Mark Agnew: Arctic Cowboys Northwest Passage Expedition (Narwhals, Polar Bears & Camaraderie)

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In this episode i sit down with Mark Agnew, an accomplished adventurer and a member of the Arctic Cowboys, to explore his extraordinary journey kayaking the Northwest Passage. Mark recounts the challenges, wildlife encounters, and transformative experiences during the 1,600-mile expedition through Canada’s Arctic. From narrowly escaping crushing ice to awe-inspiring moments with narwhals and polar bears, this conversation dives into the essence of adventure and personal growth.

Mark shares how failure in earlier expeditions reshaped his approach to exploration, focusing on performance, discovery, and relationships. Listeners will learn about the immense physical and mental challenges of Arctic expeditions, the camaraderie among teammates, and the profound beauty of the natural world. Whether you’re a seasoned adventurer or someone seeking inspiration for your first outdoor journey, this episode offers invaluable insights into the spirit of exploration and resilience.

What You'll Learn:

• The challenges of navigating Arctic ice and subzero conditions.
• Mark’s personal growth after failing twice to row the Atlantic.
• How camaraderie and shared goals define the adventure experience.
• Fascinating wildlife encounters, including narwhals, bowhead whales, and polar bears.
• Tips for starting your own adventures, whether local or grand in scale.

Highlights from the Episode:

• Hydration Challenges: Frozen water and meal replacements tested their resourcefulness in extreme conditions.
• Wildlife Encounters: Mark shares incredible stories of narwhals’ synchronized movements and close calls with polar bears.
• Reframing Success: Mark shifted from external validation to intrinsic goals like camaraderie and immersion in nature.
• Contentment After Adventure: Achieving the Northwest Passage brought not just pride but lasting satisfaction.
• Practical Advice: Start small, embrace simplicity, and don’t let logistics deter your sense of adventure.

About Mark Agnew:
Mark Agnew is a European Adventurer of the Year and author of the upcoming book There Will Be Headwinds (June 2025). Follow Mark’s adventures on Instagram and Twitter (@AdventureAgnew) or visit his website adventureagnew.com.

Call to Action:
Ready to embark on your own adventure? Whether it’s hiking local trails or planning a grand expedition, the journey starts with one step. Check out the Wilderness Foundation UK to support mental health through nature and visit adventurediaries.com/podcast for more inspiring stories.

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Chapters

• 0:00 00:00 Survival in the Arctic: Frozen Food and Polar Bears
• 1:08 Introducing Mark Agnew: The Arctic Cowboy
• 2:41 Mark's Early Adventures and Formative Years
• 5:21 From Hong Kong to the Atlantic: The Adventurer's Path
• 8:51 Facing Failure: The Atlantic Rowing Attempts
• 15:54 The Northwest Passage: A New Challenge
• 24:11 The Arctic Cowboys: Team Dynamics and Preparation
• 34:48 Navigating the Ice: Challenges and Strategies
• 36:00 Prince Regent Inlet: The Crux of the Expedition
• 39:03 Encounter with Narwhals: A Magical Experience
• 42:09 Polar Bears: Close Encounters and Safety Measures
• 47:44 Weather and Final Push: Battling the Elements
• 50:55 Reflections and Future Plans
• 1:00:04 Closing Thoughts and Inspirations

Transcript

 And the big problem was that all the fresh water had frozen and that's obviously hydration, but also our food is in like powdered forms and stuff, so we can't even access the calories. We made Huel, this powdered like meal replacement, and then that froze on our boat thing. So I was eating it with a spoon, but other people's bottles were frozen shut, so they couldn't even access it.

And that day we were like, we don't know where we, when we land, we don't know if we'll get water and we need to. A few days later, Arlene and I had walked about four hours trying to find somewhere to get water, like hacking through places with ice and stuff. With an accent, but there was one polar bear that like rubbed against our tent and woke us up. 

And everybody thought it was the wind, except for me. I kept on saying, I think that's a polar bear. And everybody kept on saying, it's the wind. And then we heard and like ran out of the tent, throwing stones and making noises. It took about 10 minutes before we left. But, uh, we, by that point, we'd seen dozens and dozens of polar bears with cubs.

We saw Nile wall. We saw this sun almost setting for the first time, but not quite. It just turned the world orange and the moon rose until they weren't purple. And, uh, the ice was in his way, amazing. And the camaraderie. that I was looking for of fighting through that and overcoming it 

together. Welcome to the Adventure Diaries podcast, where we share tales of adventure, connection, and exploration.

From the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers, we hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures. And now your host, Chris Watson.  

Welcome to another episode of the Adventure Diaries.  Today we're joined by Mark Agnew, an adventurer who's no stranger to resilience and challenge.

From his daring attempts to row the Atlantic, to his latest accomplishment kayaking the treacherous Northwest Passage as one quarter of what became known as the Arctic Cowboys. Mark's journey is filled with determination, discovery and real self reflection.  And the Arctic Cowboys, they completed what became a grueling 1600 mile journey over 83 days in the Canadian Arctic. 

And along the way, Mark encountered polar bears, narwhals, and the challenge of navigating frozen seas. And all while pushing his own limits and rethinking what it truly means to be an adventurer.  But his real story, well it's about far more than just setting records. It's about the friendships formed. and the real personal growth. 

And for anyone that followed the journey of the Arctic Cowboys, this is a fascinating lesson. So settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Mark Agnew. Mark Agnew, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? 

I'm very good, thank you. Thanks for having me. 

It's a pleasure. I've been excited for this, having followed your escapades with the Arctic Cowboys and your epic Northwest Passage expedition.

But I suppose I want to kind of step through a bit of a, kind of, journey. Before we get to that, to kind of talk about backstory, your formative years and some of the expeditions and little adventures you've done in the build up to this, such as, and particularly interested in Mull as well, because I'm actually running my first little expedition to Mull in June, so keen to touch on that as well.

But if we just roll back,  because we're both Scottish, but we sound very different. 

Yeah, I'm cursed with an English accent. I just, I spent my life saying, I'll promise I'm Scottish, but yeah, I was born in Edinburgh, grew up in Edinburgh. Yeah. I went to Newcastle Uni, started there like 14 years ago now. And then straight from there, went to Hong Kong for eight years.

And then from Hong Kong went to London. So yeah, I was never, never had a strong Scottish accent, so it didn't take much for me to basically lose it, but give me two pints and yeah, you'll sound like I'm from deeper, deeper, darker Scotland. 

Uh, the Scottish will come out. Yeah, yeah. 

Yeah. 

So, growing up in Edinburgh then, what was it like as a youngster, a young Mark, in Edinburgh, in Scotland?

Were you into the outdoors much? Did you have much influence? Yeah, 

we did a lot of outdoorsy stuff as a family, for a combination of reasons. One simply being that we've got three sisters and it's expensive for my parents to take, like, four of us, like, on big holidays and stuff. So a lot of it was holidays in Scotland.

We went to Loch Tay and rented a cottage a couple of times. We hiked around the Sound of Marl. Very, very young. I, that was like my, probably one of my earliest memories. My dad says that we all were told that we're allowed to bring one teddy. And then we all overshot the budget so much. He had to do like three, eight mile laps back and forth to the car to bring all our teddies to the camp.

But so we were doing it from a young age and every Sunday we'd camp, hike in the Pentlands and then on the way back, we're like allowed to pick a fizzy drink. So it was very much like part of our lives. And that is very much down to my parents. You know, they, uh, My dad was a proper explorer, you know, he mapped part of Patagonia, climbing unnamed peaks in Greenland, leading expeditions to the Himalayas.

My mom was an adventurer and she like traveled to Australia in her 20s and then worked her way all the way back overland through Asia and Europe, back to the UK. I think it took her like four years. So that's always been like buzzing along in the background. But you know, as you get a little bit older, you get just less interested in whatever your parents are doing.

And, Less interested in them and more interested in your friends and your hobbies. So, by the time I was a teenager, it was all about nice sports, rugby in particular, cricket in the summer. Yeah, but I hiked, always hiked and whatnot, but it wasn't until Hong Kong that I like supercharged it. Because Hong Kong is just outdoor paradise.

