Many of us plan summer adventures to relax and unwind. But some have a different goal in mind. How about canoeing 80 days into the Canadian arctic? Virginia Tech junior Olivia Bledsoe did just that last summer.
“Obviously when you go to your parents and you say, ‘hey I’m going to paddle over a thousand miles into the arctic with polar bear this summer,’ they do get a little bit nervous,” Bledsoe said.
After some convincing, her parents made peace with the idea. They helped Bledsoe freeze dry food and map out their route. She assured them she was up to it.
“To me it was like, oh yeah, of course women canoe,” Bledsoe said. “Of course women go into the backcountry. Of course women do like these over 100 mile long wilderness routes.”
Bledsoe first fell in love with paddling as a teenager at a girl scout camp. Then she read a book called “Hudson Bay Bound” by Natalie Warren about two women who canoed from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Bledsoe began asking other women if they wanted to try a trip like that.
Three others joined, Helena Karlstrom, Emma Brackett and Abby Cichocki. The group called themselves the Hudson Bay Girls, with a mission to inspire other girls to get into paddle sports and the outdoors.
“It took us the first eight days of our canoe trip to see another woman in the back country, period,” Bledsoe recalled. “We saw three women paddling by in a canoe, and we were just so excited. And I think especially in the paddle sports community, there’s kind of that stereotype of like, canoeing is for like older men.”
Bledsoe, a wildlife conservation major, said another goal was to raise awareness about preserving wilderness areas. Congress and President Trump recently lifted a ban on mining near the wilderness area they canoed in Minnesota.
“We really should fight to protect our wilderness, cause once we damage it, it’s never gonna be the same,” Bledsoe said. “It’s gonna take over our lifetimes to recover.”
Bledsoe journaled on the journey, and they had a satellite phone in case of emergencies. But for the most part, her entire summer was spent without screens.
“And there is so much value in the outdoors that I feel like we’ve almost lost sight of with modern technology and everything,” Bledsoe said.
“I used to be super chatty, wanting distraction,” Bledsoe explained. “But since we were in the wilderness for eighty days, I kind of just learned to amuse myself just by looking around. Sometimes just at the water.”
But their expedition was more challenging than Bledsoe had anticipated. Days before they started, she was diagnosed with a condition that makes strenuous physical activity, like carrying a canoe for several miles, more difficult.
“I was definitely really terrified, if I’m being honest for this. And I had run an ultra-marathon before, and I was more nervous for this than anything, cause I knew it would be the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, and it was,” Bledsoe said.
Most days they began around 4 or 5 in the morning, paddling until dinnertime.
There were also wildfires, which sometimes made the air thick to breathe.
On Lake Winnipeg, they paddled through large waves and almost capsized.
Despite the many dangers, they reached Hudson Bay. On the last day, they saw a seal and were in polar bear territory.
“So in total we canoed 1300 miles through the wilderness,” Bledsoe said. “We hope that our experience shows people that, like, you can go out there, you have a place out there. There are women in the outdoors that will fully support you, and we’re here for you.”
The Hudson Bay Girls became the first publicly documented all-female crew to complete this route.
