A Baffin Vacation opens with a satirically vintage style narration advertising Baffin Island, a sparsely populated landmass in the Canadian Arctic, as a romantic travel destination. There is a fair amount of sarcasm in the narration, but it really is the site of a couple’s shared adventure, as veterans Erik Boomer and Sarah McNair-Landry undertake a 45-day expedition.
‘An expedition is the same thing as a vacation!’ the narrator proclaims. Photo: Screenshot
The first days, Sarah admits, are the worst. They spend five days skiing in, hauling their kayaking and climbing gear while their bodies adjust to the cold and the toil. In a few weeks, the ice will break up and they will be, essentially, trapped until August.
But at the end of the skiing stage, when they round a final bend and see the mountains, Sarah reports only excitement. They follow a hunting path that the Clyde River Inuit people have traversed for thousands of years, and it takes them to the climbs they’ve set their eyes on.
Erik says they’re ‘definitely newbies,’ to the climbing world. This is either a fit of modesty or a new definition of the word, if the impressive cliffs they’re scaling are anything to go by. Photo: Screenshot
Ascending and descending
Perhaps it is the starkness of the icy expanses and naked rocky promontories, but Baffin seems to be formed on a particularly vast scale. It takes hours of hiking and skiing just to reach the base of their climbs.
There is one pinnacle, in particular, that they have their eyes on. As they begin to climb, it starts to rain, and they start to shiver. They keep going, climbing through the night and into the next day. Eventually, they reach a point one pitch from the summit. After so long and pushing so far past their limits, the pair decides to head down. There’s still a whole other leg to their adventure.
Their highest point. Photo: Screenshot
In their kayaks, they’re in their element. With 21 days of food, they leave base camp looking for whitewater. Erik has been kayaking his whole life and coaches the less-experienced Sarah through Class 4 rapids that challenge her skills.
“There’s always a chance that something goes wrong,” Sarah says simply, as Erik prepares to take on a challenging drop. He admits that he worries about leaving Sarah in a difficult position if something goes wrong.
After taking the plunge, he emerges somewhat bloody but largely unharmed.
Erik was nervous about attempting this, but he made it through with only a lost contact lens. Photo: Screenshot
After 45 days alone, kayaking, climbing, skiing, and surviving in the Arctic, they are tired and bedraggled but in good spirits.
“Yeah, it’s good. I dunno,” Erik says when asked how the experience was. The cheery vintage music kicks back in as what can only be described as a blooper reel plays onscreen.