Like 40 percent of the country is these big national parks, mountains, a couple of them as high as Monroe's. Or steep ridges, feels really remote and you just don't realize it until you get there. Cause you just have this skyline that dominates the like, um, perception of Hong Kong. And that's where it became just like a normal part of my life.

Hiking every weekend and then doing longer hikes and then trying lots of different things and beginning to dream of bigger and bigger and bigger things and trying to row the Atlantic. And a couple of times while I, from, you know, training there and running ultra marathons, which is just like the norm there.

You know, everybody tries it once kind of thing. So that's where it really took off. 

What was it that took you to Hong Kong? 

Well, I just wanted to live somewhere that wasn't the UK, not cause I just like the UK. I was just like, my parents had installed in me like the sort of drive to do interesting and different things.

I didn't want to go to London and it could have been anywhere. And I thought my ticket abroad would be my rugby. You know, I'm not good enough to be a professional, but I hoped that like maybe a decent club would give me a flat or something. And I actually wanted to go to Northern Italy, but I probably wasn't good enough to play like the standard that gives you a free flat there.

So eventually a club in Hong Kong contacted me through this rugby website. And yeah, I got a free flat for a few months and 600 pounds a month the first three months. And, uh, help setting myself up and they were even for that meager amount, they were very disappointed with how much worse I was than, uh, I'd explained.

So, um, yeah, like very much ended up in the second team bumbling along and that's sort of probably part of the diversion away from rugby towards these outdoors because I was, you know, not like playing as seriously as I would or hoped I would.  

Had you traveled much before you went to Hong Kong? 

Yeah. Yeah.

I had, um, I'd done lots of travel. I mean, before I went to university, I taught English in China for a year. So I think that's part of the reason why the Hong Kong club was interesting. Cause I said I could speak some Chinese, which was probably about as truthful as about  saying I'm really good at rugby. 

Fantastic. So what age were you when you went to Hong Kong? 21. I think straight out of uni. 

Yeah. Maybe I was 22. 

You're talking about your parents being quite adventurous and mapping Patagonia. It's pretty fantastic. Did you have any sort of grand adventures, ideas when you were a kid that you were going to go and do something?

Because you spoke about, you touched on it there, but I know you've had a couple of unsuccessful attempts at Atlantic, which I'm sure we'll come onto. But was that part of your thinking when you were younger, that you would always do something like that? 

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't remember there being like a specific one.

I didn't want to grow up and climb Everest or something. The Atlantic idea, rowing the Atlantic, was off the back of, just as I was leaving university, a friend of mine, Stuart, sent me a video of people rowing the Atlantic and said, let's do this together. We were just incredibly naive about how difficult it would be.

We don't want to miss the end of uni, so let's, you know, party until June. Pick this up in July, roll the Atlantic in December, and then go our separate ways and take on real life and get proper jobs and grad schemes and stuff. And rolling the Atlantic is like a two year planning, fundraising endeavor. So it got put off until we attempted via a paper place in 2016, which was three or four years later.

So that was the seed of something bigger. But I never, yeah, I don't think so. I think I was just motivated by rugby. If you asked me at 16, like what I wanted to do, I would have said play rugby for Scotland probably, rather than climb Everest or row or kayak the entire Northwest Passage. 

So did you take on the Atlantic without any sailing or rowing experience?

Yeah, well, I guess like by that point, I'd still been doing adventury things regularly. It seems like a big leap, but it's like built on just, like I say, just starting from a very young age and being comfortable in the outdoors. You know, it was like never, like I'd ever second guessed it. It was just like a place where I was comfortable and happy to be.

And before I began to drift away from my parents interests, my dad and I used to sail and race thingies.  It's the two of us, Monday nights in the Firth of Forth, brutally cold, you know, me seven and him 50 something. So, you know, I was comfortable in the water. And then in Hong Kong, there was a great coastal rowing scene.

So that's where I learned to row. But the Atlantic is Simultaneously, I think part of the reason why a lot of people do it, I mean, that maybe undersells it, like a relatively large amount of people do it compared to, let's say, climbing the Eiger is because it's simultaneously a massive, massive endeavor and requires very little like prior skill or experience.

The rowing you don't have to be technically good at, it's like easy to get proficient enough to row the Atlantic. The water is moving and swirling so much there's no way that you could have perfect technique. In fact, James Cracknell, the gold medalist Olympic rower, famously had a very tough time because He was so used to having perfect stroke and he just couldn't get it down in the water.

Sure, if you're going to try and set a record or something, it's going to be about those percentages and whatnot. But compared to sailing, if a storm comes when you're sailing, you've got to know what to do with the sails and, uh, with the way to point and be safe. But there's not really anything you can do in a rowing boat.

You just put out the sea anchor and as long as you can do that, you're fine. So it's epic and grand and really, really difficult and actually quite low level of, I guess, advanced skills. So yeah, I didn't have, you know, it was like a jump off the deep end, but it is for many people. 

What was that experience like?

Did you get rescued? 

Yeah, 2016 was like a pay per place. Me and my friend Stuart, we gave money to a captain and he organized it. That makes it It's cheaper and safer because there's a captain who's experienced and it's sort of like having a guide, I guess, rather than organizing yourself, particularly logistically easier.

I was in Hong Kong and Stu was in England. It was going to be very difficult, but it didn't go well at all. The captain had this long legacy of, Articles saying, calling him Captain Calamity and yeah, right away back to the nineties and I was so determined and like focus and emotionally and financially invested that anything that didn't confirm exactly what I wanted to hear about us doing it.

And also we said, we're going to set the world record. I just rationalized it away. Many of the things that had been said in the past about him and the Captain Calamity article sort of came true. And we were plucked off by helicopter about 48 hours in. Yeah. So it was at once a amazing experience because although I had sailed and ventured.

A lot, you know, I've never been swells that roll up behind you and tower over the back of you five, six, seven, eight meters, you stare up at them in the dark, in the middle of the ocean, and there's no light around you. And we didn't even have light on the boat because the captain had brought like garden path lights that were solar powered, and they've broken off all one by one the first night, but the moon was like a silvery light that cast a shadow behind us.

I didn't know the moon could be that bright. It was epic, but it wasn't. You know, surprising equally to be rescued because while that was happening the cabins were filling up with water, people were sleeping in two or three inches of water, their conditions were just spiraling and in the end the like official reason was a guy called George who was succumbing to sleeping in two or three inches of water.

And I think George felt pretty hard done by him. Maybe the rest of us should have poked our head up above the parapet a bit more and defended him as not the scapegoat. And George has gone on to become the oldest Greek to roar across the Atlantic, so he's proved that he has what it takes, so good for him.

Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. Were you ever in the water when you were in the Atlantic? No, no, that would have been 

Deadly, yeah. Our safety harnesses were just like ropes tied around our waist, whereas usually you have like a climbing harness and a carabiner, but yeah, we never capsized, um, it was a multi hull boat, which was part of the reason we thought we could set the record because it was so much faster surfing down waves, but it also meant it was unstable, so we wouldn't have capsized, but in those, um, conditions at night, Yeah, going overboard.

It would have been the last journey. 

How did that affect you mentally? You know, young guy, seems like a bit of youthful hubris. Yeah, well, the youthful 

hubris. It came in the second failure, the crash, because in this one it was so binary, it was so obvious that we had to get off. The choice was simple. And it was made by somebody else and you just sort of get off and roll your eyes and the fact that it wasn't like a surprise, you know, that we'd been in self denial.

It wasn't like I can't believe that happened. You just basically committed to going again before we'd even appeared in the Captain Calamity headline, which we did. And then two years later, I tried again in a pair.  And that time I got three days in and my partner needed to be picked up and she had the amazing self awareness and bravery to realize that she wasn't adjusting well and going on would maybe put herself or me in danger.

And in the time that we waited for a boat and I'm facing the prospect of going on solo, I am getting overwhelmed and I'm talking to the race organizers that time we'd all entered a race and they're saying different messages to me and I'm I'm conveying messages to them and I'm just getting more and more in knots trying to get somebody to give me a clear answer about whether I should go on or not.

