Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak: One Woman's Journey Through the North West Passage

During the summers of 1991 through 1994 Victoria Jason and two companions - Fred Reffler and Don Starkell - set out to kayak from Churchill, Manitoba to Tuktoyuktuk on the Beaufort Sea. When she set out 1991, Victoria, already a grandmother of two, had only been kayaking for a year and was still recovering from the second of two strokes.

Her 7,500 kilometer journey last four years. In the first year Fred dropped out due to an injury, and Victoria suffered serious internal bleeding ulcers. The second year Victoria and Don reached Gjoa Haven together, but Victoria was forced to drop out there, suffering from edema caused by excessive fatigue. Don continued alone and almost died from extreme frostbite before being rescued by authorities just 46 miles short of Tuktoyuktuk.

Not content with her failure, Victoria returned to the North the following two years and completed her triumphant journey alone from west to east, paddling from Fort Providence on the MacKenzie River to Paulatuk in 1993, and from Paulatuk to Gjoa Haven in 1994.

Among the Inuit people she became known as the Kabloona (the Inuktitut word for stranger) in the Yellow Kayak.