Nordostgrönland

Das Expedition-Team unserer Reise (in Englisch)

Amalia (Amy) Goodall

Amy was born in Ushuaia, Argentina, and grew up on a traditional Patagonian estancia (ranch). From a young age, she developed a strong passion for wilderness and outdoor activities. With a bachelor’s degree in tourism and a master’s in environmental management, she worked as a naturalist guide in Tierra del Fuego for several years. In 2008, she joined Quark Expeditions, and was instantly hooked on expedition travel.

Amy loves the sense of wildness and solitude of the Polar Regions. Her advice to first-time adventure travelers is to occasionally, put down your camera and take a minute to soak it all in. Experience this unique environment with all your senses: the sound of the ice crackling, the scent of the tundra, the vastness of the landscape, the texture of a feather or a piece of qiviut. These simple moments create powerful memories that cannot always be captured on film.

When not at work, Amy escapes the crowds and might be found hiking, climbing or backcountry skiing in the Fuegian Andes, or planning her next adventure in warmer latitudes.

Sarah Norbury

Sarah is a language guide and elite sailor from Great Britain. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Languages from Portsmouth University where she majored in French, Chinese Mandarin and Spanish.

Growing up in the land locked Midlands, Sarah started sailing at the age of 7, and quickly found a passion for the sport, progressing quickly to sailing on the sea in national and international competitions. She combined her sailing with her studies and to date is a 4x National Champion with U19 World and European bronze medals.

Throughout university, Sarah sailed for the British Sailing Team Olympic Development Squad and competed at Olympic Class level with the very best in her sport. Sarah is also a passionate explorer and has been working in the Polar Regions since 2019, falling quickly in love with the outstanding natural landscape and wildlife that call these regions home. When not exploring the Polar Regions, Sarah can be found by the sea or in the mountains, sailing, hiking, horse riding, climbing, or surfing. Over the years Sarah has become fascinated with the sea and the extreme outdoors. She enjoys guiding, coaching, and instructing, while sharing her passion with others.
She cannot wait to share in your next adventure.

Yukie Hayashi

Yukie was born in beautiful Kagoshima, on the southern tip of Japan, surrounded by the ocean and mountains. After graduation, she taught in junior high school for seven years.

Yukie moved to Canada in 2005 and garnered professional guiding and eco-tourism training under her belt. Most of her time around Vancouver Island and the Canadian Rockies has been spent as a long trail hiking and kayak guide. Yukie's life has led her to amazing experiences. After enjoying her role as a ski patroller, she has been working as a Spirit Bear guide in Klemtu, British Columbia, Canada. Yukie has a vivacious love for life. Her motto 'never say no to opportunities' motivated her to also become a wilderness first aid instructor, a paramedic, and a translator.

Since 2011, Yukie has been working in the Polar Regions and is keen to share her passion and accumulated knowledge. Nowadays, she calls Quark ships ‘home’ as most of the year is spent onboard. When she is not exploring in the Arctic and Antarctica, Yukie can be found somewhere warm where food is delicious to thaw her body and stomach! Yukie’s mischievous character and wild sense of humor has brightened many cold days in the Polar Regions for guests and colleagues alike.

Gillian Millett

Gillian studied anthropology, religion, science and technology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. After graduation, she began traveling and hasn’t stopped since. Her adventures have taken her to over 65 countries and every continent. Along the way, Gillian has worked as a cycling instructor in Australia, a cruise director and hostel manager in Europe, an event director in Canada and a race director/assistant tour director for a cycling expedition across Africa. She can now be found in the Arctic and Antarctic regions for most of the year.

Back home in Canada, Gillian lives on Lake Simcoe, Ontario. Life on the water has its advantages; she can take her kayak out as soon as the ice breaks up, and enjoys riding her bicycle in the nearby forests. She has a soft spot for animals, the stranger the better. In her spare time, Gillian has various hobbies and is a bit of a jack-of-all trades. She is most interested in handicrafts, and is often found trying to learn local methods on her travels.

