Management of Extreme Situations

15A Sea Kayaker’s Identity Route and Learning Experience in the Arctic

15.1. Genesis

There is never a real beginning to a story – there is always a “once upon a time”.

The first of my 11 trips to the Arctic was in July 2007. But where did the idea come from? Perhaps the idea Pascal Lièvre and Géraldine Rix had of an expedition with two sea kayaks. They formed a crew and then set out in search of a second. Maybe it came from that evening when Gilles Garel, invited to compose this second crew, told me about it. Perhaps it came from the morning after that evening when, on the way to my children’s school, I made the decision to apply for this adventure, thinking particularly of a childhood friend and his own sea kayaking expeditions to Inuit land. Perhaps this trip was born from that dark moment when, 12 years before this school trip, I learned of the sudden death of a young friend.

Invited to question these 11 years of Arctic excursions, I turn to this question of origins with the feeling that it carries, within it lessons that I have not yet exhausted. But it is another question that will help me to look at this living material and extract something that could be useful, at least for me and perhaps for a hypothetical reader.

What did these 11 excursions bring me? What did I learn there, and what kind of person have I become?

The question is quite simple in fact, and I could fairly easily share these lessons with anyone who is interested in the question and who has a few spare ...