The man at the center of a Northwest Passage controversy says he’s not a cheat or a liar, and never claimed to set a record with his 2017 solo catamaran crossing.
Frenchman Yvan Bourgnon says he is shocked by allegations circulating in the French media that he embellished the facts of his journey, misled an attempted registration and then tried to cover it up.
Of course, he tried to make the story come alive for those he told it to, said Bourgnon, who wouldn’t, after navigating 7,500 kilometers of treacherous Arctic waters in a boat without a cabin?
“Isn’t that what every adventurer does when he describes his journey?” Bourgnon said in a written response to the allegations.
“Telling, making the story come alive for sharing, giving it meaning, making people feel the moment – that’s the very nature of adventure storytelling and in no way deserves to be accused of cheating or lying “.
At the heart of this strange controversy are French newspaper headlines and articles that combine two issues: a lawsuit currently before French courts and allegations that he made up or lied about aspects of his trip.
A meeting in Taloyoak
Bourgnon spent 71 days at sea aboard his catamaran, Ma Louloutte, beginning in July 2017.
On your websitethe skipper compiles a list of the highlights of the trip: falling overboard in Prudhoe Bay, bumping into a walrus after Bellot Strait and finding a polar bear with its paws on the deck of Ma Louloutte near Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut.
Yvan Bourgnon and Ma Louloutte on the Arctic ice. (Submitted by Yvan Bourgnon)
On September 26, 2022, the French newspaper Le Figaro published an investigation that cast doubt on some of these claims. The inquiry questioned Bourgnon’s polar bear encounter, noting the absence of scratches on the catamaran, and questioned why the on-board cameras that were being used for a documentary all fell into Bellot Strait (which Bourgnon says was due to the difficulty of charging the batteries). on board).
It also resurrected claims that Bourgnon had lied about setting a formal record for the first solo crossing in a catamaran without a cabin, which would have required him to navigate the route unaided without setting foot on land.
He points to the time he spent in Taloyoak, Nunavut, and the help he apparently received from other sailors, accusing him of trying to hide both facts so he could claim to have made history as the first person to navigate the passage of northwest solo on a catamaran. .
He cites an email in which Bourgnon apparently asked Pierre Guyot — the documentary film producer now suing him — to be discreet about a meeting they had in Taloyoak where Bourgnon spent several days.
In an interview, Bourgnon told CBC that he never tried to hide the fact that he stayed in Taloyoak. He wrote about it openly in his 2018 memoir, Conquerant des glaces, where he described sleeping in a “cabin” for four nights.
Despite giving an interview to Radio-Canada in September 2017 where he described his journey as an attempt to set a record, Bourgnon told CBC that the record in question was just a dream, one he knew had failed when he stopped at Taloyoak.
A map showing Taloyoak, Nunavut in relation to Iqaluit. (CBC)
That’s why he never asked for the record to be certified, he said.
“I said, ‘OK, I put my feet down, so I didn’t respect things to make a record,'” Bourgnon said.
“For me, it wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was to have an adventure, to have a challenge, to be alone with a little beach catamaran there.”
However, his website describes him as “the first skipper to achieve the Northwest Passage in a single-handed sport catamaran, without cockpit or assistance” and so does the website for the Bimedia Challenge, which is the challenge I had undertaken.
Chuck Pizzo-Lyall, the mayor of Taloyoak, remembers meeting Bourgnon and Guyot when they stopped there in August 2017. He said Bourgnon spent about a week in the community.
There is a small secluded bay nearby where boats can shelter from the high winds and waves. Pizzo-Lyall said he helped tow them to that safe harbor and later gave Bourgnon a tow.
“We watched it take off into the horizon,” he recalled.
Pizzo-Lyall said she thought Bourgnon’s journey was a “very amazing feat”.
“I’m so glad he made it…Doing it alone has its own mental health challenges, especially if you’re up north, whether it’s the weather or the mental well-being of being out there alone, the polar bears and all this wildlife that we have. up north, it’s basically bigger and it can’t eat you no problem,” he said.
Yvan Bourgnon says his trip through the Northwest Passage gave him perspective for his environmental work with The SeaCleaners, which works to protect the oceans from plastic pollution. (Submitted by Yvan Bourgnon)
The suit
Bourgnon is facing a lawsuit in connection with his Northwest Passage, essentially a fight over who has the rights to footage filmed during his trip for use in a documentary, he said.
This case was heard by the intellectual property court in Paris on October 6, and a decision is expected on December 6.
Pierre Guyot, who Bourgnon says was a longtime friend before they fell out, and French production company 10-7 Productions are suing Bourgnon for 280,000 euros (about $380,000 CAD).
Arriving in Paris, Jean Aittouares, one of Guyot’s lawyers, told CBC that Bourgnon had tried to get Guyot to hide some aspects of the trip, such as that fateful stopover in Taloyoak that disqualified Bourgnon from setting a record. Guyot did not want to lie, and the resulting conflict between them prevented Guyot from making his documentary, Aittouares said; then, without credit or permission, Bourgnon used the images from the trip for his own benefit.
“He trampled on Guyot’s work at first, expelled him to punish him for his integrity, then violated his rights by exploiting the documentary for his personal needs and to derive personal income from it,” Aittouares said. in french
“He then implicated Guyot in what had already cost him his participation in the film by making him endorse the lie he had told.”
Bourgnon said the courts are only ruling on the issue of rights, not ruling on any of the other charges.
the passage
The Northwest Passage is a notoriously difficult journey. This year, two Brazilian sailors attempted the feat in a catamaran, but had to turn back before finishing, citing the changing season and bad weather.
The first successful sailing voyage, which began in 1986 and lasted three summers, also documented the dangers of the journey. Sailor Jeff MacInnis wrote about bears, blizzards and 15-foot waves in his memoir, Polar Passage.
And of course, John Franklin’s famous 19th-century Arctic expedition to discover the Northwest Passage ended in his and his crew’s deaths, and still fuels the imagination of explorers today.
Sailors regularly meet in Nunavut communities along the way. In September, a Texan sailor hoping to make part of the Northwest Passage had to seek help from residents in Kugluktuk after his boat cracked.
Bourgnon said his trip and stopover in Taloyoak gave him the opportunity to meet and talk with the Inuit and talk about his great passion: the ocean. Those conversations gave him perspective, he said, for his environmental work with The SeaCleaners, which works to protect the oceans from plastic pollution.
“I had a really good experience,” he said. “It was really interesting to talk to them and understand what’s going on.”
As for Taloyoak Mayor Chuck Pizzo-Lyall, he said he welcomes boaters’ interest in the area, but admits the recent increase in marine traffic worries him.
“Trying to rescue someone by boat that’s 200 miles from our community can be very complicated,” he said. “The weather fluctuates a lot here.”