Summer Sailing in the Arctic

When most sailors think about the joys of summer sailing, they imagine sunny days with clear blue skies, and air temperatures in the shorts-and-T-shirt range. But not Mike Johnson. He and a couple of crewmen are about to set out from remote Cambridge Bay, Canada — which lies above 69°N — aboard the 44-ft fiberglass schooner Gitana, in an attempt to complete an east-to-west transit of the Northwest Passage.

Johnson, now 69, considers himself extremely lucky to have made it safely to Cambridge last season, the only place along the Passage with any sort of haulout capabilities, as there was roughly 60% more sea ice in 2013 than in 2012 — an anomaly that no one seems to be able to explain conclusively. Locals told Johnson they hadn’t seen so much ice in 15 or 20 years, which led him to quip: "Why did I think ’13 would be a lucky year?" 

Although Johnson is not a West Coaster, we’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the years because he often recruits paying crew from Latitude 38′s Classy Classifieds. He’s ventured above the Arctic Circle before, and has twice rounded Cape Horn — the first time in a Westsail 32 named Aissa.

Although temperatures are currently mild in Cambridge Bay, having climbed more than 100 degrees since the 50-below-zero readings of mid-winter, Johnson and crewmembers Rodney Schmitt and Zack Johnson (Mike’s nephew) hope to be relaunched by the town’s huge construction crane before the end of the month and continue west along a similar route to that taken by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in 1903-06 — the first successful traverse of the Northwest Passage. Fewer than 100 private vessels have done it since. 

According to Johnson, the classic definition of the fabled Passage is from Arctic Circle to Arctic Circle. So Gitana will have completed her transit when she arrives at Nome, Alaska, a 2,000-mile jaunt from Cambridge. Johnson hopes to arrive there by early September, when he’ll pick up fresh crew for the trip down to the relatively ‘tropical’ latitudes of Sitka or Ketchikan.

Look for further updates on Johnson’s travels here and in the pages of Latitude 38 magazine.