News

Is it possible to paddle a sea kayak from Greenland to Scotland? Adventurers hope to show it is

Explorers Olly Hicks and George Bullard will follow the steps of 17th century semi-legendary stories · The feat bears parallels with the Pacific Ocean Kon-Tiki expedition

The expedition route.
The expedition route. Author: ollyhicks.com
Stories shrouded in the mists of time tell us that Inuit sailors may have reached the coast of Scotland paddling their kayaks. But is that really possible? English explorers Olly Hicks and George Bullard are convinced it is. They will try to show it this summer, when they hope to complete a six-week voyage between Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland in a kayak.

The adventure is set to begin in the coast of Greenland, from where both sailors hope to get to Iceland in about 72 hours. There, they are planning to rest for a few days before taking again to the sea in the direction of the Faroes, "the toughest leg of the voyage," they say, which will last for six consecutive days.

After resting again and taking part in a reception in the Faroese capital Torshavn, the two adventurers will attempt to complete their feat in two more legs. From the Faroes, they plan to get to the Scottish island of North Rona. They will rest there one more day before taking again the kayak and completing the voyage up to Cape Wrath, in Great Britain's northernmost lands.

The story of the Finnmen

Bullard and Hicks will be following the steps of several stories recorded in the 17th century on the arrival of unknown sailors to the Scottish coasts. Those shadowy people came to be known as "Finnmen" because at first it was considered more likely that the mysterious fishermen were from Finland.

Later, however, those Finnmen were associated with the Inuit area, a theory suggested by the fact that Scottish museums preserved Inuit kayaks and skins from that period. Historians have argued those sailors could indeed be Inuit prisoners boarded on European ships who could had been able to escape. But Hicks and Bullard believe that in theory it could also be possible that the sailors were Inuit people really having been able to reach Scotland in a kayak.

A modern Kon-Tiki-like expedition

In an interview, Hicks says that his motivation is to see if this is really a possible feat. The English navigator compares it with the famous Kon-Tiki expedition. In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed a boat for 101 days from South America to Polynesia. The voyage aimed to show that pre-Columbian American inhabitants could have settled the Pacific Ocean islands after a sea trip.