Geoff Wilson has spent much of his adult life exploring the planet. He has completed the only wind-assisted crossing of the Sahara and the fastest unsupported crossing of Greenland, south to north. He has stood atop Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro with his father and spent a year sailing the world with his wife and three children. He holds the record for the longest solo unsupported polar journey in human history.
Wilson is the definition of a modern-day adventurer – a recipient of the Australian Geographic Society’s highest honour, the “lifetime of adventure” award. Having devoted decades to redefining what human beings are capable of, he is next seeking to prove that adventure doesn’t have to come at the expense of the planet.
“We need to explore but explore responsibly,” the Gold Coaster says on the eve of Project Zero, a seven-leg two-year expedition that will promote the concept of “carbon neutral exploring”.
“We’re not pretending to have the answers at the beginning. We’ve got seven journeys to get this perfect and by the seventh journey in the most damaged environment on planet Earth, we’ll have a clear roadmap for how to adventure responsibly.”
Starting with a treacherous seven-week crossing of the Southern Ocean on Nanook X, a specially adapted steel-hulled, carbon-neutral boat, Wilson and three crewmates, including his 22-year-old son Kitale, will explore the world’s most isolated and vulnerable environments.
Alongside Kitale, he will attempt a crossing of the Patagonian ice cap, the world’s largest and fastest-receding contiguous extrapolar ice field, sled more than 1,000km on a return trip to Antarctica’s Ronne ice shelf and use kite power to shoot for the fastest crossing from the south pole to the edge of the continent.
Nanook X will then set sail for the northern hemisphere, where father and son will aim to complete a crossing of Iceland, traverse the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard – home to the highest density of polar bears on Earth – and attempt to become the first unsupported team to reach the northern pole of inaccessibility.
The boat is kitted out with solar and hydro power options to feed its computers and navigation systems, with the team recycling chemicals and waste, and working with a carbon auditor to offset any emissions produced when using an engine or air travel.
And what of critics who would suggest the Project Zero team would do more for the environment by staying at home?
“It’s a very fair comment but it’s not genuine,” says Wilson, whose previous Antarctic missions raised almost $400,000 for the McGrath Foundation.
“The simplest way to reduce human effect is to get rid of humans but we need to be practical. It’s natural for humans to want to explore and adventure. It’s actually essential for our mental health to have dreams and visions.
“If I look back at previous adventures, I was very green once I got to the ice. It was all manpower and I had very little carbon production other than a bit of a stove in the evening, but if I’m honest with myself, the getting in and out [of the destination] was super carbon producing.
“I’d love to go back – with more understanding of climate change – but you only know what you know at the time.
“As outdoors people, we can no longer impact the very environment we seek to protect by our ins and outs. We must at least explore carbon neutral.”
Wilson’s previous adventures have given him visceral insights into the impacts of a warming planet.
In 2020 he was stuck for 10 days waiting to get off Antarctica, while the runway melted down to sea level.
“Talking to Antarctic hands who had done 20 summers there, they had never seen anything like it so it was my realisation that we can’t bury our heads any more,” he recalls.
“It was the same in 2017 flying to the start of my crossing of Greenland. The start point was 14km inland from where we had seen the glacier on a map in 1952. You’re sitting in a chopper looking at this rock that should have kilometre-deep ice over the top of it and thinking, ‘Holy crap, that change has happened in my lifetime.’
“Operating in the delicate parts of the planet is almost like being in the womb of the Earth and you’re seeing the pain that is coming ahead of time. For me, it’s a real awakening. You can’t pretend this isn’t happening any more.”