Hongwei Wang

Hongwei grew up in a small coastal city located in Jiangsu, China. He has worked as an adventure guide and educator since 2014. Wilderness is where Hongwei calls his home. He thinks it represents a singular image of freedom and a means of man becoming at one with the rhythms of the nature.

Hongwei graduated from Beijing Sport University with a bachelor’s degree in Outdoor Education and a master’s degree in Physical Education and Training. He also holds an adventure guide diploma from Thompson Rivers University. When not working in polar regions, Hongwei can often be found guiding various adventure trips in Asia and Canada, like hiking, kayaking, canoeing and rock climbing. Bilingual in Mandarin and English, with his passion for literature, you can expect a poetic interpretation from him.

Advice from Hongwei to adventure travelers is to embrace the uncertainty and possibility, a little dilemma in a trip can be a great topic or laugher in the future, take some time savoring the moments, and enjoy being surrounded by nature.

Lana Bendtsen

When spending time in nature Lana feels delighted. Nature is big part of her life when growing up in Greenland. She spent some years growing up in a secluded sheep farm, surrounded by animals and nature, which brings joyful memories of a place she once called home. Hiking, sleeping in tents, tracking animals in the nature are taught in adventure Guide Education in Qaqortoq Greenland. Taking the education, Lana realized her joy and passion for spending as much time in nature as possible. When not exploring the nature around her, Lana can be found watching documentaries of the world, doing sports (was Greenland national team in Tae Kwon Do), or listening to music while crocheting. Lana likes to travel when she gets the opportunity, and this began when she, for the first time, travelled without her parents in 2013, to participate in Greenlandic National Championships in table tennis.

Scott Sinton

Scott is a professional photographer, videographer and self-proclaimed ocean inspired human based in Christchurch, New Zealand. From Arctic expeditions to chasing monster swells in the South Pacific, Scott’s adventures have taken him around the globe. Enthusiastic about all things aquatic, his life is interconnected with the wind, waves and wildlife that surround his storytelling.

Scott developed his love and respect for the ocean growing up surfing the wild West Coast of Auckland. This passion for surfing evolved into sea kayaking and he regularly goes on multi-day trips with his partner, with whom he shares a huge passion for marine mammals, Orca being his absolute favorite to encounter.

Scott’s fascination with the polar regions began in 2013 during a two-month, six-man (and two-dog) canoe expedition exploring the Canadian Arctic. Together the team connected 1500km of river systems throughout the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Alaska. This expedition, with Scott behind the camera, resulted in the documentary ‘Paddle for the North’ which premiered at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in 2016. The film won numerous awards and blended adventure with conservation, highlighting the fragility of the Peel Watershed, and elevating the voice of indigenous communities in the region.

Scott joined the Quark team in 2022 and loves connecting with people through that unique buzz that can only be felt in the most remote corners of the world.

Nick Engelmann

Nick was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he spent much of his childhood on the neighboring Gulf Islands combing the beaches, swamps and forests. It was there that he developed his fascination with exploration and biology. He graduated from the University of Victoria with a double major in biology and geography and subsequently with a Bachelor's of Education from the University of British Columbia.

However, Nick’s real education happened in the summers between classes, and in the years thereafter. From the beginning, he shared his passion by working as a nature guide in such places as the Vancouver Aquarium, Manning Park and Hawaii. More recently, he has worked as a biologist and an environmental observer aboard seismic exploration vessels in far-flung reaches such as the Arctic, as well as Mozambique and Newfoundland, Canada. He has traveled to all seven continents, from Tasmania to Tanzania to Tuktoyaktuk. Eventually, he homed in on Córdoba, Argentina, where he now lives with his wife and two children.

Nick is fluent in Spanish and enjoys cooking, sitting in cafés sipping a café con leche, reading and writing, or driving to far flung places in Argentina. He has been presenting and guiding at both ends of the earth with Quark Expeditions since 2012.

