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To cross the Bering Sea by rowboat
Jul 28, 2004 09: 26 EST
Colin Angus and Tim Harvey have now been rowing on the Yukon River for 10 days or approximately 240 hours, minus a few hours spent at the river shore meeting locals, exploring the tiny communities and waiting out the worst of the weather. They have covered 1146 km in their rowboat, which means they travel at an average rate of 5 km/hr. Not lighting fast, but not a bad pace for two guys rowing around the clock.
The rowboat is handling well. The 12 foot oars do a great job steering and powering the boat, with the biggest problem posed by headwinds and sandbars. They have faced several days of pounding winds that slowed their progress to a crawl and every day their boat runs aground on the sandbars that populate the uneven river bottom. The river is tricky to navigate in places and often it is the waves that push the boat onto the sandbars. Fortunately the boat can be released from its sandy ledge by standing in the river and pushing it from behind.
The few villages dotting this section of the river range in size from 65 to 530 people. Most of the people are natives and include Koyukon Athabascans, Inupiaq Eskimos, and Ingalik. They primarily rely on fishing and subsistence activities, alcohol is banned in many of the communities. They do not have road access and supplies are mostly brought by river with limited plane access, with the exception of Galena. Galena has an airport capable of landing jumbo jets; it was built by the military in the 1950s.
There are only four more villages to pass before reaching the Bering Sea. In 275 km they will begin rowing from the US across the Bering Sea to Siberia.
No sails, no engines - just raw human energy. From Vancouver to Alaska, across the Bering Sea and into Siberia, two BC adventurers (Colin Angus and Tim Harvey) and their Russian counterpart (Olya Artemeva) will row and bicycle.
Colin Angus
Colin Angus and pals traveled the 7,000 km length of the Amazon River in a raft - from the first trickles of melting snow in the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. In five months, they crossed a desert, climbed mountains, shot rapids and ducked bullets, and 119 days after setting out from Lima on Sept. 13, they navigated the entire length of the river.
Based in Vancouver, Colin has spent the last twelve years pursuing a life of adventure. Colin sailed across the Pacific Ocean (much of it solo) as a teenager, organized the self-powered expedition down the Amazon, and most recently completed a descent of the 5,500 km Yenisey River through Mongolia and Siberia.
Colin has authored two books for Random House and co-produced two documentaries for National Geographic, one of which garnered awards at the Banff and Telluride Festivals of Mountain Films.
Tim Harvey
Born and raised in BC, Tim has long enjoyed exploring the coastal wilderness by kayak and canoe. Tim spent seven months in Central America, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency to work as a photographer on biological inventories of threatened marine and wetland ecology.
Olya Artemeva
Olya is an outdoors enthusiast who will join the expedition for five months as it crosses Russia from the Bering Sea to Moscow. Olya's knowledge of local language and custom will make her an invaluable interpreter, as she was on Colin’s previous expedition down the Yenisey River. Olya, who has experience ice-climbing, diving and orienteering, is an active triathlete with a passion for jazz and religion.
Olya actively promotes adventure tourism around her home city of Irkutsk, known as the "heart of Siberia."
Image of Colin and Tim in canoe on the Yukon Flats courtesy of the team.
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