FOREWORD Book 1

by Christopher Cunningham

 “It is what it is.” Suppose you have ever talked to Freya Hoffmeister about any of her many sea kayaking adventures. In that case, you may have heard her use those very words to sum up episodes that would fill anyone else with mind-numbing fear. “It is what it is” may seem dismissive of the genuine dangers she has encountered in the tens of thousands of miles she has paddled. But they reflect an attitude of acceptance that has allowed her to cover safely more expedition coastline than any paddler in history.

In 2005, I first met Freya at a sea-kayaking symposium in Llançà, a small town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. She was already making a name for herself as an up-and-coming paddler and a personality. ‘The Woman in Black’ - for her all-black attire afloat and ashore. She came to the symposium eager to learn and add to her skills. Aside from the scheduled classes, she was looking for more rolling techniques. She showed me a binder with pages documenting every roll she had heard of, including a few I mentioned in my book about Greenland kayaks. She had checked off all of the rolls she had mastered and would not stop until she had marked them all.

 When Freya announced she would circumnavigate Australia by kayak alone, many sea-kayak community critics denounced her as reckless. But she had done her homework with circumnavigations of Iceland and New Zealand’s North and South islands. Perhaps the riskiest stretch of the 10,000-mile Australian circumnavigation was the Gulf of Carpentaria, the great notch in the continent’s north coast. Following the shore would have meant trespassing through the territory of dangerous saltwater crocodiles, so Freya opted to take the ‘short-cut,’ a 300-plus-mile crossing of the mouth of the gulf. It would take her a week of paddling during the days and nights, sleeping while still seated in the cockpit. The alternative route had its own dangers: venomous sea snakes and box jellyfish that could inflict a potentially fatal sting. I was at work in Sea Kayaker magazine's offices when I got a call from Freya via her satellite phone. She was in the middle of the crossing, seemingly a bit bored and only needing the distraction of a conversation.

During her 17,000-mile circumnavigation of South America, Freya was swept up by a tidal bore on the Amazon in the dark of night and violently side-surfed for five miles. Close to Cape Horn, the famously dangerous southern tip of the continent, she was pinned down, alone on a rocky, barren shore, by unrelenting 60-mile-per-hour winds for five days and nights. It is what it is - the only way to survive is to prepare physically and mentally, to meet the world on its terms. In all the time I have known Freya, I do not believe I have ever heard her talk about good or bad luck. Luck has never been, and simply cannot be, part of the calculation she makes each time she launches her kayak to paddle into new territory.

In her early circumnavigations, Freya was intent on covering ground not just safely but quickly. For her circumnavigation of Australia, her goal was to break the speed record for something done only once. Hence, she took only a few breaks and closely watched the miles she covered daily. With North America, the short periods of open water along the Arctic coast make it necessary to circumnavigate in segments rather than in one continuous push. There is no record to break; she can set one on her own terms. It is usually the case that paddling with partners is slower. However, it adds a new human dimension to Freya’s North American story. And with a more relaxed pace, she takes more time to enjoy what the coast offers and convey her experiences through her writing and photography. This book is all the richer for it.

Freya’s circumnavigation of North America is a challenge that few even contemplate, daunting to the extreme. In all the world, only Freya has taken it on, chipping away at yet another continent, piece by piece, until she has taken its full measure. It is what it is - magnificent.