Landing on Lake Washington had to be sweet sorrow for Doug DeVries and Mark Schoening, who returned last week from circumnavigating Canada in a pair of float planes.
The two Kenmore pilots touched down on local waters Sept. 15, ending a journey that lasted more than a month.
Both men are back to the business of work, paying bills and catching up on loads of e-mail — exactly the type of things they escaped.
“It think our trip was just about a need for change that all people have,” DeVries said. “It’s the challenge of an adventure, and going to exotic places.
“You can’t find a place that’s more different from our day-to-day lives than the Arctic.”
Gone are the days of sleeping in tents, cooking MREs (meals ready to eat) and braving the unpredictable weather of Earth’s northernmost reaches.
So, too, are the craggy mountains, the ice bergs and the sight of musk oxen crossing frozen tundra.
At least the food is better.
DeVries and Schoening began their journey from Lake Washington Aug. 2.
Their goal was to fly the perimeter of Canada in a pair of de Havilland Beavers, reaching the North Pole and filming a high-definition documentary along the way.
The flight team included two photographers and a rotating cast of family and friends who joined the crew at various intervals.
DeVries and Schoening have been neighbors since 2002.
Both men had heard of the other’s love for airplanes and flying, but it would be four years before they formally met during a chance encounter in Ketchikan, Alaska.
That’s when DeVries shared his longtime dream of flying the Northwest Passage.
Schoening liked the idea right away, and the two pilots set about making plans.
Flying for the sake of adventure was nothing new to either man.
DeVries had toured the Australian Outback with a biplane in 2005, having recently sold his company — which developed a widely-used portable ventilator for people who can’t breathe on their own.
Schoening, who founded and eventually sold Sound Flight, comes from a long line of adventurers.
His grandfather, Pete Schoening, was a legendary mountaineer who earned the Alpine Club’s David A. Sowles Memorial Award in 1981 for saving five colleagues during a summit attempt on K2 in 1953.
Schoening himself circumnavigated Alaska by plane in 2000, and he went into the Northwest Passage trip having logged around 7,000 hours behind the wheel.
DeVries had approximately 1,500.
“There’s nothing like what we flew in with all those conditions,” DeVries said. “I felt by the time we got back like I was wearing that airplane.”
The two pilots would learn to mesh their unique leadership skills on this trip, with both, they said, playing an equally important role.
DeVries established himself as the meticulous planner with a brilliant mind.
Schoening exhibited some of the mettle his grandfather was known for when things got hairy. He once jumped into a frigid lake to anchor the teams’ aircraft during a treacherous landing on choppy waters.
“It’s just an example of his energy level,” DeVries said. “The guy’s just fearless.
“The tougher things get, the higher his energy level is. He’s an amazing guy in those situations. I don’t think he has negative thoughts.”
DeVries and Schoening never made it to the North Pole. They decided to turn back after foul weather grounded their planes in Resolute, Nunavut, for two days.
Both men say they haven’t ruled out flying to that final destination at another time.
Their fuel drums are still waiting on a beach in Eureka if they decide to complete the last leg of their journey.
For now, the men are taking solace in the fact that they circumnavigated Canada, birthplace of the de Havilland Beaver.
“I saw it as an opportunity to explore some of the same country that de Havilland helped open up,” Schoening said. “It was a chance to celebrate the Beaver and a country that I’ve always loved.”
