Trapped in the icy waters of the Northwest Passage

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For centuries, the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through northern Canada, was a holy grail of Arctic exploration. Even now, sailing through it isn’t guaranteed. Mark Synnott, a National Geographic Explorer, writer, and adventurer, attempted to sail his own boat through the Northwest Passage to retrace the doomed 1845 expedition of British explorer Sir John Franklin. None of the Franklin expedition’s 129 men made it home, but what exactly happened remains a mystery. For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard. Want more? Get the inside scoop on Mark’s Northwest Passage voyage and see gorgeous photos in the August issue of National Geographic. Watch Explorer: Lost in the Arctic, premiering August 24 on National Geographic and streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. And to go even deeper, Mark will tell the full story in his book Into the Ice, coming fall 2024 from Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group. Also explore: On paper, Sir John Franklin’s expedition seemed to lack for little. There were ironclad ships, steam engines, libraries totaling 2,900 books, and even animal companions—two dogs and a monkey. Here’s how it all went wrong. Explore another polar expedition gone wrong—Shackleton’s expedition to Antarctica aboard Endurance—in the Overheard episode “What the Ice Gets, the Ice Keeps.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:35.0	Alright, so look, I know we're going to get into the whole journey,
0:38.8	but let's start with, tell me about the moment on this journey when you felt the most scared.
0:47.8	Oh, okay, that's a good one.
0:52.8	This is Mark's Senate.
0:53.8	He's a longtime National Geographic Explorer, Mountain Climber, and pretty much all-around adventure.
1:00.0	His phone calls usually start with something like, hey man, I got a crazy idea.
1:06.0	And over the last few years, those phone calls have led to stories about looking for a famous lost climber on Mount Everest,
1:12.6	interviewing the king of a remote Hamalean kingdom, and searching jungle cliffs in Guyana for new frog species.
1:20.6	Mountains are often part of the equation, but a couple of years ago,
1:24.8	Mark called about a completely different adventure, a gnarly sailing voyage through the Canadian Arctic.
1:30.8	The moment when I was the most scared, we got caught in the ice in a place called the Basley Bay.
1:38.8	The whole thing about doing this in a fiberglass boat is no matter what, don't let your boat get caught in the ice.
1:47.8	Ice, it's the bane of Arctic explorers.
1:51.8	And Mark knew exactly what could go wrong.
	...

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