Join the Explorers Club, on Friday, October 17th, for a deep dive into the history and present day of Arctic exploration, along with the launch of Hubert Sagnières’ new book For Glory, Not Gold.
This exceptional volume showcases ten major international arctic expeditions carried out between 1818 and 1875, tracing the journeys of intrepid explorers from the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. These courageous nautical pioneers braved icy conditions and the vast unknown in search of the coveted northern passage. Through text drawn from journals and travelogues, readers gain firsthand insight into fascinating figures—Sir Edward Parry, Sir John Ross, Sir John Franklin, Joseph René Bellot, John Rae, Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, Elisha Kent Kane, Charles Francis Hall, and Sir George Nares—as well as the epic expedition onboard the HMS Investigator. The beautifully produced and oversize volume features illustrations, engravings, maps, and rare documents from the author’s personal collection of rare books and source material. Above all, this tome serves as a reminder that beyond the purely commercial goals of the quest to create a northern trade route, the arctic and the North Pole have always fueled the imagination, inspiring the most extreme nineteenth-century expeditions by heroic explorers who were driven by an insatiable thirst for new territories.
This event will feature a cocktail reception from 6-7 PM, followed by a panel conversation with Mike Beedell, Éric Brossier, and Hubert Sagnières.
With over 300 original illustrations and excerpts from explorers’ journals, immerse yourself in the dramas, discoveries, and encounters that defined the pursuit of the Northwest Passage.
Hubert Sagnières
Discover, explore, share–that might well be Hubert Sagnières’ motto. There was a time when this inveterate traveler traveled with his family through the islands of the South Pacific, following in the footsteps of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Jean-François de Lapérouse. In 1991, as head of a large French industrial group, he moved to Canada and, fired by his passion for the Far North, went on more than twenty winter polar expeditions to the Canadian Arctic with his explorer friend Mike Beedell. He traveled on skis pulling a pulk or supported by a dog-drawn qamutiik. He explored the shores of Baffin, Ellesmere and Axel-Heilberg Island, surveying this polar world about which we know so little. On May 10, 2022, at the end of a particularly grueling ski expedition, he and his children celebrated his sixty-seventh birthday on Beechey Island. To one side of them stood Joseph-René Bellot’s cenotaph, to the other the graves of Sir John Franklin’s sailors. In his hand were the accounts of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and Sir Francis Leopold McClintock. Hubert Sagnières is forever a devotee of the Arctic’s unique magic. His first book Routes nouvelles, côtes inconnues (Daring French Explorations) was published by Flammarion in 2023. Two years later, it was only natural that he should share his knowledge of the Far North, together with his enduring affection for the inhabitants of the Arctic, in a new work featuring the unpublished books and documents in his collection.
Mike Beedell
Mike Beedell is a passionate Canadian explorer, photographer & wilderness guide who has been traveling throughout the polar world for the past five decades. Over the course of his fifty-year career, he has logged tens of thousands of kilometers by canoe, kayak, dog sled, sailboat, and on foot. He has been a team member of several historical journeys, among them: Polar Passage–a journey powered solely by sail through the Northwest Passage (1986-1988) for National Geographic. Two other expeditions worthy of mention include: a four-month, 2,500-kilometer dog-sled expedition retracing the route of the Inuit Shaman, Qitdlarssuaq, from Iglulik, Canada to Qaanaaq, Greenland; and a four-month sea kayak journey circumnavigating Bylot Island– a 12,000 square-kilometers jewel at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage. Mike is the author of the notable Canadian work The Magnetic North.
Eric Brossier
Eric Brossier is a polar scientist, sailor and diver. In 2002-2003, aboard his polar sailboat Vagabond, Eric completed the first full circumnavigation of the Arctic. With his partner France Pinczon du Sel and their crew, they crossed the Northeast and Northwest Passages. Eric has been living and working in the polar regions for thirty years. Through summer cruises and a dozen overwinterings near Inuit communities, collaborating with more than sixty scientific programs, he has remained faithful to his original vision: providing a base camp for polar research. In addition to Vagabond’s expeditions, he is regularly invited to contribute to other scientific expeditions.
France and Eric’s daughters, Léonie and Aurore, have been part of the adventure since they were born. Since 1999, Vagabond has deliberately overwintered in the Arctic–chosen to be caught in the ice for the freedom it brings.
