Alex Schmid

Despite his lifelong dedication to fitness and athletics, and his accomplishments as a skier both cross country and downhill, Alex is an Expedition novice and is entering into this epic challenge as a beginner in both kite skiing and long distance polar exploration. Both competitive and driven by nature Alex is keen to push his own limits and learn new skills whilst taking on extraordinary tasks.

Paul Landry

Paul Landry is one of the best-known polar guides in the world. Hailing from Canada, he loved the cold from an early age, never hesitating to go off on snowshoeing and skiing trips in winter and on canoeing expeditions in the summer, exploring and enjoying the untouched wilderness in northern Ontario where he grew up.

Paul worked for ten years at the Canadian Outward Bound Wilderness School before moving north to Baffin Island where he started and established NorthWinds Arctic Adventures as a premiere adventure travel company. Fifteen years later, Paul established Polar Consultants Inc. as a professional polar guide company and since he has lead groups to the Geographic South Pole, across the Antarctic continent and to the Pole of Inaccessibility. As well he has guided four expeditions to the Geographic North Pole and one to the Magnetic North Pole and three times across the Greenland icecap. He has also scaled numerous peaks in South America and paddled several of the major rivers in North America.

Paul lives in Montreal, except in winter as he migrates to Norway, where he trains individuals and teams before they set off on their own polar expeditions. He still occasionally guides expeditions.

Henry Cookson

An accomplished adventurer, photographer and polar guide, Henry runs his own bespoke luxury travel company that specialises in taking people to the remotest parts of the world. 

Although Henry had always taken a keen interest in travel, working as a Riding safari Guide in Kenya and a ‘Jackeroo’ on a pastoral sheep station in South Australia, prior to 2004 he had next to no experience of camping let alone the kind of polar travel that would introduce him to the world of extreme expeditions. However within eighteen months he and his two teammates had won the three hundred and sixty mile race to the Magnetic North Pole in the Scott Dunn Polar Challenge. Battling temperatures of -55° in the wind, the team ended up not only winning the race in just eleven days, but smashing the existing record by 48hours, which still to this day remains unbeaten.. 

For his next challenge he devised an expedition to kite-ski seventeen hundred kilometres to the exact centre of the Antarctic continent and the mysterious Pole of Inaccessibility - something that had never been attempted before. On 19th January 2007, after forty nine days and one thousand and fifty six miles, the team entered the Guinness Book of Records as the First People to Reach the Pole of Inaccessibility by foot. It was even classified by Guinness as one of the “Top 100 Records of the Decade”. Following this he came to the conclusion he was more suited to this kind of work than his previous career at Goldman Sachs, so began life as a professional polar guide and explorer

These defining voyages lead Henry into a life of exploration and extreme expeditions that has seen him taking on some incredible challenges to the top of world’s highest peaks and to the depths of the Antarctic Ocean Henry notably was part of the guiding team for the Walking with the Wounded expedition to the North Pole in 2011, embracing the challenge of ensuring that all the disabled servicemen involved reached their destination safely.

Bjørn Kaupang

As with most Norwegians, Bjørn was literally born with skis on his feet. But what sets him apart from his fellow countrymen is that his home was his family run business, the Haugastøl Turistsenter, perched on the edge of the Hardangervidda Plateau, and his “backyard” was the same area that Amundsen and Scott used for preparation for their polar expeditions…  Bjørn has been unknowingly training for this expedition for a long time!

To say that Bjørn is passionate about snow kiting is certainly an understatement. He has won the World Snow Kite Masters 5 times, the Red Bull Ragnarok for three consecutive years and the Norwegian Snow Kite Championships 9 times. He currently is a team rider for F-One kites. Bjørn’s kiting achievements attracted snow kite enthusiasts from around the world to come discover the amazing kiting conditions at Haugastøl and made the place the mecca for snow kiting. When the wind is blowing Bjørn can be seen catching big air up on the Plateau. And on no-wind days, he devotes his time to flying and filming with his drone, home brewing and running the family business. 

We are super excited to have Bjørn join the expedition and we hope that the tent is luxurious enough for him and that Paul’s cooking will match what he is used to at the lodge.