Caleb McDaniels, 25, and Henry Penfold, 22, have completed their impressive expedition around Baffin Island. The Americans combined skiing, hiking, and packrafting to almost circle the world’s fifth-largest island. McDaniels told ExplorersWeb they did about 20% skiing and the rest was evenly split between backpacking and packrafting.
The pair began and ended in Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital. The final section of their trip was also the longest, a 1,130km stretch with no villages after Igloolik to resupply. They made light work of it, knocking it out in 40 days and bringing their total distance to 3,262km over 145 days, from their late May start to their return to Iqaluit in mid-October. By then, the oncoming Arctic winter gave them few hours of light to work with.
The pair’s completed route around Baffin Island. Photo: Caleb McDaniels
Heavy loads
With no resupply points, the pair left Igloolik with 82kg of food. They hoped to do it in seven weeks but brought even more food, because they weren’t sure how long that giant giant section would actually take, explained Caleb McDaniels.
“With no way to carry that much weight in our packs, we loaded up our packrafts and paddled the first 400 miles [644km]. Then, for the final 300 miles [483km], we heaved on our packs to walk overland,” they explained.
The paddling portion went quickly, aided by some ingenuity. “Much of the time, we were able to sail using our trekking poles as masts and panels cut out of an old tent for sails. Speeding along at over five mph, we did some incredible downwinding, spray flying from our bows.”
Using makeshift sails. Photo: Caleb McDaniels
They also effectively halved the 480km trek by packrafting over two large lakes, including Nettilling, the world’s largest lake on an island. Yet there was no way to ease the final 160km slog into Iqaluit.
Postholing through early winter snow back to Iqaluit. Photo: Caleb McDaniels
“It was more of a postholing session — we slowly picked our way across snow-covered boulder fields and partly frozen marshlands. Constantly breaking through thin ice over the tundra marshes, we walked in our drysuits to keep our legs and feet dry. Each morning required half an hour of chipping ice and melting out our shoes, which invariably froze solid,” they said.
An impressive near-circumnavigation
McDaniels and Penfold had planned a roughly circular route around the island, but “we weren’t trying to circumnavigate Baffin,” McDaniels told ExplorersWeb. Two previous parties had circumnavigated the island by dogteam, but McDaniels and Penfold’s route was driven by aesthetic considerations rather than to satisfy a catchy trip definition.
Slogging overland. Photo: Caleb McDaniels
They chose their route after looking at satellite images and enjoyed both spectacular scenery and some special wildlife sightings, including at least one that was a little too close for comfort.
“One morning, as I went to fill our water bottles, I stumbled upon a sleeping polar bear hidden behind a low rise. Only a few yards away, it lifted its massive white head and glared at me for a moment before returning to its nap in the sun,” McDaniels wrote. “I carefully retreated behind the rise and yelled over to Henry to get the shotgun and flares out just in case. We quickly packed our boats and got on the water.”
Photo: Caleb McDaniels
In Foxe Basin, they almost collided with a sleeping walrus, and on Nettilling Lake, they met one of the resident seals. “He was immensely curious and not at all afraid. He swam around our boats for half an hour, playing with our stern lines and swimming back and forth between us. At one point, I put my hand into the water, and he brushed it with his nose!”
