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The 2023 edition of Expedition Canada, a harrowing multi-discipline adventure race that involves a minimum of five days of hardcore competition in the utter wilderness where the action continues day and night and where the only guide to the next checkpoint is an old school map and compass, begins in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Where? We can't tell you that. Other than Expedition Canada organizers Hoodoo Adventures, no one knows the location of the start or finish line, or the route, or much of anything else.
'Cuz that’s the way it is in the extreme world of adventure racing. The participants, who'll be bused to the start line under the cover of darkness, won't even get a map until a couple hours before they embark.
What we can tell you is that the route spans 580 kilometers through the Thompson Okanagan. Much of it is hours from the nearest services. Or a doctor.
And aside from navigation, the teams -- there are 20 teams of 4 each, from across the globe -- need to be really, really good at stuff like trail running, mountain biking, canoeing, pack-rafting, rappelling and more.
The process kicked off Sunday evening in the host city of Penticton, at the historic SS Sicamous sternwheeler, where virtually everyone involved in this year's version gathered for an opening ceremony, team pics, and a getting-to-know-you session.
It continued Monday mid-day with what organizers called a prologue -- a two-hour journey through northern Penticton with stops at spots like Loco Landing (where they played on some elevated equipment), Cannery Brewing (where they drank beer tasters) and Lickity Splitz ice cream shop (where they had dessert).
Rainstorm aside, it was a couple of hours of fun before the real work starts Monday.
The winning team will finish in approximately four days. The also-rans will do the deed in six or seven. And one other thing. The fastest team not only gets bragging rights, it wins a spot in the Adventure Racing World Championships in South Africa.
In this sport, that's a very big deal.
One of the teams at the Sunday night Sicamous meet-and-greet was "Team Bones USA." There's also a Team Bones Canada. But even the USA version has some Canadian flavor.
It's also indicative of the borderless makeup of many of the teams.
"James (Galipeau) is from Chilliwack," said team spokesperson Roy Malone of Eldorado Hills, California as the foursome gathered in front of the Sicamous for a photo.
"Megan (Erspamer) is a vagabond. She's officially a Portland native, but I had to pull her from Argentina. She was on her way to Norway and I said, 'Hey Meg, wanna race?' And she said, 'Yeah, I can spend a few months in Canada Before Norway.'
"Our fourth member sprained his groin about ten days ago, so we wondered who we could find at the last minute. And we so we found this guy (Ian Weir). He's an uber ultra-runner and we're stoked to have him on board at the last minute."
That Malone met Quinn -- who hails from Whitehorse -- for the first time ever just an hour before the Sicamous get-together somehow doesn’t seem all that surprising. That's just the way it is sometimes with adventure racing.
"It's an interesting sport," said Malone, who says he's been "racing" for 22 years. "Not only do you have to navigate the whole way, it's also day and night. It's non-stop. After about 33 hours the brain doesn't work too well.
"So if you're looking at a map and you're sleep deprived, it makes things really tough."
About the USA versus Canada Team Bones thing, Malone says his team would have had three Americans and one Canadian prior to the sprained groin. Now it's two and two. But it's still Team Bones (USA) because Team Bones (Canada) is all Canucks.
Got it?
A little less confusing is Team East Wind. All four (Asuka Takei, Toru Ogura, Akira Yonemoto, Yoki Tanaka) are from Japan. None have recently broken or fractured anything. They even brought along their own media team.
And they had a translator with them Sunday evening.
We asked them why they do something this…wild, and the three-word response was, "Because it’s fun," followed by a lot of laughter.
"It's a great sport because you can travel all around the world doing it," came the follow-up. "And you get to do a lot of different sports at the same time."
Team East Wind believes they'll win. We'll see how accurate that is several days from now.
For more information on Expedition Canada 2023, including links to live tracking -- all teams will carry tracking devices -- turn here.
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