And we were having to turn off these vital equipment because our solar panels weren't working. So I started to focus on that. Am I crossing the line from objective risk of ruining the Atlantic solo to reckless risk of doing it without functioning solar panels? Or am I grabbing a face saving excuse because I'm overwhelmed?

And I just don't know. Like, even in hindsight, I don't know. The ambiguity of that compared to the first one, where there's just like no chance of going on in a papier mâché boat this time, it's difficult and difficult to judge then. And retrospectively, that is where the fall came. The absolute enveloping crash of this ideal I had of myself, of the adventurer.

By this point, I wanted to be an adventurer. It wasn't like a one off. It'd become the thing I wanted to do. And it wasn't just what I wanted to do, it'd become who I was, Mark the Adventurer. And having not become an adventurer, completely spiraled into self worthlessness and not the idea that I was a worthless ocean rower, just the idea that I was worthless. 

And that is where the humorous got to me. And you know, the irony is now, like, I wanted to be an adventurer. Now, I think most people will probably perceive that I am, and I'm less sure of what it is, or if I am one.  I wasn't sure before, you know.  And I certainly felt like one, maybe before I went to the Northwest Passage, because Adventure wasn't like a one off thing.

I was trying to plan towards every few years. I started making like a part of my life. You know, I used to mention Marla when I ran Marla, sailed to Shetland. I kite all around Hong Kong. Those are adventures. And it was part of my life rather than like. I think I've heard Al Humphreys, who's an adventurer I love, say something like a lifetime of adventure rather than an adventure of a lifetime.

So yeah, it was becoming part of my life. Then I went to the Northwest Passage, have an adventure of a lifetime. And now I've come back and I'm parenting and stuff and basically don't do any adventures in the movie. So like, you know, I don't know what it is. to be an adventurer, whereas before I was actually cut up because I wasn't one.

I think more arguably what you've just accomplished is bigger and better 

than the Atlantic. I mean, I don't want to diminish the Atlantic, but what we've done is I'm very, very, very proud of it. It's incredibly difficult. The Northwest Passage, one way or another, has defeated people for like hundreds of years.

And for about a decade, people have been trying to do it by human power because the ice is disappearing and other teams just haven't made it halfway. This year, two other teams racing us and equally didn't manage to get to the end. So like what we were doing was one of the hardest things. Yeah. I'm very, very proud.

And I have no interest in the Atlantic anymore. People say, Oh, you go back to the Atlantic now to get the monkey if you're back, I'm like, yeah, I mean, you'd have to pay me to do it now. Like, why 

would you, I think I'm interested to know, have you thought about you? Because it's interesting you say you felt you had to do that to be an adventurer, but was your objectives or your outlook?

Because I mean 

Yeah, no, no, you're, you're onto something here that's very important to me. My objective completely changed by the time I got to the Northwest Passage. So my problem with the Atlantic in hindsight was my objective was binary. Set the world record. And you do it, you, you are an adventurer, or you don't do it, you're not an adventurer.

And I realized that isn't really actually what being an adventurer is about at all. So I diversified my objectives to include three things, performance, discovery, relationships. Performance is the binary outcome. Did we kayak the Northwest Passage? Discovery for me meant being immersed in nature  and relationships for me went camaraderie.

Now if we don't achieve the performance, I can still judge the other two on my own terms. Did I have an immersive experience in nature? Yes. Did I have an experience of camaraderie? Yes. Now the performance is still important to me. I'm still proud of it. And equally, it facilitates particularly the camaraderie.

We can't act around for fun. That's a relationship or a friendship. But camaraderie is about pushing for a shared goal. So I guess the performance goal becomes a means to an end. So yeah, the objectives are completely re examined. And that performance discovery relationship thing is based on.  It's a piece of psychology I read by two psychologists, Katrina Douglas and David Careless, who like examined why do sports people do sport.

And it's not supposed to be self help. It's just like them understanding sports people's motivations. But as soon as I heard about it, it like snapped in my head. I was like, yeah, what? That is it. I wanted to row the Atlantic because I wanted to be at sea. I could have done 3, 000 miles backwards and forwards across a harbor.

I wanted to be immersed in nature. And people often said to me, you've had problems with your career. Why don't you do it solo? Well, I never do it solo. I want to do it as a team. You know, it almost was replacing some of the things that I enjoyed about rugby. You just spoke to me this framework.  And the reason that I got focused on performance is because that first paper plays guide captain advertised it as join my world record setting crew.

And then suddenly I was like, yeah, I want to be part of the world record setting crew. And I just lost sight of everything. By the time I got to the Northwest passage, I had these three aims. One was extrinsic, completely measurable, we'd either succeed or we didn't. The other, intrinsic, I can tell you whether we did it or not.

You know, even going forward, like that's liberated me because now I can say, Oh, I want to do this adventure because it immerses me in nature. It's not going to get a headline. Or I want to do this nature because I like the people, or I want to do this one because there's a performance element, which is still fine.

And then I can push myself, have a goal,  the intrinsic outcomes that I'm looking for, but I'm still like excited about training and going hard. So as soon as you knew, it said the word objectives, I knew what you're circling around. And I was like, that is exactly what 

It's 

been so important to me and I'm so proud of the achievement, but I'm so content with the adventure and that contentment is far more lasting and important than the pride, which will eventually go.

And, you know, so many people achieve a big goal and then feel flat afterwards.  The contentment that lasts and the contentment that avoids that flatness comes from having intrinsic motivations. Comes from drawing on being immersed in nature, drawing on the relationships, which will last. Forever. And we can have a beer in a week, a year, a month, or 50 years and say, we did something special together.

And meanwhile, the achievement will just at best become a pub quiz question. 

It's a fantastic reframe because I feel like having spoken to a lot of adventurers and explorers, it's quite an interesting dynamic, it feels. Especially in youth that people feel that they need to go out and do something like that to get the degree of validation so that they can have the label from others that they are an adventurer.

When I think if you reframe it a little bit and it's more about, like you said, the journey that you're experiencing and immersing yourself and connecting with others. And as cliche as it sounds, it's about the time on the journey, time on the adventure, rather than getting the, 

Yeah, well, exactly. And like, I knew that's sort of what I wanted.

The journey over the destination, you know, I'm sure that's quoted on a million walls somewhere, but the difference was articulating exactly what the journey meant to me, which was those two very specific things, which helped me like focus on it rather than just being like, well, you know, the journey was good.

Like, what does that mean? And what is the journey? Well, the journey is camaraderie, immersion in nature. And now I say, what would you like to finish? Adventure isn't about the last or the first day. It's about everything in between. 

Yeah. So circling back then, just to kind of frame up the Northwest Passage for those that may not be aware.

So yeah, those people. Yeah. So it's a 2000 mile, more than 2000 mile journey from like Bath and Bay. 

Well, it's from Bath and Bay to Beaufort Sea. And we thought we were going to have to go to a place called Tuktoyaktok, past the end of the Northwest Passage. It would have been closer to 2, 000 miles, end up being about 1, 700 and something, I can't remember now, but the actual passage was about 1, 600.

The route through the Canadian Archipelago in the Arctic, that you have to go through if you want to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Historically, it was this fabled trade route. It was expensive and time consuming, and the British couldn't necessarily go past Spanish or Portuguese or Dutch colonies in South America or Africa.

So they thought maybe if we can go over North America, we can get to Asia quicker. And they sent people to look as early as 1500s and it quickly became clear that it wasn't a commercial route, even if it existed, it was so full of ice, nobody could get through. But it became a place in Britain's imagination and they became obsessed with it to the extent that the opening of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

He's a captain telling a story where he came across Frankenstein. He's running from his monster while he's looking for the Northwest Passage. And even now it holds a place in Britain's imagination. Franklin's boats were the famous ones that got crushed and the whole crew ate each other. That's in the 1840s.

