2017 Presentation: Sarah McNair-Landry, Erik Boomer and Ben Stookesberry

As the daughter of Arctic guides who grew up roaming the wilderness of Baffin Island via kite skis and sled dogs, Sarah McNair-Landry was raised on polar exploration. Fittingly, she made the first traverse of the Northwest Passage by snowkite with her brother in 2011. Erik Boomer, meanwhile, is an Idaho native and kayaking hardman known both for running massive whitewater drops and embarking on intrepid expeditions — such as circumnavigating Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic with Jon Turk. And kayaker Ben Stookesberry has made a career of achieving first descents on wild and unexplored rivers from Colombia and Papua New Guinea; he has notched 70 first descents in 15 countries. When the three of them put their heads together for an expedition, the result was as epic and far-flung as you might imagine: traverse the Greenland Ice Sheet on kite skis before paddling a first descent of a barely known Arctic river. Their ambitious journey is the subject of the documentary Into Twin Galaxies (page XX). In this presentation, the trio of explorers will tell the behind-the-scenes stories — which include family, frigid water and a trip-threatening injury — that couldn’t fit into the film.