About Ice Frontiers

Mission

Ice Frontiers is a personal project sharing human experiences that spark conversations about adaptation, resilience, and the choices we make.

Purpose

We live in a world of accelerating change. The environment is shifting, technologies are remaking how we work and connect, institutions are under strain, economies move in ways no one can predict. Every adult alive is navigating a world different from the one they inherited — and learning, in real time, how to make decisions when the outcome can't be known in advance.

That is what I write about. I sail to places where change arrives first and hits hardest. I visit remote communities adapting to a transforming environment with a small crew navigating the uncertainty of high-latitude seas. The places are extraordinary. The questions they raise are not. How do people read a situation that has no precedent? How do they decide when they can't see around the corner? What I witness in the ice is not so far from how any of us face an uncertain job, a diagnosis, a market that won't hold still.

I believe these stories connect people across the distances that usually separate them — because the condition underneath is shared. They don't tell anyone what to do. They remind us that we can act with judgment and dignity without knowing how the story will end.

Approach

In 2026 I bought Adak, a 53-foot expedition sailboat, in New Zealand and sailed her to British Columbia. On May 14th, I left Opua in New Zealand. We stopped in New Caledonia and the Marshall Islands before reaching Alaska at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. I then continued to Kodiak, Prince William Sound, Cordova, Icy Bay, Yakutat, Juneau, Petersburg and Prince Rupert before reaching Victoria on September 10th.

9,307 miles. 120 days.

I did not know any of the people who joined me. They were experienced sailors who came because the project interested them. That is the fact about this whole undertaking I find hardest to explain and most worth paying attention to.

The people on the boat form small communities navigating uncertainty together. Sailing at the edges of the world, they live with unreliable forecasts, incomplete charts, equipment failures, and conditions that change faster than anyone expected. They make decisions with partial information and act without waiting for certainty. I write about these experiences as they happened — not staged, not reconstructed — trying to capture how people read a situation, adapt, and keep going.

In 2027 I'll sail north again for a full season in Alaska. Along the way, I hope to spend time with communities that have lived with uncertainty for generations — people who know these places far better than I do, whose judgment has been tested over lifetimes where mine will be tested over a season.

Values

Curiosity
I begin with questions, not conclusions. I follow where the evidence leads rather than confirming what I expected to find.

Integrity
I let complexity stand. When an observation complicates the story, I keep it rather than simplify it.

Respect
The people I sail with and the people I meet along the way trust me with their stories. They are not subjects. They are companions and teachers.

Patience
I stay with a situation long enough for something unexpected to happen. I look for tension, not explanation.

Commitment
I go to places that are hard to reach and make decisions I cannot take back — not out of recklessness, but because I would rather act on my values than wait for a certainty that may never come.

Economy of Means
I build resilience through better decisions, not bigger budgets.

Impact

I believe that meaningful conversations are where cultural change begins.

An essay or a photograph rarely changes the world on its own. But it can start a conversation — in classrooms, boardrooms, research institutions, and around kitchen tables.

My role is to share stories that invite exploration, deepen understanding, and then get out of the way.