It was front page news when we finally find his boats in 2014, 2016. The BBC made a fictional dramatized version of it called The Terror. His boats are called the Terror and the Erebus. Michael Palin had a best selling book about three years ago called The Erebus, about the other one. Like, it's something that we low key in the background care about in Britain.

And in the last 10 years or so, the ice has been retreating for longer and longer. That although it once was so full of ice that it was unnavigable. Now it's maybe Naboth Ghul by human power, people began to think, and then that's what the ocean adventure world began to circle around and people tried it in rowing boats and whatnot.

One guy did it over a few years doing little bits and then going home for winter. So I guess we're the first people to do it in human power in a single season, and the first people to kayak it. For me, it was exciting to be part of the you know, there's so many stories that I'd read and stuff. Not to say that it was comparable at all to what they were going through, but it was seeing some of the places that I read about was very exciting.

So 

how did that come to be then, Mark? Because you're one quarter of the four Arctic cowboys as you've become known. Was it West Hanson, Jeff Westy, I think? 

Weston. Eileen 

Visser, Westy, Eileen Visser. Yeah, 

he wouldn't, yeah, everybody pronounced it a thousand different ways. Well, you know, I first came across it specifically when.

I was preparing to row the Atlantic in 2016 and became obsessed with Googling all this different ocean rowing stuff and came across a guy who was, he had it on his website that one day he wanted to be the first person to do it under human power in a rowboat. And then in the depths of my despair post second failure, just as I was beginning to recover by focusing on resilience and several ways that I came across his.

I knew that I wasn't like maybe mentally ready yet, but equally, if I didn't sign up, I'd miss this opportunity. So initially I joined a rowing team, three plus years planning and funding that. And then I just didn't like the way that it was going. I didn't think that for many reasons that it was for me.

So very last minute, I made a difficult decision and I reached out to out to Cowboys who are our rivals. And they had tried in 2022 in solo, single boats. and didn't get very far and thought that they could address some of those problems by going back in tandem boats, which meant that it needed an extra person. 

So, I reached out at the very last minute. They accepted me. I don't have much kayaking experience, so it was a risk for them, it was a risk for me. I am  eternally grateful. I mean, Wes was the leader and he was the one who made the decision. Eileen joined at a similar time to me. When I flew to the Arctic to start the Northwest Passage, it was the first time I met them.

What? Really? Yeah, they're all Texan and New York. I'd spent all of my money on the rowing and had little hope of any sort of refund. I couldn't fly over and train. And, yeah, they had to take my word for it and, and they, you know, I said, I went to a guy called Jeff Allen in Cornwall who's like Mr. Sea Knighting.

He takes no prisoners and he put me through my paces and then sent them an email saying this is what we did with him and I'm confident that Mark can do it. 

Wow, that's incredible, Mark. So what was the dynamic then like, because from the research I'd done, West is very experienced. He's done like Source to Sea in the Amazon amongst and they've done loads of other long distance paddles and quite adept at outrigging boats and stuff like that, so very, you know, much in the wild.

How did your dynamic fit in then with the others? So West and 

Jeff are like best friends for 30 years and Jeff was on the Amazon expedition, first people to do Source to Sea and then just a pair of them were the first people to do the length of the Volga as well. Eileen and the two of them have. Before they got into expeditions were more focused on racing, but ultra kayak racing.

So they've got this race called the Texas Water Safari, which is clearly a very formative race for them. Had many stories about it and it's 200 and something miles. And Eileen, who trained with them, but was also new to the group, a very experienced kayak as well. Particularly her crown jewel was winning the Yukon Quest, which is like a 500 mile race in the Yukon  in a boat that she built herself.

So yeah, all very experienced kayakers. I guess what I brought to the table was sort of a more broader sea experience. They were very, very experienced river staff. And I think that in particular, if I was to assess my contribution, my ability to use a navigation, I think when I started doing that, I look back with a great deal of pride at maybe saving many, many days by going in clever ways, but with that in mind, initially, particularly on the first couple of outings, Whichever boat I was in was much, much slower, to the extent that everybody, including myself, was worried that I'd maybe massively underestimated.

You know, we even had a conversation that was like, by the time we get to the first big crossing, if things haven't changed, we're not going to be able to do this. Like, it wouldn't be safe to do the crossing at 2. 5 miles an hour. But Jeff, the guy I trained with in Cornwall, one of his final bits of his email was, Anything that Mark doesn't know, from what I've seen, he picks it up very, very quickly.

And, 

uh, yeah. And 

so with Eileen's in my kayak patiently pointing out some simple things that I could do to improve, we were all like, you know, within a couple of weeks, the right muscle will have developed and the technique will come and within two or three days, I was up to speed. And that's not to say that I'm now an ultra kayaking champion.

There was always a discrepancy in speed, but it was not dangerous like it was on those first couple of nights. 

Who were you paired up with, Mark, and did you swap differently? So 

on the first attempt to launch, I was with Jeff. At launch, we were repelled by ice and it was a long old day. I'm just going through my diaries now for my book.

And it was 14 hours, which included hauling over stuff. I don't know how long the kayaking was. And that was when we were really slow. And it was to do with a multitude of things. I've never kayaked with Jeff before. He'd never kayaked with me. Our boats were so badly packed cause we, and so overloaded on the top.

Jeff couldn't even get like a proper reach. Cause he was like hitting the kit that was piled up on deck in between us. And, but Eileen and West was going ahead and then having to wait for us going ahead and having to wait for us and getting very cold. So I swapped with Eileen. I don't know why, but West.

I thought that we would maybe have a higher average speed if I was with Eileen. And then I stayed with Eileen for the rest of the journey. I 

actually watched a video on West's YouTube channel about how he outrigged  the kayaks as well and all the modifications to it. It was fantastic stuff. And I was particularly interested in seeing  What modifications you had to do to the factory boats considering the dangers of rock and ice and having to drag these things out onto the shore and very difficult and extreme  environments and stuff?

Well, Wes and Jeff and Eileen, all of them, you know, Eileen had built her own boat and Wes and Jeff have a background in construction and Jeff owns a metal work construction company and Wes has done many similar things. And so they're very, very practical people. And towards the end, there were times when rudder lines were snapping and they always knew what to do.

Bye. West a lot of things to the boat, just little things that you don't think about, but the big one was like putting an electric pump  off and the pump, you know, just, uh, I think he was expecting to use it as like an emergency pump in the event of going over, but we were constantly just running it for a little bit, just to get water out, just having a little bit of water splashing around was so cold.

You know, I lost feeling on my feet in the first night. And I'm trying to book a doctor's appointment now because I still have problems, like, uh, the end of my big right toe, still numb. It was crucial. I mean, there's little, little things to buzz out. But the big fix they did was when we got stuck on shore for like 15 days at the start, after that aborted attempt, we finally made it about 40 miles.

We still weren't past the ice. We were trying to make it like 60 miles to the next place where we could land and get  You know, having spent 15 days poking around the ice, trying to see if there was a way through, it was sort of like a Hail Mary, like we have to get 60 miles, we have to get past this ice.

Otherwise, this is like game over before it starts. We are 40 miles. We got a text saying big storm coming, like you got to get off the water. There was no way to get off the water. So to pull up on the ice. And then we had an internal debate. Do we camp on the ice? Like, uh, we could break up under us. We don't really have any experience camping on ice.

Maybe it's just so cold we go to sleep and then don't wake up. So we dragged across the ice, even though it was about two miles. It took, uh, five hours. Then camp next to a cliff. And then in the morning the ice had shifted and we pulled it back. Nine hours. Like tying them around our waists and pulling and it was a real strain on the boats and there was some open leads that we've used the boats as a bridge, you know, put it across and we clambered over and then the five hours turning into nine hours because more ice has been pushed in.

So that wasn't even like semi permanent ice that's attached to the shore. It was like bobbing around and hauling and jumping and heaving over. Eventually there was like enough gaps in the water that we were, you know. Couldn't really launch the boats, but also couldn't continue to jump from ice to ice.

So we were just jumping in the boats, kayaking 10 meters, getting out, jumping in the boats, kayaking 10 meters. And that's when Eileen realized that her cockpit was just filling up with water really quickly. And we, and she had a big hole in her cockpit and, uh, we don't know where it came from. I thought it might have come from one of the big bits that we had to, sort of walls of ice that we pulled it over.

