Frenchman Yvan Bourgnon says he is shocked by accusations circulating in the French media that he embellished the facts of his crossing, cheated in an attempted discography and then tried to cover it up. Certainly, he tried to make the story come alive for those who told it, Bourgnon said — who wouldn’t, after sailing 7,500 kilometers of treacherous Arctic waters in a cabinless boat? “Isn’t that what every adventurer does when they describe their journey?” Bourgnon said in a written response to the charges. “Telling, bringing the story to life to share it, 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 confuse two issues: a lawsuit currently in French courts and accusations that he fabricated or lied about aspects of his trip.
A meeting at Taloyoak
Bourgnon spent 71 days at sea on his catamaran, Ma Louloutte, starting in July 2017. On his websitethe skipper lists the highlights of the trip: falling overboard in Prudhoe Bay, running 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 Arctic ice. (Submitted by Yvan Bourgnon) On September 26, 2022, the French daily Le Figaro published an investigation that casts doubt on some of these claims. The investigation disputed Bourgnon’s polar bear encounter, pointing to the absence of scratches on the catamaran, and questioned why the boat’s cameras used for a documentary crashed in Bellot Strait (which Bourgnon says was due to difficulty charging the onboard batteries ). He also resurrected claims that Bourgnon had lied about setting an official record for the first solo crossing in a catamaran without a cabin, which would have required him to complete the journey unaided without setting foot on land. It points to time spent in Taloyoak, Nunavut, and the help he apparently received from some other sailors, accusing him of trying to cover up both events so he could claim to have made history as the first person to sail the Northwest Passage solo on a catamaran. . He cites an email in which Bourgnon apparently asked Pierre Guyot—the documentary film producer who is now suing him—to be discreet about a meeting they had in Taloyoak where Bourgnon spent several days. In an interview, Bourgnon told the CBC that he never tried to hide the fact that he stayed in Taloyoak. He wrote openly about it in his 2018 memoir, Conquerant des glaces, where he described sleeping in a “hut” for four nights. Despite giving an interview to Radio-Canada in September 2017 where he described his trip as an attempt to set a record, Bourgnon told the CBC that said record was just a dream — one he knew had failed when stopped at Taloyoak. A map showing Taloyoak, Nunavut, in relation to Ikaluit. (CBC) Because of that, he never asked for the record to be certified, he said. “I said, ‘OK, I put my feet on the ground, 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 complete the Northwest Passage in a single-handed sport catamaran, without a cockpit or assistance” and so is the website for the Bimedia Challenge — which is the challenge he had taken on. Chuck Pizzo-Lyall, the mayor of Taloyoak, recalled 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 find shelter from high winds and waves. Pizzo-Lyall said he helped them tow to that safe harbor and later gave Bourgnon a tow back. “We watched him take off over the horizon,” he recalls. Pizzo-Lyall said he believed Bourgnon’s journey was a “pretty amazing feat”. “I’m so glad he made it… Going it alone has its own mental health challenges, especially if you’re facing the North — whether it’s the weather or the mental well-being of being alone out there, the polar bears and all that wild life we have in the North this is basically bigger and can eat you without a problem,” he said. Yvan Bourgnon says his trip to the Northwest Passage gave him perspective for his ecological work with The SeaCleaners, which works to protect the oceans from plastic pollution. (Submitted by Yvan Bourgnon)
The lawsuit
Bournion is facing a lawsuit in connection with his passage through the Northwest Passage — essentially, a dispute over who owns the rights to images shot during his trip for use in a documentary, he said. This case was heard by the intellectual property court of Paris on October 6 and the decision is expected on December 6. Pierre Guyot – who Bourgnon says was a longtime friend of theirs before they fell out – and French production company 10-7 Productions are suing Bourgnon for €280,000 (nearly $380,000 CAD). Arriving in Paris, Jean Aittouares, one of Guyot’s lawyers, told the CBC that Bourgnon tried to get Guyot to hide some of the aspects of the trip — like that fateful stop in Taloyoak that prevented Bourgnon from makes a record. Guyot didn’t 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 profit. “He trampled on Guillaume’s work at first, fired 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,” Etuiarez said in French. “He then implicated Guyot in what his participation in the film had already cost him by making him stand by the lie he had told.” Bourgnon said the courts only rule on the rights issue, not on any of the other charges.
The passing
The Northwest Passage is a very difficult journey. This year, two Brazilian sailors attempted the feat on a catamaran, but had to turn back before finishing, citing the changing season and bad weather. The first successful sailing crossing, 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 enter Nunavut communities along the way. In September, a Texan sailor hoping to make the Northwest Passage had to seek help from residents in Kugluktuk after his boat broke down. Bourgnon said the trip and his stopover in Taloyoak gave him the opportunity to meet and talk with the Inuit and discuss his great passion: the ocean. Those conversations gave him perspective, he said, for his ecological work with The SeaCleaners, which works to protect the oceans from plastic pollution. “I had a really good experience,” he said. “It was very interesting to talk to them and understand what’s going on.” As for Chuck Pizzo-Lyall, mayor of Taloyoak, he said he welcomes boaters’ interest in the area, but admits the recent increase in boat traffic worries him. “Trying to rescue someone by boat 200 miles from our community can be very complicated,” he said. “The weather fluctuates wildly here.”
