Summer is expedition season for paddlers in the Northern Hemisphere, and many of this year’s biggest journeys take advantage of the long daylight hours of the Far North. We’ve got our eyes on several sea kayak, canoe and SUP expeditions in 2024, including a logistically overwhelming west-to-east transit of the Canadian high Arctic and the final days of a Newfoundlander’s incredible year-long mission across eastern Canada. We’re also drawn to more modest yet inspirational sojourns: an attempt at a Mississippi speed record and paddling inquiries into folk music and art.
6 paddling expeditions to watch this summer
1 Expedition AKOR
Six friends from Quebec launched the first Expedition AKOR back in 2018, canoeing the George River in northern Quebec and around the Torngat Mountains on the Labrador Sea as part of an impressive 65-day venture. Then, in 2021, the team skied, paddled and cycled from Baffin Island to the southernmost point on Canada’s Lake Erie. Now, the AKOR crew is back in 2024 with a multistage expedition. Earlier this spring, one group started traveling east, cycling and canoeing from the Yukon-Alaska border to Great Slave Lake and across the Barrens of the central Arctic to Baker Lake on Hudson Bay. Meanwhile, as the Arctic pack ice gives way to open water, a sailing crew will set off from the Maritimes, meeting the paddlers and then sailing across the Hudson Strait to Baffin Island. The expedition concludes with a traverse of Auyuittuq National Park by foot. As of late June, the team was well into paddling across the Northwest Territories, headed for Nunavut. Keep tabs on their progress using the Live Tracker on the Expedition AKOR website.
2 Freya continues
If you’ve spent any time following expedition sea kayaking over the past 20 years, it should come as no surprise that legendary uber paddler Freya Hoffmeister is still paddling around continents. The German is currently chipping away at the monumental goal of circumnavigating North America. She started the expedition in 2017 and has tackled the journey in chunks, alternating between southern coastlines in the winter months and northern areas in the summer, traveling solo and with various partners. She’s back in the Canadian Arctic this summer, tracing the Northwest Passage east from the community of Cambridge Bay. Hoffmeister maintains a detailed expedition log on her website.
3 Expedition Northeast wraps up
Newfoundland adventurer Justin Barbour is poised to complete a year-long, 3,800-km expedition from the community of Puvurnituq on Hudson Bay, across northern Quebec, Labrador and the Strait of Belle Isle, and finally a north-to-south transit of the Rock. The journey has involved canoeing, backpacking, bikepacking and travel by snowshoe and toboggan, as well as a 20-km crossing of the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence by open canoe. You can keep track of Barbour on Facebook and watch for plenty of content to follow on his Youtube channel.
4 Paddling a Newfoundland folk song
Memorial University outdoor educator TA Loefler is dipping her paddle into the classic Newfoundland folk song “I’s the B’y” in a 250-km, three-week sea kayak expedition amidst Newfoundland’s northern islands. The objective of the journey is to take a deeper dive into the cultural significance of this catchy tune, as well as highlighting the Rock’s “vibrant geography, traditions, music and people.” Follow the All Around the Circle expedition on Loeffler’s website. She departs in mid July.
5 Devin Brown’s Mississippi speed record
In late May, Minneapolis-based sea kayaker and mom Devin Brown launched at Lake Itasca, Minn, and set off on an attempt to break the speed record for paddling the length of the Mississippi River. Brown attempting to complete the 3,770-km journey in less than the current record of 55 days. More importantly, as the first Black person on record to make a complete source-to-sea journey, she’s doing the expedition to inspire other Black, Indigenous and People of Colour to discover the joys of outdoor adventure and the freedom of paddling. Get updates on her progress on Instagram and read more about Devin Brown’s Mississippi River expedition here.
This summer, sea kayakers Robert Stair and Shelley Ross will paddle around Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories in an expedition supported by the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. The pair’s goal is equal parts inspirational and artistic: to show that “seniors” aged 73 and 68 can tackle big wilderness expeditions and to capture the cliffs, gravel beaches and unique ecology of the planet’s 10th-largest and North America’s deepest freshwater lake through Ross’s watercolour art.
Don’t miss following along on some of summer’s most exciting expeditions. | Feature photo: Colin Field
