.

Special Instructions:

This course was not listed on the calendar that you received in your registration packet (paper or email). However, it is now on the calendar that is on our webpage. To see an updated version of the SOAR Calendar (and to print it), go to the tab labeled "Calendar" https://www.soarnorthcountry.com/calendar/2025-04-5/

Cap: 140