AC News

If you're in the UK and have questions about our Adventures, you can call us toll free at 0-808-101-0935 from 1pm to 9pm! Talk to you soon!

Long-time Adventure Canada resource staffer John Houston recently received news of his appointment as Adjunct Professor [Department of Communications, Faculty of the Arts] at the University of Ottawa. Adventure Canada is a key partner in Professor Houston's 'ARCTICA - a virtual learning environment' project, along with Adventure Canada resource team members Ree Brennin, Marc St. Onge, Senator Charlie Watt and Mike Beedell (with help at the get go from Aaju Peter). Other team members include educator David Serkoak of Nunavut Sivuniksavut and Evan Potter of the University of Ottawa.

The whole idea for 'ARCTICA - a virtual learning environment' was hatched on board our 'little red ship' the Explorer, in response to a query from passenger Lesley Strutt, PhD, at the University of Ottawa, Office of the Vice Dean Research, at University of Ottawa's Faculty of Arts. After seeing John present his most recent film; 'Kiviuq,' Lesley asked John if there was anything she and the University of Ottawa could do to help with his ongoing work...

Watch for more news of this exciting, multi-year, multi-part project in future issues of our newsletter.

For more information on John Houston please visit our staff page.

Adventure Canada traveller Rosemary Clewes, who fell in love with the Arctic starting on our 1994 Project Arctic Coast, still treasures memories of a full moon over Disco Bay's icebergs, Mike Beedell, preparing to fly off the top of an erratic over the river canyon at Pangnurtung. The 'family' feel she had after ten days on the Alla Tarasova (now the Clipper Adventurer) brought me back on another trip on the 'Little Red Ship' for "Explorers and Adventurers" in 2005.

As poet and a writer of non-fiction, she has just published a book entitled, Thule Explorer: Kayaking North of 77 Degrees.

She believes this book's message is an important one, written after a two week kayaking/camping trip, beginning and ending in Qaanaaq on the northwest coast of Greenland in 2002. The Arctic, as the northern frontier of Canada and beyond, is little known or understood, but is receiving considerable attention now due to global warming and rumbles about sovereignty.

The book is written in prose and poetry, encompassing history, (Canadian and Greenlandic), Inuit stories and her fleeting but significant contact with local hunters in their summer camps. The reader will join this 'outsider' in hiking and paddling in a landscape, stripped to the essentials of sky, water, rock and ice. He or she will travel with her on the cusp of her personal frontiers where she seek to understand her place in the larger order.


Click here to visit our store

Tim Rast is an archaeologist who has surveyed, excavated and published on
archaeological sites in Nunavut, Labrador, Newfoundland and Alberta. Tim is an accomplished flintknapper with 12 years experience in making and using stone tools. He handcrafts museum quality artifact reproductions and archeology-themed jewelry through his business, Elfshot. His reproductions from Northeastern and Arctic cultures are sought by museums, universities, and collectors from across North America. Tim lives in St. John's and is the current Chair of the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador (2007/08).

This September Tim will help us understand the cultural and historical sites we visit on our High Arctic Adventure. His onsite and animated interpretation will help us understand the lifeways of the varying groups that have inhabited the Northern Landscape. Onboard the Akademic Ioffe Tim will share his knowledge as a flintknapper with demonstrations and by running hands on workshops!

For more information on the Akademic Ioffe please click here


For more information on our High Arctic Adventure, please click here

Shannon Fowler: Biologist, Baffin Expedition
Growing up in a small inland town in northern California, Shannon easily became fascinated by the ocean. She spent summers in San Diego with her grandfather, who was an oceanographer. Together, they watched migrating grey whales, explored tidepools, and shuffled their feet in the sand to avoid stingrays. She to studied biology at the University of California at San Diego. After graduating, Shannon wanted to explore the world outside California. She was a SCUBA instructor in Ireland, Panama, Galapagos, and the Caribbean. She taught marine ecology to teenagers in the Bahamas and Ecuador. And in between, Shannon travelled—singing songs with Berbers in the Zagora Desert, eating lemon ants in the Amazon, making a wish at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and hiking among proboscis monkeys in Borneo. Eventually, Shannon returned to the world of academia and completed a Ph.D. in Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. For her thesis research, she examined the development of diving in the threatened Australian sea lion.

Since completing her Ph.D., Shannon has worked as the Marine Mammal Biologist in Antarctica, as a science writer at National Public Radio in Washington D.C., and has taught killer whale biology to college students in the San Juan Islands. She spends the rest of her time based in London writing scientific manuscripts and nonfiction.

Shannon joins the Adventure Canada team on our Baffin Expedition Sept 2-12, 2008. When she is not out on deck helping spot and identify marine mammals or driving a zodiac we can expect to hear lectures on the adaptations of warm-blooded animals that allow them to live in Polar seas and the inside line on diving physiology & behaviour at the edge.


Click here for more info on this adventure

Adventure Canada is pleased to announce our partnership with Sierra Designs, renowned as one of the world's leading outdoor brands; a company that is filled with authenticity, experience and passion for the outdoors. Many of Sierra Designs products are made in Canada and they are industry leaders in going green. A few key implementations made are the use of PVC-free tape on waterproof jackets and the Polartech recycled fleece is made from recycled pop and water bottles.

We are offering two quality packages to Adventure Canada clients to gear you up for your upcoming adventure. Each package includes a base layer, waterproof breathable pants and jacket as well as polartec fleece at a savings of more than 25% off retail prices. Explore this year in style and comfort with your new Adventure Canada outdoor gear.


Download a PDF of the offer here