And as it pivoted The, the strain snapped it, but Jeff thinks maybe it came down on a piece of ice right on where the wall, where the end of the cockpit met one of the little storage cabins. So anyway, immaterial on the end. We dried the area. Well, Wes and Jeff dried the area with a lighter so it was as dry as possible.

Then they duct tape over it and then they ran the lighter over the duct tape so that the glue melted and then re solidified so it was as hard as possible. And that piece of duct tape basically lasted a thousand miles. 

Wow.  That is incredible. And then we were at Cambridge 

Bay, we pre ordered a, like, um, a big piece of epoxy and they did, like, a proper job in fixing it and making it solid.

I think it came off once, but that wasn't because it came off because we dragged it over another piece of ice and it just peeled off. And we put it on again. And then after that we were so nervous about running out of duct tape that sort of painstakingly get into the water then, the three or four of us.

Actually the three of us because Geoff completely severed his Achilles about a third of the way through so couldn't help much and so you know we lift it and it was really heavy and but we're just like we just gotta get to Cambridge Bay we can't drag it across the ice again and yeah there was a constant tinkering and a lot of pre expedition work from West.

It was amazing the work that because watching the video it's amazing how meticulous he is with things even like the marks down to the size of the spanner and how You know, he needs for every single bolt and the different handles they put onto and, you know, what it would be like trying to change that in cold weather.

It seemed like everything had been thought through. Just like 

simple things like, yeah, he put on big handles and, you know, he sometimes had to be very dynamic. You're landing into, like,  It's probably very easy to do in a light single kayak by yourself. You jump out, you grab the nose of the kayak, you come up before the next wave comes.

But it's a 23 foot double kayak. So whoever's in the back is probably still 10 foot into the water. It can be deep and it's packed and heavy. So you can't, and it's so high and heavy. Big cockpit compared to like a solo. It's difficult to get out quickly. Plus you've been sitting in the kayak for like 12 hours.

So my legs got so stiff. So it's very difficult to jump out quickly, grab the nose, heave it up. Everybody's out of the water. Then just the simplicity of having these metal handles that he'd, uh, drilled in and waterproofed meant that you could get a proper grip, two or three people quickly and heave up and then even attached to them, he had straps.

So if we wanted to do some proper hauling and had time, we could do that. unclip them and pull them higher up the beach or, or cross ice as we unexpectedly had to do on several occasions. So it's just small things like that, like just, uh, make life on the adventure, like much, much more practical. 

Yeah. Well, see, when you were trying to navigate the ice, did you ever get stuck?

Did you ever get into parts where it was almost impenetrable?  Is that when you were having to drag the boats across the ice? 

Well, dragging the boats across the ice was only when we were trying to get to shore that first night. Other than that, no, we were painstaking in dragging back to the exact spot we launched because we never wanted to portage because then we wouldn't be the first people to kayak in Orpheus Passage.

We would be the first people to kayak and walk. But there was, in those first couple of weeks, we launched, we didn't get very far, we came back, We spent 10 days and then we launched three days in a row each time, just Getting that five miles on the ice like closing in around us and we just float there and it was beautiful and sunny and amazing and the icebergs were like cathedrals and the sky and the color of the water in contrast to the ice was vibrant and the ice under the water was turquoise.

It was really fantastic experience and with a goal of being immersed in nature, you know, it wasn't necessarily that frustrating to be propelled in this kind of way. But, you know, we didn't get out and we just waited for a moving kayak back to the cabins, waiting for another day until we took this Hail Mary to get 60 miles.

But then later when we were crossing Prince Regent Inlet, which was like, we were considering the crux of the expedition, 50 mile wide crossing, about a third of the way through. I absolutely just could not deal with ice in that that situation, you know, that wasn't five miles off. Hopefully we'll be fine.

And then we'll go back to a cabin. This is, we are in the wildest part of the Northwest Passage. Nobody's here. We made our way 17 miles further south than planned to make sure we were avoiding the ice, which meant our crossing was wider, but anything to avoid the ice. And then in the final few miles we came across A lot of ice packed tightly to shore and we tried to weave through it because it was only maybe half a mile from shore.

It was just too dense and we turned around and in turning around, there's something had happened somewhere else in the Northwest Passage.  Hundreds of kilometers of ice must have just broken off from shore and was now just being funneled into Prince Regent Inlet. And, you know, the more we fought, the more entangled we became.

And it wasn't like the ice we'd seen when we were stuck in those first two weeks, which was. essentially inanimate and would shift and maybe then hold us in place and then shift away on a tidal wave. This was rolling and crushing over itself like lava. Eventually these two huge bits of ice just came towards Eileen and I and we thought we were going to be crushed to death.

And it just slammed into the side of us and pinched the bottom of our kayaks instead of crushing us and lifted us up into the air. So then we got out of the kayaks and stood on the ice and just waited and waited until space moved into the water again. And there was never really that much space, you know, it was like Wes and I were talking and we were like, Do we launch?

Do we wait? You know, if we launch, we could get crushed because we've been lucky to get this far. Or if we stay, God knows where this is going to float or could break up under us or flip. I don't know. So we launched and made this Hail Mary weaving and dodging, trying to desperately get to shore, eventually making it.

We were half a mile away from shore after 11 hours, thinking that the crux was done in total 18 hours to complete that last half, half a mile. In this death defying, raging, dynamic ice. But equally, for that 18 hours, I've gone over in 30 seconds, where we saw Nile Wall, we saw this sun almost setting for the first time, but not quite, and it just turned the world orange, and the moon rose and turned the world purple, and ice was in its way, amazing, and the camaraderie that I was looking for of fighting through that and overcoming it together.

All of us on the last day were just I just remember crossing Prince Regent and I think West was interviewed by a local newspaper. They asked me, what's the best day? Do you know what I said? And we all sort of said in tandem, was it Prince Regent? And he said, yeah, it was, and we were like, yeah, what a day. 

And like the effort of getting to it. It's just like a day that is special to me and, you know, I talked about camaraderie. It's a day also that there's only three other people on the planet who can relate to and we had tensions, of course, and we had highs and lows and some people are better friends than other people and whatnot.

But there's like one thing that will always happen.  

That's fantastic. Honestly, narwhals. These things are elusive.  I don't know. 

Like, uh, you knew what we're occasionally talking about hunting it. And I did wonder, like, it just seemed like the easiest animal in the world to hunt there ever.  And, uh, they like that we, when we first saw them, we were coming through the sort of ethereal fog on this big 45 mile day and saw them splashing around.

And I was worried about walruses. People have warned me about walruses. Oh, they're even worse than the polar bears. Everybody had like, uh,  Something to tell me that was going to kill me up there. So I walruses, we've got to go round them, we've got to go round them. We're going into a pack of walruses. And then we began to realise they were narwhal.

And we were really desperate to make miles on this 45 mile day. It was going to be the biggest day we did so far.  It was going to take ages and it was already late. But we just could not resist and just stopped. And just watched the narwhal float around and disappear and come up. And then about 10 of them just lined up perfectly with Eileen and I.

And we just floated, and no matter where we floated, they stayed parallel to us. Just always parallel, intentionally looking at us, and Eileen just tapping the side of the kayak and making sort of singing sounds to get them interested. And this sounds like I'm making it up. One of them then put its, like, tusk in the air, and it was like a signal to the others.

And they all rolled in simultaneously, waved their,  waved their flipper, and then rolled away and disappeared like a synchronized swimming team.  And, you know, we then spent the rest of the day saying, what do you think they were doing? Like,  were they protecting their young? Or maybe there was a hunting thing and we just happened to be there.

Eileen was like, they were communicating with us, which sounded like similar, you know, like the most airy fairy unlikely thing, but she has a degree in marine biology, so I was like, I'll have to take word for it, but like, uh, they probably were, they probably were. And we came across a BBC crew who were studying the beluga whale, and we told them about our narwhal experience.

