During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
Expedition Blog Hammonasset Beach, Connecticut
Hammonasset Beach, Connecticut
Tuesday, 02 October 2012 16:26
Students from Riverside, IL asked some good questions about the anchor in yesterday's Daily Data. We figured that everyone would like to learn about this massive anchor. It weighs 7,000 pounds. It was salvaged off Newport, RI. It matches British Admiralty specifications for a bower anchor of a 74 gun ship that was used during the American Revolution and War of 1812. It was probably lost by one of the British warships that blockaded Newport during the Revolutionary War.
On with today's information. . . we left early this morning to catch a favorable current. We weren't sure how strong the current would be in Long Island Sound. Based on our previous day's paddling, we knew that we would make slow progress if the current was flowing against us. Today, we timed it right. The weather was warm. Sun in the morning gave way to clouds and rain in the afternoon. We saw several large jellyfish near the surface of the water. We had an opportunity to watch many tiny fish splash around near the surface. They were probably doing this because bigger fish were trying to eat them from below. Then gulls swarmed and ate quite a few of them from above.
Distance traveled: 30 miles by kayak
Animals:
3 jellyfish
1 Bluefish
40 cormorants
5 Ring-billed Gulls
30 Herring Gulls
35 Great Black-backed Gulls
1 tern
20 swallows
12 Bonaparte's Gulls
2 Monarch Butterflies
3 Common Loons
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