An Edinburgh adventurer and his team are set to embark on a gruelling test of endurance as they attempt to become the first people to ever kayak the Arctic’s Northwest Passage.
Unbelievably, Mark Agnew, who grew up in Marchmont and now lives in London, will undertake the incredible challenge with three people who he has never met face to face. The 32-year-old dad has always dreamed of becoming a world record holder and he has now set his sights on being part of a team that would be the first to complete the passage using only human power over a single summer.
As if the stakes were not high enough, the group of four will be navigating a route that is populated by polar bears, killer whales and walruses. They are due to begin the world record attempt on July 1, setting off from Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada, and hope to finish 90 days later at Tuktoyaktuk, an Inuit hamlet in Canada, as they follow the historic Arctic route that links the Atlantic and the Pacific.
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Mark will be joined on the expedition by three Americans - expedition leader West Hansen, Jeff Wueste and Eileen Visser. The team will each consume between 4,000 to 6,000 calories per day and will re-supply halfway in Cambridge Bay - each night they will camp on shore.
“I leave for Canada this coming Sunday (June 25) and will be gone for around three to four months,” he said.
“This is really the voyage that shouldn’t happen. One hundred years ago the Northwest Passage would have been frozen almost all year round, but now we are going to be able to kayak the 2000 miles in a single season.
“It is a rather devastating example of how much climate change has affected the planet. This will be the first time the entire Northwest Passage has ever been kayaked, all the way from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea.
“I got into kayaking during covid but I only joined this team in the last few months. They are all in America and we have not actually met face-to-face yet.
“They tried the route last year in single kayaks but they encountered problems storing food. So this time out they will attempt it using double kayaks as it means you can store more supplies.
“That meant that there was extra space for me. You never really know how anyone will react in these conditions but I know they are all extremely experienced.
“The biggest challenge for me was coming from rowing. I've been working with Jeff Allen in Cornwall who has been helping me to learn how to surf and break the big waves that we will face when undertaking the task.
“Another big challenge is the length of the route. We will be kayaking for 12 hours a day, every day, for three months.
“The monotony of being grounded due to storms I imagine will be difficult as we will be sitting in our tents eating through our supplies. But we will have a chess board with us and I have downloaded a bunch of books on my kindle.
“Another concern is the wildlife, there will be polar bears but we have a tripwire that bangs which will hopefully scare them off. We also have guns with us which is only for the worst-case scenario as we do not want to hurt them.
“There will be killer whales and walruses in the water as well. Unbelievably the water temperature is not as cold as you would expect though.
“When you say arctic you think of a lot worse than what we will be facing as it will be around 0-10 degrees most of the time. But we have all of the equipment that we need.”
Mark, who works as a journalist, previously attempted to set the world record for rowing across the Atlantic twice, but didn’t successfully cross the ocean. After two failed attempts, one in 2016 and another in 2018, Mark suffered a mental health spiral, with the devastation of failure making him feel worthless and unmotivated.
“After failing to row the Atlantic twice, I felt utterly worthless. I was overcome with feelings of humiliation and failure,” he said.
“It began to seep into every aspect of my life, and I became lethargic. I wasn’t clinically depressed but the feeling of being pathetic became overwhelming.
“Eventually, I decided I needed to drag myself out of my hole by going on adventures again. I realised I had to focus on the experience and not the outcome.
“I began to focus on camaraderie, the discovery of beautiful landscapes and being at one with nature and not just on the aspect of winning or of gaining the world record. That said, I’m still motivated by the world first.
“In the Northwest Passage, pushing ourselves as a team for the common goal of the world first is important to facilitate our camaraderie and experience. These intrinsic goals are far more fulfilling than focusing on a single outcome.”
Following his battle with his mental health, Mark hopes to raise over £25,000 for Wilderness Foundation UK, a charity offering education and therapy programmes for young people and adults to help them reconnect to society and themselves through outdoor facilitation adventures, therapy and mentoring.
“Getting out into nature and exercising was fundamental to re-finding my self-worth. I’ve been lucky my whole life to be able to get into nature,” he said.
“Wilderness Foundation UK helps countless people, particularly people from backgrounds that might not typically have easy access to the outdoors, re-connect to nature and feel empowered through their experience.”
The route Mark and his team will follow is the same route sought by the British Arctic exploration voyage led by Sir John Franklin in 1845 aboard two ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The expedition met with disaster as both ships became icebound and the crew of 129 men were lost. Mark’s team may even pass directly over the wreck of HMS Terror.
Now, 178 years later, the Arctic’s ice conditions have changed with the region at the forefront of global warming, making this world-first possible as the sea ice melts and disappears. Adventure is part of Mark’s DNA, with his mother crossing Australia from one end to the other as a young woman and his father mapping Patagonia and parts of Greenland in his youth.
The timing of Mark’s departure is complex with his wife Sophie being 13 weeks pregnant. But despite this, Mark says that his partner could not be more supportive of his efforts.
“This has not come out of the blue and throughout our entire relationship I’ve wanted to do things like this. Sophie has been miraculously supportive and I owe her a huge debt and it is the same with my friends and family - they are all here to support her whilst I undertake this challenge.
“The support network around us is amazing and this is only possible due to them. Each stroke through the arctic is only possible due to the people behind me.
“My parents always encouraged me to pursue big things. My dad was mapping parts of the world, he mapped parts of Patagonia and Greenland, so it is sort of obvious I’ve ended up in this place.
“My mum was an adventurer as well and travelled over land from one end of Australia to the other in the 1970s and I have got the bug from them. My mum is nervous and my dad is jealous about the challenge.”
The expedition can be followed online and with updates on their website here. You can support the fundraiser here.
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