SIX Harrow police officers will face “one of the last frontiers” kayaking up an arctic river in Canada.
Armed with a 12 bore shotgun the group will face the threat of grizzly bears and wolves as they row through the icy waters of the 1,800km Mackenzie River in strong currents.
Inspector Dave Burgum, one of the organisers, said: “We've got a 12 bore shotgun. You can get bear sprays and things like that but if you've got a 12ft grizzly coming at your group you want something a bit more substantial than bear spray.
“I would say it's one of the last frontiers because there's not many places in the world where you could go where you don't have the fall back of inhabitants.
“It's massive and probably one of the most under inhabited areas of the world.”
The six fly out to Vancouver on June 12 before taking two more flights to their starting location at Dory Point near the Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories.
They set off on June 16 and by the time their 40-day expedition is over they hope to have reached the remote settlement of Tuktoyaktuk in the Arctic Ocean.
One of their biggest challenges will be the harsh environment and, while they are taking some supplies and stocking up along the way, they may need to fish for food as well.
The Mackenzie is the longest river in Canada and the tenth longest in the world but only a handful of Inuit settlements are dotted along the route, which is travelled by just six or seven adventurers a year.
PC Nigel Rowe, also leading the trip, said: “It's a fairly fast flowing current so you don't want to capsize in a river like that but we are all trained.”
The group have been preparing at the police training centre in Sunbury as well as in Wales and the Isle of Wight and PC Rowe and Inspector Burgum are veterans of a previous expedition.
The plan to kayak up the Mackenzie River was first dreamed up by the pair in 2000 but had to be dropped because they did not have the necessary equipment.
Instead they travelled to India where they took part in and won a race up the Ganges using a kayak they rented locally in a joint trip with Indian police.
Inspector Burgum said: “The actual challenge in itself was very difficult. The race was so difficult that when I got out I collapsed from exhaustion but you've always got a back up. This time we've got no back up.
“We will be encountering bears, wolves, you name it, along the way. It's going to be fantastic.”
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