Jean Pennycook

Jean has worked with Quark Expeditions since 2015, sharing her knowledge of the Polar Regions with engaging presentations and countless stories. Jean’s passion for sea birds and her love affair with penguins combine to provide guests with a deeper insight into the lives of these extraordinary species. In 1999, after 20 years as a high school science teacher, Jean began designing and implementing education and outreach projects engaging the public in the history, science and wonder of the Polar Regions through grants from the National Science Foundation.

Since 2004, she has spent the Antarctic summers (Oct – Jan) living in a tent near the Adélie penguin breeding colony at Cape Royds on Ross Island. Her research team monitors the population of these iconic birds as they respond to changes in their environment. Jean wants everyone to have the experience of ‘up close and personal‘ with wild birds. The best way to achieve this is to be patient, respect space and non-disturbance guidelines so the birds can feel comfortable enough to be curious about you.

Through an interpretive website, Jean connects her penguin research to classrooms and the public around the world, providing a virtual field trip to the breeding colony and live interactions with the penguins. She lives in California, USA, earning her B.Sc. in Wildlife Biology from the University of California, Davis, and her M.Sc. from California State University, Fresno.

Ian Gordon

Born and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Ian served in the Australian Army for 39 years. Ian’s operational deployments took him around the world. He was proud to help resolve conflicts while serving in several United Nations peacekeeping missions. A bibliophile, he started an independent book-publishing business after retiring from the army in 2009.

Ian loves bush walking and has hiked extensively in the Australian Alps and in many coastal regions. As a keen scuba diver, Ian has dived around the Australian coast, off Papua New Guinea and in the Red Sea.

The story of polar exploration has been an enduring interest to him. He loves to talk about the expeditions of the early polar explorers who displayed unimaginable resilience in the face of enormous challenges.

Having first visited the Antarctic Peninsula with Quark Expeditions in 2012, Ian was amazed with the beauty of the unspoiled environment and the diversity of the wildlife. Ian has been with Quark as a guide and historian since 2019. During that season Ian was thrilled to visit the grave site of Sir Ernest Shackleton on the island of South Georgia, and to tell Quark’s guests the story of Shackleton’s final voyage and resting place. Ian loves to see Quark’s guests enchanted with the wild beauty of the polar regions and to leave them fascinated by the stories of polar exploration.

Norm Lasca

Norm is Professor Emeritus of Geology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He holds degrees from Brown University and the University of Michigan. Widely traveled, he has worked extensively in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean since 1961, and in Antarctica since the 1990s. He is a widely published scholar and editor whose expertise lies in Earth-surface processes, especially those related to river systems and glaciation.

Since 1991, he has guided and delivered inspiring presentations for Quark on expeditions throughout the Polar Regions. Norm’s research has dealt with glacial geology of the Great Lakes Region, with erosion problems in the US National Forests, and with glaciation/deglaciation in Greenland, Norway and Russian Siberia. At the University, Norm is responsible for a program to keep Middle School children interested in science. He serves on national and international geological commissions, on non-profit boards and on technical advisory committees for various municipal and state agencies. He is a licensed Professional Geologist and Professional Hydrologist, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. In addition to his geologic work, his interests include ornithology and Arctic botany.

Kristoffer Korol

It is not a love of being “forever freezing,” but a love of resilient beauty, the reverence for life that has found a way to survive and thrive in some of the harshest climates, that has drawn Kristoffer to work in the Polar Regions.

Believing that the span of one’s wings is equal to the depth of one’s roots, Kristoffer credits his upbringing in the sunny Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, for his ability to flourish at the edge of the world. Even in the frostiest of conditions at the highest of latitudes, he can still smell sunburnt ponderosa pines, evoke the joy of biting into a freshly picked peach or recall the otherworldly sensation of plunging into a cool lake on a blisteringly hot day. It’s this portable ember of warmth, carried with him always, that has enabled Kristoffer to renounce 30ºC seasons for the 3ºC variety.