And I seem to think that. Yeah, I mean, maybe they were communicating with you, they're social. So, I think they were just checking us out as we were checking them out, but I still don't know why they like waved and stuff, because I feel like that's um, very culturally specific to humans.  

Yeah, you just can't buy moments like that, that's fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think Jeff in 

particular kept on talking about how that's the best wildlife encounter in his life. Yeah, the narwhal we saw in Prince Regent in the crossing were the last we saw, and then we saw beluga a few days later, and then we didn't see whales after that. But in the first third, I think it was a combination of where we were, but also the ice, like the edge of the ice is an ecosystem.

A lot of food and it's like a food chain develops there. So we've seen bowhead whales and narwhal and seals. I've seen lots of seals in Scotland, but never like moving in like 20, like bounding through the water, almost like dolphins. Never seen that before. And, uh, yeah, lazies, tail flips and bowhead whales are huge.

As they come up, curl their tail and disappear, sort of like, uh, classic image of a whale right next to us in one campsite and we were just like precariously on this piece of ice that was attached to the bottom of a cliff. It was just bow hair whales sort of 10 meters away from us, just lazily puffing in the air, like  oxygenating  themselves, I guess.

So, uh, yeah, 

amazing. 

That's absolutely brilliant. 

Did you have any threat of polar bears? Because you must have. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. 

So many. There's so many. 

Did you have to carry rifles or anything? 

Yeah. We had a rifle and a shotgun and a flare gun. I'm just trying to think of like a polar bear story to tell you.

So I don't, I end up repeating like, uh, I'll briefly go over the one where, that I've told like too many times before that I don't want anyone to think, Oh, I heard this guy on the podcast, I've only seen one polar bear, but there was one polar bear that like rubbed against our tent and woke us up and everybody thought it was the wind, except for me.

I kept on saying, I think that's a bear, and everybody kept on saying it's the wind. And then we heard and like ran out of the tent throwing stones and making noises. It took about 10 minutes before it left. By that point we'd seen dozens and dozens of polar bears with cubs.  A few things that surprised us, one of them was initially, you know, if we're coming up behind a polar bear, we're going along kayaking on the shore and it's plodding along.

We don't want to accidentally I take it by surprise. So we make some noise,  but it looks over the shore, it sees us coming. And this happens time and time again. And it starts running down the shore. And they could turn left inland and be away from us in a second. And they're clearly scared of us. And they never take that option.

They always turn right and went into the water.  And, uh, initially we were like, it's coming for us. But then, you know, we just got used to it. They just do that. They swim past. They sit in the water like a seal's head and just watch you go by and either go back on land or out to the ice and get out on the ice.

And I've subsequently learned that in America, you're actually classified as a marine mammal, a log legged tidal whale, a land mammal, like a grizzly bear. In Inuit and in Greek, their name means water bear. But it was, uh, you know, one of the first nights. Our bear alarm went off, I grabbed the flare so quickly that I actually punched Jeff and split his lip and then got out and the bear just petrified, turned around and ran away.

But yeah, I guess one of the scariest bears, because the other ones, you know, they happen so quickly, you're not scared, you're just reacting, and you know, you're dealing with a situation, you reflect later, wow, that was close. But there was one that was, we overtook, and it was walking along shore very slowly with its cub. 

And when we landed to camp, we were sort of aware that sooner or later, if this continues on its trajectory, it's going to appear. So Eileen and I stay, like, we don't get changed, usually everybody gets changed very quickly because we need to get cold very, very quickly. We didn't get changed because then we'd be basically naked when it arrived.

And it turned up and we made noises and it looked up and saw us and then  shrugged and just kept walking towards us. And it wasn't threatening in any way, but it was going to walk through our camp. You know, at that point, all it takes is a swipe to break a kayak, rip a tent, it really injure us or a sudden movement to spook it or whatever.

And we're just like making noises, waving flags, towels as flags. Um, Eileen had a university flag and eventually get very close at 50 meters away. And we sort of made a mad dash towards it, like a final like, ah, and they got the message and went into the water, went around us. But although that was a really, not a very intense experience compared to some of the other bears, which just appeared in our tent, our camp where, when the alarm went off like the first one. 

The slow nature of it and the time to reflect on like, you know, we're running out of options here, we're running out of options and you don't want to, you don't want to use the rifle ever. It'll be catastrophic. But yeah, our approach to bears definitely changed over time. You know, the first few encounters, firing flares off,  scaring it entirely.

And then another day, just after a place called Bellet Strait, there was a clang outside our tent and something had been knocked over. I didn't even hear it.  And Jeff put his head out. And he was like, Oh man, there's a bear here. Oh, go on, shoot, get, get, go on, get. And he comes back in and he's like, it's gone.

And then there's like, should we do something more? Uh, so I think West went out and fired a flare off to like, make sure it didn't come back. But, uh, you know, that crew that I talked about, who were doing the beluga research, they, they were, Walking around with a rifle was never in a group less than three, never allowed a hundred meters away from the camp.

And when a bear did come near and we could see their camp from where we were camping, you know, they slid off like a hundred gun salute. In contrast to our, it wasn't that we were being complacent, it was just practical. We just didn't have the manpower to kayak the Northwest Passage and have, Like people on sentry duty and  whatnot.

It just is what it is. And I would acknowledge that I was definitely the most paranoid of bears. Probably because we just don't have apex predators in the UK. So the anxiety of going to sleep and knowing that there's something in the vicinity that could kill me was something that the others were maybe used to.

Yeah. I think we need to worry about caper kelly's grouse or stags.  An urban 

fox isn't like, you know, a lost urban fox. Yeah. 

Uh, it sounds like this adventures had everything, Mark. It's absolutely, yeah, I mean, just 

like I said before, I'm just so content because it was suitably epic, you know, I think we used every margin of error possible and finished in 103 days.

And the conventional wisdom is sort of like, you have 60 days, you maybe have more if you're lucky, we had maybe like, Worst case scenario, we'll have 90 days of food, but that was a huge buffer. Everybody's tried it before, given up when they've got to September because the weather turns too bad. And the two other rowing teams I was talking about that were racing us.

One of them was the one that I was previously involved in and decided to switch the last minute. Got within 70 miles of us sometime in September, catching up with us because they started so much further behind us and then turned around citing the unprecedented weather, they called it, as winter came.

And we. Kept going for a month after that, 103 days rather than the conventional 60.  

What was the weather conditions like when you were going? Did you have any really to other, I mean, not withstanding what you said about the ice, but you know, generally the kind of day to day, what were the waves and the weather and stuff like that?

Was it 

quite? Yeah, generally no. For 90 percent of it, it was not that cold. It was in the plus. It was very sunny to begin with. And I was kayaking every day in a dry suit because if you get the water's cold, you have to have a dry suit. But under that, I started off with just a very thin wool base layer, that was it.

And then I added a medium wool jumper and then fleece trousers as it got a little bit colder. Uh, then I put a pair of woolen socks and my feet were pretty suffered, but everything else was fine. I had a thing called pogies on my hands, so I didn't have gloves. They like sort of strap over, I guess if you see somebody on a scooter in winter, where they're putting their hands into like the oven gloves. 

Yeah. So 

they're holding with their bare hands onto the handle, but they're covered, that's like on the paddle. And I didn't wear a hat and I never had my hood up. I hated having my hood up, it made me hot. And then on shore, there would be like this manic pull up and then west. Without fail would say, let's get ready.

Let's get warm. Let's get the camp up. And then those two minutes, cause you've got to get changed. You've got to get naked and then dressed.  It was brutal. But once you're dressed, I was just fine. It was just like totally fine. In the second half, I bought a much bigger jacket for anticipating winter, but it didn't have a hood.

And it's not until you don't have a hood that you realize how much difference it makes, just air coming out. But then in the last 10 days, maybe less, Around 10 days, two weeks, you know, people were telling us, you can't be here in September. And people were telling us like, winter comes quickly here, winter comes quickly here.

