Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Aug 07/00) - Heels thickly bandaged and toes and fingers obviously still ocean water cold, Roy Willy Johansen sits atop a Baffin Regional Hospital bed and tells his tale of risk.

Some would think him nuts, others a modern-day adventurer.

"This was the first time someone had crossed the Davis Strait in a qajaq," said Johansen, of his attempt to recreate the journey of explorer Leif Erikson.

Paying tribute to his ancestor 1,000 years after the fact was important to Johansen -- in a qajaq no less -- so much so that he spent the last three years planning the journey that would take him from Sisimut, Greenland across the rolling North Atlantic Ocean to Cape Dyer (a distance of about 400 kilometres) and down the west coast of Baffin Island to Newfoundland. He drained the savings account he built up teaching wildlife management in Norway to set out on the trip.

"(The Davis Strait) was much worse to cross than I thought. The wind and high waves, I was not able to sleep in the qajaq as planned and I had to stay awake and alert. I had to stay in the qajaq for four days," he said.

Impromptu (accidental) dips into the frigid water, broken ice pans, lost gear and a nose-to-nose encounter with a polar bear all threatened Johansen's health as he crossed the water, but nothing could dampen his determination.

"After eight days I could see Baffin Island and Cape Dyer. It was a very good feeling," he said.

But, a sighting of land does not a rescued adventurer make and it was hours before Johansen, a veteran paddler of 22 years, was able to make it ashore. He knew the blue colour of his feet meant trouble and after contacting his doctor in Norway by satellite phone, he called the Canadian Coast Guard and was flown to Pangnirtung and then medevaced to Iqaluit to be treated for severe frostbite to his feet and hands.

"I got a little bit scared because I knew frostbite was one of those things not to be fooling with," he said.

And while he readily admits the fear he flirted with while at sea, all the while asserting that he planned adequately for the journey, Johansen said he was raring to get back in the water to finish what he began.

The glitch? The pesky frailty of the human body when pitted against severe cold.

"One surgeon said it would take three to four months to recover, but I want to paddle to Newfoundland before the ice comes in," he said.