A year after his icy adventure with the ultra-trailer Mathieu Blanchard in the eye of Quebec, Loury Lag is setting off again for a new challenge in the name of Arctic Mission: crossing the Arctic via the Northwest Passage.
From the Bering Strait to the Baffin Islands, very close to Greenland, the extreme sports enthusiast will swallow his 3,500 km on ski-kite and with a double record objective in his sights. “The Northwest Passage has never been established by a Frenchman, and it has never been attempted by ski-kite in winter“, confides to us the one who had attempted the North-East crossing together three years ago but who had to stop everything because of the Covid. “I experienced that as a failure, it had been terrible. Since I didn’t postpone it, I reassembled the project, but a little differently.»
A long ski-kite journey
The ski-kite, if it considerably increases the difficulty (drop in the temperature felt), it is justified by the environmental context. With global warming, Loury Lag has opted for safety: “ We are facing a problematic climate dimension, he says. With the ice melting, I have no guarantee of arrival. With the ski-kite, I would be faster. If he estimates that he needs about 60 days of expeditions, he takes 90 kg of things with him. The Frenchman can advance at 50 km/h if everything works well. The journey is separated between six and eight stages.
Walk to mourn, in documentary
Alone for most of the route, he will be able to take advantage of human contact on rare occasions: the refueling stages, of course, essential to his survival, but also during a “short” moment of his trip (250 km same), shared with the director of the documentary (whose name has not filtered).
This mysterious filmmaker has a story similar to that of Loury Lag. Both have grief in common. “ My dad is going to die soon, explains Loury Lag. He has pancreatic cancer, he’s terminal. I made the choice to leave anyway. With the director, we have a very different vision of mourning: he withdraws from his profession, he abandons himself to his dimension. Me, I face it with a certain brutality. »
This director will also be present at each refueling point to capture the stages of this challenge, with the ultimate ambition of making a beautiful cinematographic object. “ We want to take this project to the Cannes Film Festival, assure Lag. Many famous people have joined the project. The expectations are impressive, the allocated budget is well beyond a classic budget for a documentary. Lag is expected to arrive on Baffin Island in late April-early May.
