The summer cruise Kevin Oliver and Tony Lancashire have in mind isn’t going to be a typical family outing. But if they are successful they will have sailed, rowed and, if necessary, dragged their 18-foot open sailing boat across 1,700 miles of the Arctic Archipelago in Canada’s Northwest Territories in a west to east direction. They’ll start on the Beaufort Sea at the western end and finish in Baffin Bay on the Atlantic side.

Discovering the Northwest Passage has always fascinated explorers searching for a sea route that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British government wasn’t shy about offering prize money to anyone who could find the route. Even the legendary explorer Captain James Cook was planning to give it a try before he was killed in Hawaii in 1779.

It wasn’t until 1906 that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first one to complete the trek— although it took him three years to do it—aboard a steel–hulled seal hunting vessel he had modified for the trip.

Since then any number of attempts to transit the Northwest Passage have been successful. But there have been plenty of failures as well with teams forced to turn back, either because of bad planning, inadequate supplies or overwhelming ice. And more than one expedition, disoriented and blocked by pack ice, failed to return.

Although several teams will be attempting the passage this summer, Oliver and Lancashire’s effort certainly is the most exciting, and potentially the most dangerous. Sponsored by the Arctic Mariner Expedition, a non-profit organization whose goal is to inspire and to raise the awareness of adventure sailing in remote locations, the two are also making the trip to raise awareness of the Toe in the Water Charity, a charity dedicated to inspiring men and women who have sustained traumatic injuries to move beyond their disability and become re–invigorated by life.

Oliver, 41, and Lancashire, 35, are both career Royal Marines and their craft is a Canadian-built 17’ 6” foot sailing NorseBoat designed by Chuck Paine Associates. Although they are using the standard hull it has been reinforced to handle ice; not a bad idea considering that preliminary forecasts are suggesting that, despite the talk of global warming, the ice pack this summer could be significantly higher than it has been in recent years.

But Oliver and Lancashire are prepared to deal with whatever may lie ahead. Oliver is a 20-year veteran of the Royal Marines and a mountain and Arctic specialist who has spent six winters in Norway. He’s also done tours in Iraq and in Northern Ireland and has floated down the Amazon on a raft that he built from balsa wood. He is also a certified sailing yacht skipper. When he returns to England this fall he expects to deploy to Afghanistan.

Lancashire, a 14- year veteran of the Royal Marines, is a small boat operations specialist who has done tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland. He’s also spent a lot of time in Arctic Canada and Norway, as well as the jungles of West Africa and the Far East. He is also a very experienced sailor.

The two will start out from Inuvik, a settlement that lies just east of the Yukon Territory, on July 24 and plan to average 35 nautical miles a day. That computes out to an impressive 250 miles a week and if they can keep up that pace they will complete the trip in about seven weeks. They’ll be eating freeze–dried food and are carrying a reverse osmosis watermaker along with all the usual pieces of survival gear.

The constant movement of the pack ice will be the main challenge but Oliver and Lancashire will almost certainly be seeing whales, polar bears and of course mosquitoes. And even though they know they are well prepared for anything that may come their way, they’ll be delighted if they get what their commanding general, Garry Robison, has apparently ordered up for them when they set sail. Fair winds and an ice-free passage.

For more details about the adventure go to arcticmariner.org.