Kristoffer is as comfortable behind the tiller of a Zodiac as he is looking for an ideal blind from which to take incredible wildlife shots or swapping stories with new friends after a long day on the land. He looks forward to another exciting polar season with exuberance and gratitude.

In between his polar work, Kristoffer can be found in coastal BC, guiding youth on land and at sea, conducting dive surveys on marine populations, and enjoying the bittersweet bliss of canned peaches and chilly swims in the lake.

Eze Benencia

Ezequiel (Eze) was born in Cordoba, Argentina, but has been living in Ushuaia, the ‘southernmost city in the world’, since 2009. From a young age, he has been passionate about outdoor sports, especially paddling and sailing.
This passion led him to explore some remote and incredible places by sailboat, such as Cape Horn, the Chilean fjords, and the Falkland Islands. He also sailed from Ushuaia to the Canary Islands, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 58 days, non stop! In 2018, Eze started working on a 77 ft. sailboat in Antarctica. He enjoys the challenge of navigating through the icy waters and the unique experience of working in such a remote location.
Eze is very sociable and enjoys connecting with people who share his interests. In his free time, he enjoys playing ice hockey, skiing, kayaking, climbing, and many other outdoor activities around the beautiful city of Ushuaia.

Ryan Seigel

With his little car packed full of snowboards, scuba tanks and kayak gear, Ryan left Ontario's lake country region and headed for Canada’s West Coast in 2010 to make Quadra Island his new backyard. In the rural communities of British Columbia’s northern Gulf Islands, Ryan indulges in his love of the mountains, the oceans and the wildlife that call this area home. While he spends his summers there guiding kayaking and conducting whale-watching tours, his love of outdoor sports has led him to migrate south for winter, often exploring underwater as a scuba instructor. He now lives on the remote off-grid island of Sonora, British Columbia.

Ryan grew up as a young interpreter on his parents’ nature tours, exploring in Africa, Asia and South and Central America and gaining an education brought about by delving into other cultures. His time in these locations was enriched by the sharing of local stories, and he brings a similar storytelling element to his nature interpretation.

Believing that through exploring we have a responsibility to learn more and preserve these beautiful ecosystems. Ryan has been working in the Polar Regions with Quark since 2018.

Steffen Graupner

Steffen was born in Jena, Germany. After becoming a precision mechanic, he studied physics, geophysics, meteorology, and geology in Jena and Leeds, U.K. After his studies, he worked on active volcanoes in South America, Indonesia, Kamchatka and East Africa, as a researching volcanologist and travel journalist.​

Steffen saw glacial ice for the first time in 1995 in the mountains of Central Asia, climbing the 7000 m summits of the Pamir and Tienshan, which led him to begin his career as a mountain guide. The remote ranges of Inner Asia lured him to explore the Afghan Hindukush in 2008 and 2016. He was the first foreigner since the 1970s to explore the eastern districts of Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor and the first climber to reach the highest summit in the region, Koh-e-Wakhan at 6094 m.​

From the passion for the vertical ice, Steffen developed a love of the horizontal ice of the Polar Regions. After a skiing expedition on the frozen Bering Strait of Chukotka, he was invited to explore Chukotka’s heartland and visited the reindeer nomads in the restricted interior. From there Steffen’s interests extended to the rugged coasts and seas of the Russian Arctic, Far East, and North Pole. Since 2014 he has completed six voyages in the Northeast Passage.​

Steffens Arctic experiences have recently earned him recognition as Senior Polar Guide with PTGA and participation in the MOSAiC Expedition in 2019/20. Following the course of Fridtjof Nansen’s expedition of the1890s, the German research Icebreaker Polarstern drifted beset in Arctic pack ice for one year, collecting critical climatic and oceanographic data from the Central Arctic Ocean.

