Belgian completes years-long journey from Nunavut to Argentina with no fossil fuels

It's more than 12,000 kilometres to get from Nunavut to Argentina, but one Belgian man has completed that journey using only human power. 

On Dec. 4, 2024, Arnaud Maldague finished his nearly seven-year-long adventure of skiing, cycling, horseback riding, hiking, kayaking and sailing through the Americas. He was trying some of those sports for the first time on the expedition. 

"Most of the time I learned the minimum possible to achieve what I was doing without dying," he said. "So it was a bit of a gamble, and each time you managed to succeed you're like, 'I made it'." 

The 35-year-old has coined his 17-country odyssey the 'Manneken Trip' —  a nod to that famous Brussels statue of the little boy peeing into a fountain. 

He began his trek in the depths of winter in Kugaaruk, Nunavut, on January 15, 2018. The Arctic was the harshest leg of the journey, skiing often in -50 C conditions. 

On two occasions, he went a month without seeing any humans. But his survival instincts, plus his admiration for Inuit culture and the beauty of the Arctic, kept him going. 

At one point during his trek from Naujaat to Chesterfield Inlet, he did come across one other living being — a polar bear trying to rip open his tent in the middle of the night. 

"I started moving out of my sleeping bags and grabbing my firearm and I screamed very loudly. Nothing happened. Then I opened two zippers and shot in the air," he said. 

Three-year trip nearly doubles in length

He initially wanted to complete his trip within three years, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He was forced to hunker down in Jamaica and Grenada. 

A beautiful place to isolate, though it was difficult to be stranded in a foreign place. 

"I made a lot of sacrifices … while I was there, I had no more projects for two and a half years. So that was a very long time without having a real project in life," he said.

It was a big trip to finance as well. His mother passed away when he was 21-years-old, and he also lost his grandfather halfway through the expedition. 

"The little money I got, I put it into the trip because it was my dream," he said.

No single best moment

It's difficult for Maldague to condense all those years of experiences into his one most memorable moment.

After all, he did traverse through many different environments — tundra, rivers, bustling cities, oceans, jungles, to name a few.

"It's a lot of myself that I've put into this trip — physically and mentally. So when I finished each leg, it was always a special moment," he said. 

"All that was to discover this nature, and it teaches you a lot of beautiful things, also things you don't like so much and things you don't want in your life." 

As for his next adventure, he's done with the years-long expeditions. "I'm old enough," he said.

But he's still keen to continue exploring the world, as well as working on a documentary with his nearly seven years of footage.