Fellow of RCGS, Explorers Club Kevin is an explorer, writer, architect and a happily-married father of two. Among Kevin’s many expeditions, he has skied the length of Alaska’s 1180 mile Iditarod Trail in winter, retraced the infamous Sandakan Death March through the jungles of Borneo for the first time since WWII and rowed a boat across the stormy waters of the Northwest Passage to bring awareness to climate change. In 2009, he was part of the team that broke the world record for the fastest journey to the South Pole.
Some places don’t let you go.
Ellesmere Island—Canada’s northernmost landmass—sits at the edge of the known world. Vast, silent, and unforgiving, it is so remote that in parts, more people have stood on the moon than have ever set foot there. For Ray Zahab and Kevin Vallely, it’s a place that kept calling them back.
In 2022, Zahab and Vallely attempted to ski its length and failed. They vowed to return. The road back was shaped by challenges significant enough to end most expeditions before they begin. Plans shifted and assumptions slipped away. What remained was a simple choice: walk away, or return with deeper resolve. When they finally returned in March 2025, it wasn’t to conquer the island, but to experience it. Ellesmere offered no mercy. Bitter cold and extreme isolation demanded patience and absolute commitment.
Then the wolves came.
Unfinished Business is not a story of conquest. It’s a story of return—of persistence, partnership, and humility in one of the most remote places left on Earth.
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