British adventurer Alistair Humphreys canoed down the Yukon River in 2004 during a four year round-the-world cycling expedition after the road he intended to cycle was cut off by a forest fire.
Alistair described the Yukon as the wildest environment he visited in the world, and reckons surviving on his own for three months there will test Ed's skills to the limit...
'Canoeing from Whitehorse (Yukon capital) to Dawson, I really got a sense of the size and emptiness of the place. We canoed 500 miles through a first world country and only saw, one little village along the way and one bridge over the river and that was it. The only other signs of life we saw were a few abandoned old logging huts from 100-200 years ago. I think if you don't know what you're doing, surviving there is tough. I guess Alexander Supertramp (the alter ego of Chris McCandless who disappeared in Alaska) is the classic cautionary tale. There is abundance everywhere, if only if you can see it and you know what to do.'
Alistair saw plenty of flora and fauna in the summer that Ed could live off. 'We were there this time in 2004 and saw lots of bears, caribou, musk ox. In terms of nature it was the most wild place on my journey. You don't see the big exciting animals in Africa except in the game parks. They have all been shot and eaten. So in a sense it felt more pristine and wild even than Africa. I set off with my mini SAS spiral handbook thinking I'd like to do some foraging, but I realised it was very hard work. You need a lot of time and a lot of skill for foraging. I am very envious of this project, I think it's wonderful. There are fish everywhere. Massive, massive, salmon all over the place, splashing around. And also in the small streams which run off the Yukon River. Which is probably more useful for what Ed is doing. The rivers are full of life. It is a really refreshing area because you get all this doom and gloom about pollution and climate change and that we are destroying the planet. But I felt in the Yukon that nature was still a powerful force. A final frontier of true wildnerness.
'I saw lots of bears, black bears and grizzly bears. On the river bank, cycling on the roads, in the bushes and on the hillsides. I was very conscious that you have to make lots of noise. They are only a threat if you come across them and they are surprised. If you are noisy they run away. I think people who go hiking wear little bells on their belts. Have you seen the film Grizzly Man? Doc about a man who went to live with bears. It's an amazing film. The most amazing part is the end where he gets eaten by the bear with his camera running...'
Alistair says that the aloneness of Ed's challenge is one of its most appealing aspects. 'There is a fine line between solitude and loneliness. The solitude side is wonderful and the loneliness side is awful. When you are down there is nobody to pick you up, and it's very easy to spiral lower and lower and lower with doubts, basically. But equally when you are high, you jump around like a lunatic, with no inhibitions at all, you can be completely free.
'One of the most interesting parts of any solo thing, I found, is it's a very good filter on your life and personality to figure out who you are, what you want. It's great that there are no excuses. In normal life it's very easy to hide behind things and blame other people. You don't often hear people say 'I failed because I was crap'. It's very easy to say "My boss is a bastard", but if doing things solo if you succeed it's down to you and that is something you can be proud of and get self-confidence from. If you fail, equally it's down to you and you have to accept that and do what you want with that.
'If I hit a downward spiral it was normally feeling out of my depth at the scale of what I was doing. That was what I found most uncomfortable. I didn't know it at the time but I had four years stretching ahead of me. And I found that would really mess with my mind. I felt it was too far. And if you think you are not going to succeed at it, then what's the point of even carrying on? When you have worked so hard each day, it can get quite demoralizing especially if you are thinking too much about the whole big picture at once.
'I think for Ed, he's going quite suddenly into complete solitude, which he might find pretty lonely until he gets his feet on the ground. The other side of it is it is only 12 weeks and if he can maintain positivity towards that he can tick off 80 odd days, count them down and there's a definite end to it. He'll be very busy, so that will really help. By the end of the day he'll be exhausted, he'll fall asleep. There won't be any sitting around the campfire.
'A strong daily routine is something for you to cling to, if nothing else. Ed will have that because he knows he'll have to do X, Y, Z every day or else he is going to get really hungry. So however low he is feeling he is going to have to go to the river and fill up his bottles or whatever it is, and that is really good just to snap you out of the apathy that can come along. I had a very strict daily routine on my bike which is quite strange because I started the trip to get away from routine, I wanted to be wild and free. And actually you end up with the most routine life you have ever had.'
Humphreys admits there is an element of reckless testosterone-fueled bravado in these extreme adventures. 'I call it pragmatic recklessness. You minimise risks as much as you can and make sure your own skills are up to a level where it's not ludicrous. But then eventually you have to roll the dice, go for it, the risks lead to rewards. I believe in that. But I also maintain I have no intention of dying, I love life, I am definitely that side of recklessness. I am quite prepared to put myself in a situation where I have the most miserable, cold, horrible, scary time. But I have no intention of putting myself in a situation where I am going to die. Often a lot of explorers are missing father figures. I am not, my parents are happily married, but there is a sense of trying to prove yourself. I was 24 when I started and when I came to realise I was no longer doing it for anyone else that was quite a liberating thing. And then you are only doing it to prove yourself to yourself. It's like banging your head against a brick wall because it feels so good when you stop. And when you are camping out somewhere with no one for hundreds of miles around, under the stars, or on top of a mountain or floating down a beautiful river, it does cleanse out your soul, for want of a better word. It gives you a good perspective on things.'
Discover more about Alastair Humphreys' adventures at www.alastairhumphreys.com
He is currently planning 'SOUTH' with polar explorer Ben Saunders: the first return journey to the South Pole on foot, and the longest unsupported (human-powered) polar journey in history.
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