And it was getting pretty, pretty cold. And then we did this final big crossing, 40 miles across Franklin Bay. We woke up and it was just like sheet white, like snow everywhere. And the big problem was all the fresh water had frozen. And that's obviously hydration, but also our food is in like powdered forms and stuff, so we can't even access the calories.

We made fuel. This powdered like meal replacement and then that froze on the boat thing. So I was eating with a spoon, but other people's Bottles of frozen shots. They couldn't even access it. And that day we were like, when we land, we don't know if we'll get water. And we need to, a few days later, Eileen and I had walked about four hours trying to find somewhere to get water, like hacking through places with ice and with an ax, and that was cold.

And all our clothes were so wet. Everything was wet. We joked that we were like living on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is soaked and 0 is moist. So then our clothes would freeze overnight, and then you'd have to put them on. And then after we finished the Norfolk's Passage, where we're trying to get 60 miles to an abandoned airport to get picked up by a small plane.

Then it got really brutal, uh, to go out at like 3am in the morning on the final morning, dig out the back of our tent with the spare paddle, there's like snow built up on it. And then later that night I was in the hotel, having finished it, trying to upload my pictures for a press release. I was getting so livid with the speed of the Wi Fi.

And then I was like, it was literally like 24 hours ago, I was digging a tent out of snow in like the 40 mile an hour wind. Now I'm losing my temper at Wi Fi. So it was like a funny contrast. But those days, the winter came quick and it felt like we were stealing days from the Arctic. You were not allowed to be here anymore.

What was it like then when you finished, when you got to it? 

Well, I guess there were two finishes, you know, we finished the Northwest Passage, and I could not have anticipated the emotional release. It was an intense last few moments where we were surfing down these waves, which was like, you know, you asked before about the weather, the waves.

Well, ultimately we didn't really have bad waves because if the waves were bad, we didn't go out.  One day we spent six days in some like small cabin, sometimes three days in a tent together, waiting for the weather conditions. And then we unexpectedly came across these breaking waves in the last hundred meters.

And it was really intense and right at the level of my relatively novice ability. In fact, Jeff Allen back in Cornwall, the only thing he'd made me do was surf on breaking waves. And I couldn't understand it because I was like, aren't you going to make me kayak 40 miles, set up a tent and then tell them that I'm good at it?

He said, no, if you can stay upright in breaking waves, you can stay upright in anything. And on the first day I couldn't. And by the end of the weekend, I was surfing down breaking waves. And then in that last few moments, the only time that I needed it in the last 30 seconds of the whole Northwest Passage. 

The training from Jeff Almond kept me alive 

and 

we shot out into the Beaufort Sea and I cried and I like shook with tears and I thought about the Atlantic failing. I thought about my wife and what she put up with for me to be here. I'd left my daughter one year old and my wife was pregnant and I knew I was going home to her and everything we'd been through and how happy I was and how sad I was and it was just like a kaleidoscope of emotions and I can't remember if I thought of this at the time.

But I definitely thought about it soon afterwards. Andy Murray winning Wimbledon and then like the final shot and then he like collapses to his knees and drops the thing and it's like and cry. I can't remember if he cried, but it's like, you know, they all do it. Their head in the grass. I just thought, well, yeah,  you know, I get it.

You know, this is something I've worked towards for years and now it's done. I was trying to say to Eileen, we've done it. We've done it. We've done it. And I just couldn't speak because I was crying and crying and crying. And it was just wonderful. And then we finished the second time. when we actually got to the airport and that was sort of more like relief and contentment because it was like a touch and go by that point and we weren't even sure if we're going to be able to manage this last crossing or we're going to have to take like a longer route and do extra days which would be fine if all the weatherful conditions held but the weather forecast was becoming like basically impossible.

Accurate to about six hours and we only had about five, six hours of food left when we finished, you know, if we didn't manage that last crossing and had to turn it to two days and then the second day, the weather conditions changed and it turned into five or something, you know, the longest we've been stuck on shore was almost a week.

So there was this like, wait, like, we've got to finish. We've got to finish now. And then we did. And even in those last few hours, big headwind built up spilling over the nose of our kayaks. Cold, slow, difficult. I kept on thinking that there would be a crux and oh, we've done it. It was easy from here on out.

And, you know, even when we were 16 miles from the end from my last campsite, 16 miles from the end of the Northwest Passage, I was like, Oh, you know, tomorrow we'll finish. And then we had the breaking waves. Oh, we finished now it's just to the  airport. And then we had the final crossing and we were on the final crossing.

I could see the end. And then we had the headwinds and it was just never, didn't give us anything. 

It's fantastic. It sounds like it's been sprinkled with a little bit of everything, a little bit of danger and, you know, some of your wildlife encounters and, yeah, it's fantastic. And European Adventurer of the Year validation, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, 

that's nice. European Adventurer of the Year. Had I been made European Adventurer of the Year having rode the Atlantic in 2016, not that I ever would have, but it would have been like a dream come true. But now it's just like a cherry on the top and The wider scheme of the intrinsic things that I got out of it rather than the external validation, but still it's nice.

It's European adventure of the year 2023. It's on my business cards already. So  

yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. I've got like a whole career 

off the back of it. Talks to schools and companies and I've just signed my first book deal. It'll be out in June, 2025. And you know, it's been a big, formative turning point in my life.

Wonderful, Mark. And I think it's quite something when you think about, and you'd be quite honest and transparent with your two failed attempts. And this is, let's say, this is arguably bigger and better. 

I don't think anybody would argue.  

And it's more the connection side of it as well. Three, albeit strangers, to an extent that you went on that adventure with, and no doubt much closer than a lot of, you know, real human connection throughout that as well.

It's fantastic. What is next? 

Well, what is next? 

Are you now an adventurer? Are you going to label yourself? Am I an adventurer 

yet? I made a short film on my YouTube channel that when I kite down the west coast of Scotland and climb in rows from sea levels, I passed them and the title of the adventure was, the title of the movie is Am I an Adventurer Yet?

And I still don't know  because I'm probably doing less adventures now, you know, I used to. hike all the time or maybe take five or six day like kayaking trips when I was living in Hong Kong on a whim with a good friend of mine called Rory. And they were epic adventures, you know, and they weren't small.

They were only short. Um, you know, we were in lightning storms and remote parts of the country. I don't do that regularly now. I mean, I've had the lifetime of adventure, but now I have two kids and it will come back. When they're older and in school or they dream when they want to come with me. But right now I don't feel very adventurous at all.

And what's next? I'm really, really, really motivated to do something big in the UK. You know, I mentioned Al Humphreys before, who is just such a fantastic advocate for adventure and he advocates his micro ventures, you know, doing small things near you or his like recent book, Local, but I think there's a misconception that it is micro and domestic or big and abroad.

Why can't it be big and domestic? If you kayaked around the whole UK, not something that I want to do soon, but if you did, it's longer than the Northwest Passage. Is that less of an adventure? A book I'm working on called Stay Ventures and a few other strands off the back of it. where I interview people who've done massive, massive things.

Like the only person, well there's actually two now, but there's two living people out of four people who've done it who've done all the Scottish Monroe's in a single winter. That is harder than Everest. 

All Monroe's in a single winter? Yeah, there's 

only four people who've done it. There's now two, one of them was about a month ago, somebody became the first woman to do it.

One of them's in Glasgow, you should reach out. Kevin Woods. 

Ah, yeah, yeah. And uh, 

yeah, I've interviewed the first guy, the only person who's kayaked both way around the UK. Somebody rode a horse from Land's End to John O'Groats. Somebody, it doesn't have to be like a record, you know, somebody, I interviewed one person who set the record for running from Land's End to John O'Groats and somebody who walked it.

It's like a milestone in their life having left university. Different things, two same arbitrary points. Like, so I'm really very motivated to do something big, but in the UK, and people often, when I say I want to do something in the UK, people are often like,  You know, like, oh, I thought you'd have to go bigger.

I'm like, well, I can, you know, equally, when I say stay ventures, people say, oh, do you know what I'll Humphrey stuff? And I say, yeah, I do. And it's great. But this is big. This is big. Like you can go big. And I'm also interested in the idea of like using your imagination. You know, there's a fine line between being an imaginative and unique adventure, approaching it in a way that's new.

