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MITTIMATALIK/POND INLET - Polar Sea Adventures, a nearly 20-year-old logistics supplier and expedition leader based out of Pond Inlet, will stop providing regularly scheduled trips next year and instead focus on private, customized expeditions on an as-needed basis.

Dave Reid, owner of Pond Inlet-based Polar Sea Adventures, which provides expeditions around the Baffin region, said his company will stop giving regularly scheduled expeditions next year to focus on private charters. - photo courtesy of Kaz Yagi/Skyland Pla-net

The company, which organizes trips like dog sledding, Arctic skiing, hiking and sea-kayaking, has enough business on the books for next year to justify the move, according to owner Dave Reid.

"We don't do any promotional marketing," said Reid, who left a desk job with the Toonoonik Sahoonik Co-op in the mid-1990s to work for the tour company, eventually buying his partner out in 2003.

"It's basically word-of-mouth, repeat business, referrals."

He said the increasing difficulty of finding reliable guides from Baffin communities - Reid only uses guides from the North - makes taking bookings a year in advance problematic.

"It would be misleading if I was to advertise such and such a trip if indeed it wasn't going to happen again," he said.

Reid is especially worried about Baffinland Iron Mines' proposed Mary River project, which he said will draw away a number of potential guides and other helpers.

Baffinland estimated it will take 2,700 people to build the mine and 1,800 to work it, with a recruitment focus on residents from Iglulik, Arctic Bay, Hall Beach, Clyde River, Iqaluit and Pond Inlet.

Construction will begin in 2010.

"Good help is hard to find," said Reid.

Despite the challenges to his business - which also includes a recent decline in American customers, who account for 40 per cent of his business - Reid still treasures the opportunity to work on the land.

When he's not heading Polar Sea Adventures from March to September, he's either guiding polar bear trips in Churchill, Man., or doing contract work for cruise ships around Antarctica. "There never really is an off-season," he said.

His business attracts a wide range of adventure seekers - everyone from people who slave away at two jobs to afford the trip to well-travelled visitors for whom the North is just another destination on their must-see list: "Everything from single moms to billionaires."

Among the customized trips planned for next is a month-long dog sledding voyage to Greenland from Grise Fiord for a party of three. Recent customer Michelle Valberg, a photographer from Ottawa, had nothing but high praise for Reid.

"He is a true leader, adventurer and a well-grounded individual dedicated to giving anyone who dares an opportunity of a lifetime," said Valberg.

"He was thorough in his explanations, he never said no to any request, he makes everyone feel comfortable and is always aware of his surroundings," she added, especially with polar bears around.