The Transglobal Car Expedition has recovered the truck they lost near the Qikirtat (Tasmania) Islands on March 23, 2022 while travelling overland from Yellowknife to Resolute Bay.
The operation to recover the truck took off with the underwater recovery phase as cold-water divers placed airbags and attached cables to help raise the truck off the ocean floor. The truck was then moved underwater past the strong currents which originally caused the truck to through the winter ice. Following that, it was raised to the surface where it was pulled to shore on one of the islands.
An Airbus Super Puma heavy lift helicopter was then used to fly the truck to Gjoa Haven, where it currently stay and be sent off to Montreal during the next available sealift.
“This recovery operation was never about getting a truck back. It was about doing the right thing and respecting the land,” said Andrew Comrie-Picard, a Canadian team member of the Expedition.
“It was very powerful to see the helicopter carry the truck over the horizon and hear the sudden silence and the water dripping off the ice floes. With one-third of our being Inuit it was a privilege to have the with us to show us the tent circles and meat caches that went back hundreds of years, on an island that a passing boat would consider uninhabited. It is not. It is the land of their ancestors.”
The successful lift of the truck took place on August 27.
“My feeling of seeing the car coming back after five months of preparation and hard work on the extraction gave a sense of completion and is a testament to the ability of expert teamwork to achieve a very, very difficult task. With all our work in Iceland and Antarctica, we always seek to respect the environment, and I’m glad we were able to do that here,” said Emil Grimsson, an Icelandic member of the Transglobal Car Expedition.
While the truck is largely intact, there was corrosion observed on the trucks electronics and aluminum components. It is not expected to be used again.