Adventurers in action | The Press

It’s not idle on the side of Quebec adventurers. Frédéric Dion has just completed an odyssey in the heart of North America, Caroline Côté is about to leave for a solo ski expedition to the South Pole and Samuel Lalande-Markon is preparing a complete crossing of Quebec from north to south with Simon- Pierre Goneau.

Mary Tison
The Press

Frédéric Dion has just reached the pole of inaccessibility of North America, the furthest point from any coast, in South Dakota. The adventurer could have made his life easier by going there on his road bike. Instead, he concocted an itinerary combining 1,800 km of mountain biking, 1,000 km of road biking, 400 km of kayaking and around 100 km of running.

“I wanted to see the most beautiful places on Earth and I wanted to take on a challenge that matched my abilities,” he says. I found that it was the most aesthetic route, the most challenging, in disciplines that I liked. »

The kayak section included the crossing of Lake Powell and the ascent of part of the Colorado.

He wanted to finish in spectacular fashion by covering more than 600 km on his bike in 24 hours. Various glitches, including headwinds and an app that sent him into gravel roads, forced him to take another day. “It was a sunny day, there was no more pressure, it was just about living in the moment. »

Storming Antarctica

For her part, Caroline Côté is in the final preparations for her own expedition to Antarctica. By the end of November, she plans to travel more than 1,100 km from Hercules Inlet, near the coast, to the South Pole, a journey that should take her 30 to 40 days.

The experience is there: she recently made a winter crossing of the main island of the archipelago of Svalbard, in the Arctic, in the north of Norway, with her partner, Vincent Colliard.

But this time, she will be alone. However, she will have to communicate with the outside world every day to find out about the weather and give her position.

Caroline Côté is really looking forward to getting back on her skis because the last few weeks have been stressful: in particular, she had to raise about $100,000 to cover the transport costs and the logistics of the expedition. “It’s almost like building a house, except I don’t have anything concrete in front of me. Partners and people around her have helped her a lot, she doesn’t want to disappoint them. “It’s a big performance stress. Imagine if after three days, it’s not going well and I stop…”

The speed record for the route she chose is just under 39 days. She thinks about it, but doesn’t focus on it.

A first !

Samuel Lalande-Markon has no speed record to break for the simple reason that no one has yet fully crossed Quebec from north to south, from the Canada-US border to Cape Wolstenholme, in Nunavik.

“It says a lot about our relationship to the territory, he comments. It shows our detachment from the Nordic territory. It’s not part of our collective identity. »

Samuel Lalande-Markon intends to ride his bike on the 1^er next February and head towards Chisasibi by taking the James Bay road. He plans to complete this 1475 km trip in a little over a fortnight. Simon-Pierre Goneau had completed this portion in 2020, but he had been stopped in his tracks by the weather and the pandemic. He will therefore join Samuel Lalande-Markon in Chisasibi and the two adventurers will put on skis to follow the coast to Cape Wolstenholme, a journey of 1250 km.

“On paper, it’s the ideal expedition to learn about Arctic skiing conditions,” says Samuel Lalande-Markon. There are communities that have been there for a long time, there are interesting cultural encounters to be had there. And the communities are at relatively similar distances from each other, which makes things much easier in terms of logistics. »

He insists on the issue of respect, whether in the communities or at Cape Wolstenholme. “We’re not going to plant a flag there, or anything like that. We will go there very respectfully to close the loop. »