Paola Palavecino

In Paola’s heart Chile is her home, but she is currently living in Split, Croatia. In Split she enjoys the simple things of life and the unique landscape of Croatia, through sailing in the Dalmatian sea. She is a professional Polar Guide, Naturalist, Birder, Lecturer, Environmental Management Consultant, and Dive Master with a serious passion for the outdoors. She has almost two decades of experience as a wildlife guide and first visited the poles in 2005. She has a passion for connecting people with nature, particularly in the Polar Regions.

When she is not traveling, Paola is a consultant for sustainable tourism projects, recycling and plastic-free campaigns, and action-oriented community environmental education plans. Fluent in Spanish and English, Paola is now battling to learn some Croatian and French, certainly not an easy task.

Her first time in the poles was an amazing mix of feelings. Not knowing what to expect, it impacted her life in such way that she is still going back every year. She says, “when you see it with your own eyes and feel it within you, you’ll became a different person, so just breath in and let yourself go”.

Austin Hart

Austin grew up on a ranch in rural Montana, where he developed a passion for hard work and being outside in the mountains early on. He now lives in Red Lodge, Montana, at the edge of the Beartooth Mountains, where he works as a mountain guide, ski patroller and geologist. As the owner and operator of two businesses, Beartooth Mountain Guides and Beartooth Basin Summer Ski Area, he has engaged with a diverse array of people who find inspiration in outdoor recreation and natural landscapes.

Austin has worked throughout the western U.S. as a mountain guide and geologist with expedition experience in Alaska, Canada, Chile, Africa and Antarctica. He is an aspiring American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) Ski Guide and is an EMT and wilderness first responder registered in the U.S.

Austin holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Geology, and since he began working in the polar regions in 2019, he has been fascinated by the ice caps and glacial landscapes. Teaching and learning about the natural history of the polar regions is the most rewarding opportunity for Austin on Quark voyages, and he's always excited to dive into the adventure with his shipmates!

Callum Findley

Callum is an experienced sea kayak and alpine guide with a passion for the Polar Regions. With over twenty years of outdoor and guiding experience, he is most animated when facilitating new experiences with his clients.

When not in the Polar Regions, Callum calls the mountains, coasts and rivers of New Zealand home. It is in these environments where he has honed his skills by volunteering as a medic with search & rescue and disaster response teams. A dedicated outdoor educator, Callum works with adolescents in extended residential settings. This nurtured his enthusiasm for the profound impact that positive outdoor experiences can have on a person.

As a pastime, Callum enjoys sea-kayaking and spear fishing around Stewart Island, Fiordland and the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand, as well as British Columbia and Australia. He has also spent time mountaineering in his home country and the United Kingdom. Happiest when on the water or high up on a snowy peak, he can often be found seeking out a good coffee at the end of an epic journey.

David Dieckfoss

David lives in Tasmania, Australia and enjoys exploring its mountains, Gondwanan forests, playing guitar and engaging with tomorrow’s research scientists. He has been travelling to Apolar regions since 2012 and has worked as an Education and Science Communicator, geologist and presenter on board numerous expedition and research vessels. His special interests include plate tectonics, Earth's magnetic poles and the role of carbon in our atmosphere and oceans.

As an educational presenter David uses demonstrations and practical activities to inspire curiosity and wonder in Arctic and Antarctic Science and the mechanisms that govern the health and biodiversity of our environment. He has worked for organisations such as the Mawson Huts Foundation, CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division.

Advice to first time Antarctic and Arctic travellers. Live and breathe in the moment. Put the camera down, look, listen, feel and smell what is around you. These are moments to be savoured. Some of my most memorable moments include closing my eyes and listening to a Weddell seal “sing” while lying on the snow. Watching a juvenile elephant seal being moved on by a group of King penguins, finding a live Antarctic tardigrade under the microscope in a water sample, and soaking in the grandeur of huge snowcapped mountains ringed by groaning glaciers.Baca lagi