Jane
WHITNEY 51 TOUR COMPANY OWNER
AND GUIDE CANMORE, ALBERTA Jane Whitney has been leading expeditions to some of the planet’s wildest outposts for three decades. “The last indoor job I had was for two months in 1976,” she says. “Then I started guiding cycling, skiing, and paddling trips in the Rockies and have never looked back.” Trained as a biologist, she has spent months in the field studying migratory-bird colonies. In 1987 Jane and her partner, Steve Smith, formed their own company: Whitney & Smith Legendary Expeditions. “We thought that we should bring people to all the amazing places we did biology work, to experience the ancient murrelets on the Queen Charlottes or Magellanic penguins and southern right whales in Patagonia. All these places had the perfect combinations of wilderness, wildlife, and spectacular scenery.” What does an expedition leader do on her time off? More expeditions—her personal trip log includes 60 days kayaking the coast of Chile and long ski tours across the icecaps of Greenland and Patagonia. IN OTHER WORDS: “The best thing about my mom,” explains Jane’s 13-year-old daughter, Navarana, “is that she takes me to all these really cool places. I get to hang out with people from all over the world in the outdoors. Plus she makes me dinner and breakfast every day.” MOTHERLY INSTINCTS: Adding the title of supermom to her resume was not without its challenges. “It was originally hard to leave my seven- month-old baby to guide on Ellesmere or in Patagonia,” she says. “But I always came back as a better mother with my cup filled with the beauty of the wilds. Getting Navarana out with me has been my priority. Navi learned to walk on Prince Charles Island, and when we were exploring Tonga for possible trip options, we would home-school at night by candlelight.” FAST FORWARD: Jane predicts the next 30 years will be as full as her last. Current projects include investigating new trips in Patagonia, Kamchatka, Greenland, Baffin Island, South Georgia Island and the Auckland Islands—and also training Navarana as
Whitney & Smith’s youngest guide. —DAVE QUINN
Women at Sea Hayley
SHEPHARD 37 GUIDE, EXPEDITION KAYAKER,
EDUCATOR ALERT BAY, BRITISH COLUMBIA Few people communicate their enthusiasm for life and the outdoors better than Hayley Shephard. She’s invariably so excited about her latest sighting of a whale, or her most recent interaction with penguins, that it’s impossible not to be drawn in. A teacher by trade, Hayley left her native New Zealand for British Columbia in 1995. She’s guided sea kayak trips, worked with the West Coast’s famed OrcaLab pioneer and whale expert Dr. Paul Spong, and now guides in Antarctica, where she works aboard
everything from icebreakers to Zodiacs and kayaks. Somehow she’s also found time to complete several impressive solo kayak expeditions. Her first solo trip was a modest four-day excursion in Johnstone Strait where she singlehandedly paddled a borrowed tandem kayak because she couldn’t get a single. In 1999 Shephard completed a solo circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. Then in 2004 she undertook the challenge of a solo circumnavigation of the Queen Charlotte Islands, paddling around Graham Island in the summer of ‘04, and then Moresby Island the following summer. SOLO MISSION: “I think I do solo trips because it’s paddling distilled to its purest form,” says Hayley. “Most of the time I’m very social, but when I’m on my own, everything gets focused down to the essentials. I deal with problems in a wholly practical way: no distractions. There were times on the Charlottes trip when the fear was so strong that I wanted someone to share the load, but generally I’m very happy alone.” FAST FORWARD: Shephard is planning to become the first person to solo sea kayak around the island of South Georgia in 2009 (
www.kayakingtosavealbatross.com). “I saw it eight years ago, but I had 100 passengers with me. It’s a place that I really want to explore. It’s very challenging but truly exceptional. Big surf, awesome coastlines, fur seals, penguins—truly amazing! And this expedition is the perfect platform to draw attention to the plight of the albatross—something that I am very passionate about.” —ALEX MATTHEWS
EXPEDITION SEA KAYAKER DALA-FLODA, SWEDEN
Barbro “Babs” LINDMAN 39
There’s not much that will keep Babs Lindman away from her sea kayak. In the winter of 2006, she paddled Turkey’s Mediterranean coast with a broken leg. “What else do you do when it is too icy to get around with crutches?” says Lindman. Broken leg aside, her weeklong trip in Turkey makes up a small part of Lindman’s paddling resume. Most notable is the 2,835- kilometre, 78-day expedition tracing the entire Norwegian coast she completed in 2005. Lindman gave up the stress of her former career as a lawyer and now writes, takes photographs and offers motivational presentations to make ends meet. This combined with sponsorship from Prijon Kayaks and a number of other outdoor manufacturers gives her the freedom to do what she loves and share her experiences with others. “Most people complain that they don’t have enough time and in one way they are right,” says Lindman. “But I would rather stay happy and poor for the moment than spend my time planning to get old.” IN OTHER WORDS: “Determined is the best word to describe Babs,” says James Venimore, a fellow sea kayaker who’s joined Lindman on a number of expeditions. While her stories and photographs have captured the imagination of countless paddlers in Scandinavia, Venimore says it was her courage to quit her day job and take up paddling full time that’s most inspirational. TRAVEL BUG: Lindman is one of the world’s most well-travelled paddlers, having explored Alaska, Madagascar, Croatia, New Zealand, Wales and Corsica, besides water closer to her home in Sweden. “At first it worked out so that I somehow always ended up in a kayak when I travelled somewhere,” says Lindman. “Now I travel to kayak.” FAST FORWARD: This winter in Lindman’s sea kayaking Daytimer is another trip to New Zealand, this time to attempt the challenging 2,500-kilometre-long circumnavigation of the South Island. She’s allotted three to four months to complete the expedition, due to finish in March. “I’ve had this dream since the first time I sat in a kayak,” says Lindman, “and now it’s time to realize it.”
—CONOR MIHELL
www.adventurekayakmag.com 39
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TOP PHOTO: HAYLEY SHEPHARD // BOTTOM PHOTO: COURTESY BARBRO LINDMAN
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