Elsa: "At a distance, an opening is created. The blue of the river is now on the horizon in a dazzling sparkle. The banks which bordered it let go of their grasp ... We have finally arrived.” (click to enlarge)
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Mongolia-Russia canoe update: Arriving at Lake Baikal, Siberia
Posted: Aug 31, 2010 03:05 am EDT
Sarah, Eric, Elsa and Ulysse are eager to paddle on Lake Baikal. Elsa wrote in their blog that they arrived in the delta of the Selenge River just before reaching Lake Baikal. The waters were separated into as many small rivers, multiplying the possibilities. They had to choose to paddle left or right into the smaller rivers.
The landscape also changed; mountains disappeared and the horizon flattened. The winds also changed, she said.
They were very eager to arrive at Lake Baikal and the noise of seagulls encouraged them to paddle harder.
“And then it was there”, Elsa continued, "At a distance, an opening is created. The blue of the river is now on the horizon in a dazzling sparkle. The banks which bordered it let go of their grasp ... We have finally arrived.”
Ulysses wrote in his dispatch that the fires that devastated Russia are thousands of miles away from them. But still the Siberian heat was stinging.
He said since the beginning of their journey the sun was hard on them and they had to put more sunscreen on. They had only two days of rain and chilly winds. That was when they arrived in Russia.
These warm temperatures though will soon make space for the much cooler Siberian temperatures.
Read here how Sarah described a day in their lives.
Read here how Eric described their border crossing into Russia.
Sarah and Eric McNair Landry, and Elsa Fortin-Pomerleau and Ulysse Bergeron are doing a three months and two thousand kilometers canoe expedition through Mongolia and Russia. The trip began on the north coast of Lake Khovsgol, through the Eg and Selenge Rivers to end in Lake Baikal.
Elsa Fortin-Pomerleau is a professional outdoor guide with a passion for rivers. She has paddled numerous rivers in Quebec and guided expeditions on the Bazin and Gatineau rivers.
Ulysse Bergeron has voyaged the far north, paddling the Yukon and the Mackenzie rivers, and he is a journey by trade.
Eric McNair Landry was born in 1984. He works as a contract guide and he lives “on the trail, in a cabin that needs some work and with friends and family.” Eric’s hobbies are tinkering, graphics and web graphics.
In 2010 Eric McNair-Landry (25) and American/French Sebastian Copeland (46) made good use of favorable winds over the icecap in Greenland and kite skied 595km in 24 hours, which gives them the new kite distance world record.
During the Spring of 2009 sister and brother, Sarah and Eric McNair-Landry and their friend Curtis Jones, all from Canada, attempted a kiting expedition across the Gobi Desert, Mongolia. They started their adventure on 16 May, but Curtis had to leave the expedition 10 days later due to family reasons.Sarah and Eric carried on. The team used three-wheeled buggies powered by their kites or pulled by themselves in no winds. The expedition ended on 17 June.
Previously, in 2007, Sarah, Eric and Curtis kited together along a vertical route on Greenland and pulled sleds. Sarah (25) is the youngest person in the world to have reached both the North and South poles.
Sarah and Eric undertook several polar expeditions with their father and mother, the polar guides, Paul Landry and Matty McNair, on Antarctica and in the Arctic. In the 2008-09 Antarctic season Sarah guided an ALE team from Hercules Inlet to the South Pole and kited back to Patriot Hills.
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