And being gimmicky, you know, you could be the first person to walk from Lanzarote to John O'Groats doing rubic cubes a day. You know, that's not like part of it, but like that movie that I mentioned, Am I an Adventurer? Yeah. I kayaked down the West Coast of Scotland and I stopped at various Monroe's that were on the shore and I climbed them from sea level.

I felt like that was an imaginative way of approaching two of the same familiar adventures. Kayaking on the West Coast, hiking, give me a new perspective. I had to plan new routes. I couldn't come from like conventional car parks. Forced me to practice map reading skills. Really facilitated a new and unique experience.

So nothing specific, but I am wondering, wow, there's some cool things out there. And they're all here. 

Yeah, there's lots of great stuff we can do in the UK and that transcends to any location across the world. I'm really surprised 

about London as well. I've already said, Oh, you'll be bored in London,  but yeah, I really wanted to do the whole north or south down way or both of them, either over several weekends, several weekends of free over several years, or I would have cycled the whole thing in a few days with my dad.

And if we just stop in Airbnbs, take two days or three days or five days, they are beautiful. They are really beautiful. Really great trail. 

And for me, Mark, that has been an adventure. It doesn't need to be kayaking in the North West Passage. It's all these little things that you can do locally on your weekend.

Al Humphreys, you know, he talks about the five to nine as well, you know, when you've got a nine to five job. He's got a great, 

he's got so many good like, 

yeah, 

now that I'm doing it as a career, I'm trying to think of like, what can be my lines? You know, he's got like, you know, five to nine, a lifetime of adventure or an adventure of a lifetime.

And I'm like, so yeah, so stay ventures is something I'm trying to, 

yeah, I had a chat with him recently and I was kind of asking him what's next after loco. I wonder if I've planted a couple of seeds. We will see. I was trying to give him some ideas and some throwaway lines. We'll see if he uses any of them.

In time. Yes. He's got a fantastic newsletter as well. I'm not sure if you're on that. Shouting from the Shed. There's loads of fantastic stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Shouting from the Shed. Yeah. 

I read that. Yeah. 

Before I come to two closing traditions, the call to adventure and the path forward. But before I come to that, I just, you know, any unrealized  big adventure as big as the Northwest Passage that you do have in mind that you would like to do beyond the UK at some point?

I was just wondering if there's something else. Uh, 

no,  I'd like to, uh, I mean, like sail around the world, but with my family, like it would be, you know, I've got two kids. At the moment, who knows if I have more, I don't know, but when they're 10 or something, 10 now, but, yeah, we say it around the world. But, yeah, no, nothing really.

Yeah, I feel very, very content and the contentness sort of frees me to pick stuff that are less. I guess another thing that I'd add is that the admin is of these things. It's so,  so bad. That's why I will never ocean row rather than kayaking. Kayaking, the admin is relatively low, but ocean rowing, like it's tens of thousands of pounds and shipping boats and blah, blah, blah, it puts me off so much that I could do what I want to do in the UK without the admin.

It's not just that I can experience the UK. It's also, I can experience an adventure without the admin and that is part of my motivation. So at the moment, maybe something will be so. imagination capturing that it will overcome my aversion to admin. But right now, no, there's nothing I want to do because I cannot face the prospect of admin.

I think that's an important point. If you can reduce the friction in these things and make them more accessible without all the shag and hassle that goes around planning these big things, you know, getting people out and active more into things, you know, throwing a kayak onto the roof of your car or a pack raft into your boot or whatever it may be.

There's multiple ways of getting out and experiencing that. Fantastic. So that's us kind of coming close to the end, Mark, and this has been a fantastic conversation. Wanted to touch on the two closing traditions, one of which is a pay it forward, and the other is a call to adventure. So as a pay it forward suggestion or recommendation for any worthy causes or charitable projects, what would you recommend?

Well, I 

was raising money in the Northwest Passage for Wilderness Foundation UK. Which is a charity that helps people who don't usually have access to the outdoors for many reasons. And helps them with their mental health by reconnecting them. And I was really impressed. The reason I picked them is I was really impressed.

It wasn't like a hiking group, you know, if you have mental health comfort hiking, it was structured and to make sure that it was, you know, bang for my charity buck. And that, you know, they've really thought through their ways that they can help people. And the reason I. Big damage because part of my recovery journey from the Atlantic slump was getting into the outdoors, setting myself goals again, running ultramarathons and things.

And as I said in the beginning, that's,  I have to think about that. It's been easy for me because people have taken me there my whole life and it's not so easy for everybody else. So yeah, the Wilderness Foundation UK, if you'd like to, you can donate to my Just Giving page. We've raised about 17, 000 so far.

That's who I would highly recommend. 

Wow. We'll get that listed today. That's an incredible amount Israel. Congratulations. That's brilliant. 

Yeah, that's 7, 000 on my JustGiving page, but apparently people keep directly donating and not through my JustGiving page to give me credit, but I get messages saying another one's coming for you.

So yeah.  

Wonderful. Excellent. Thank you, Mark. Finally, the call to adventure. So an opportunity to recommend an exciting activity, a place, an adventure, whatever it may be, you know, just anything to get people inspired to go and do some sort of adventure. 

Well, yeah, I guess I'd sort of have three different recommendations if you're thinking about starting, like wanting to get into the outdoors.

Then this is like painfully obvious advice, but it's like just start, you know, it is actually easier than maybe you think if you're living in Glasgow, you can go and drive and be walking very, very quickly. And that is similar in lots of cities around the UK, the Peak District in Manchester, the South Downs in London, the Brecon Beacons in Bristol, the Pentlands in Edinburgh, and so on.

And just starting, you're getting over that initial hurdle. It opens up a world of possibilities, and I know that it can seem intimidating and hard, but just, 

just 

like, you know, plan, go for something easy. A morning on Saturdays, it doesn't have to take your whole day and suddenly it can become part of your life.

Once you realize that actually, Hey, that wasn't that hard. It wasn't like I needed all these hiking poles and to drive seven hours into the Highlands. It just took me a couple of hours to go out to the Pentlands and back and I'm back by two and I can watch the football, et cetera. Actually, I'll add another piece of advice.

Don't get bogged down by gear reviews, you know, like, I feel like we can get saturated by like telling us that this is the perfect shoe and that's the perfect raincoat, like just, uh, buy something that suits, that's, that's comfortable and if it's not suitable, you'll find out soon enough and you can change, you know, it's not the end of the world.

And, uh, for advice, if you want to do something big like me, if you are already experienced and you're thinking, Oh, I wish I could do something like the Norfolk Passage. I'll circle back to my previous advice. You can do something big like the Northwest Passage for a fraction of the cost, for a fraction of the admin, right here in the UK. 

And then my third piece of advice would be to people in London, go to the North Downs or the South Downways. They are such excellent trails. Every time I go there, they're so diverse.  You know, there's forested, wooded, undulating hills and chalky coastlines at the other end. It is really worth your time if you're thinking Iowa.

I'd love to be a hiker, but I live in London, so I can't. It's really great.  

That's fantastic. Making it more accessible. That's been wonderful, Mark. Excellent. I've thoroughly enjoyed stepping through the Northwest Passage. It's been incredible. Where can people find out more about you and what you're up to?

Well, I've got 

a Instagram and Twitter at Adventure Agnew. Or you can go to my website adventureacne. com and in June, 2025, I'll have my first book out, published by Icon Books, which will be called There Will Be Headwinds about the Northwest Passage and also about some of the ways that I mentally prepared for it.

Apart from that, you can feel free to reach out to me and I'll answer questions or whatnot. And I give a lot of talks. So if you keep an eye on my website, or if you'd like me to give a talk at your school, I look at state schools, I'll always give talks for free if they're nearby. The price goes, you will have to pay me and,  and, uh, corporates and like, uh, so yeah, always willing to share my story with more people.

Excellent. Wonderful. And I look forward to the book coming out as well. It's been a pleasure.  

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode for the show notes and further information, please visit adventurediaries. com slash podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small.

Because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.