On Tuesday, 5 August, our PhD student Alexandre Delangle will embark on the One Ocean Expedition, sailing from Nuuk, Greenland, to Cambridge Bay, Canada, aboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl – one of the world’s largest and oldest three-masted barques still in operation.
Aleandre will join 15 other French-speaking early-career researchers sponsored by the Fondation Albédo, together with around 60 international students from the UArctic network, for this historic transit of the Northwest Passage.
For the first time in its 100-year history, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl is attempting to follow the steps of polar explorer Roald Amundsen, who navigated the Northwest Passage between 1903 and 1906 aboard the small sailing vessel Gjøa. While today's crossing is only possible due to melting sea ice linked to climate change, it remains the most ambitious and challenging voyage ever undertaken by the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. As a sailing ambassador for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), the Statsraad Lehmkuhl offers participants a unique blend of scientific inquiry and traditional seamanship. Divided into three rotating watches, the students will form an integral part of the working crew while also receiving training in Arctic oceanography, marine biodiversity, and environmental monitoring. As such, participants will take part in studies ranging from microplastic pollution and Indigenous languages to sea-ice mapping and biomedical experiments.
This 23-day voyage is part of a broader circumpolar initiative spanning three continents and 27 ports. For this leg, the vessel has been chartered by the University of Norway to provide young researchers with firsthand experience of one of the world’s most climate-stressed and geopolitically significant regions. After departing Nuuk on 5 August, the ship will make stops in Pond Inlet (13 August), Gjoa Haven, and finally Cambridge Bay (29 August), where the first group of students will disembark. A second group will then continue the expedition westward, circumnavigating the Alaskan Peninsula en route to Whittier.
Beyond the physical crossing, the expedition aims to create a new generation of field-trained Arctic researchers and to build a global network of young scientists committed to preserving the unique Arctic ecosystems and alerting on their environmental urgencies.
