Quark Expeditions is a polar travel company headquartered in Seattle, Washington that offers small-ship expedition cruises aboard expedition ships and icebreakers in the Arctic and Antarctica. The company is a subsidiary of the UK-based travel group Travelopia[1] and conducts seasonal itineraries in both polar regions aboard ice-class vessels.[not verified in body]
As of 2025, Quark Expeditions, a travel company, was headquartered in Seattle, Washington.[1][needs update] Quark Expeditions was founded in 1991 by Mike McDowell and Lars Wikander when they took the first group of commercial travelers to the North Pole abord the nuclear-powered icebreaker, Sovetskiy Soyuz.[2]
In 1990–1991, McDowell chartered the MV Frontier Spirit during its inaugural season of operations for several voyages to Antarctica from Hobart, Australia and Bluff, New Zealand.[citation needed] After these voyages, Mike McDowell partnered with Lars Wikander.[citation needed]
Quark Expeditions ship, Sea Adventurer, at Griffin Inlet, Beechey Island, Nunavut, Canada
In 1998, McDowell sold his interests to Lars Wikander, who then became the company's majority owner.[citation needed] Three years later, Patrick Shaw joined the company as president and CEO, and Wikander moved to become chairman of the board.[citation needed]
In May 2007, the company became part of the UK-based TUI Travel group of companies;[citation needed] subsequently, in 2016, it became part of Travelopia, a division comprising some brands from the former TUI Specialist Group.[citation needed]
In 2012, the company reported via a trade publication that it would offer the first "carbon-neutral" polar expeditions, offsetting the carbon emissions of its vessel, Ocean Diamond.[3] The former roll-on/roll-off vessel uses Bunker C heavy-duty oil,[citation needed] and one voyage produces an estimated 5,682 tons of CO2.[3] The tour operator reported that it had signed a contract with the certifier The CarbonNeutral Company.[3][bettersourceneeded]
In 2016, the company mounted an Arctic expedition for the purpose of creating a YouTube film, a trip that included internet personalities and YouTube creators Ben Brown (the filmmaker) and Tim Kellner,[2] as well as YouTuber Tom Scott and expedition-lead, the retired Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield.[citation needed] The company's summer 2019 program in the Arctic included sailings to "Greenland, Canada's High Arctic, the Northwest Passage and the North Pole".[4][bettersourceneeded]
Quark Expeditions operates voyages in both the Arctic and Antarctic, with itineraries varying seasonally between the two polar regions.
Arctic
Quark Expeditions operates cruises in the Arctic during the Northern Hemisphere summer, with destinations including Greenland, Svalbard, Iceland, and Canada’s High Arctic, as well as transits of the Northwest Passage. These voyages typically emphasize Arctic wildlife such as polar bears, walruses, and migratory bird species, as well as cultural interactions with Indigenous communities in Greenland and Nunavut.[5]
Some of the company’s early operations in the Arctic included commercial voyages through the Northeast Passage and expeditions to the North Pole aboard Russian nuclear icebreakers, which were among the first consumer-focused trips of their kind.[4]
This section needs expansionwith: a thorough, third party source-derived overview of incidents contributing to the safety history/record of the title company. You can help by adding to it. (April 2025)
As of February 8, 2023, The United States Coast Guard was investigating the death of two Americans after the capsize of an inflatable zodiac boat operating off of the World Explorer passenger ship, operated by Quark Expeditions under a Portuguese flag.[9] The incident occurred off of Antarctica’s Elephant Island, and the conditions were described by a Quark Expeditions spokesperson as being "light winds and [a] smooth sea state", with the accident having been caused by "a breaking wave".[9] The U.S. Coast Guard is involved in the investigation under international maritime law, as the U.S. is a "substantially interested state".[9][needs update]
On March 26, 2025, Quark Expedition's Ocean Explorer encountered waves estimated to have been 35-40 feet during a return leg to Ushuaia, Argentina that traversed the Drake Passage, at end of an Antarctic voyage that had begun on March 17th.[10] The Drake Passage defines a maritime, Atlantic-Pacific transition zone lying between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands, where the cool, subpolar conditions of the South American Tierra del Fuego archipelago meet the frigid, polar conditions of Antarctica; as a waterway it is 600 miles wide, and approaches 3 miles deep in places.[11][12] Nathan Diller of USA Today, who reported having experienced waves of 13-feet during an earlier traverse, describes the Drake Passage as a "notoriously treacherous waterway between Antarctica and South America".[10] News reports describe the ship as being "pummeled", and include video that suggested "walls of water... nearly all that is visible from the [ship's] windows", with the ship rocking enough that people were sliding across floors, a television was observed "slamming into a wall", etc.[10] Passengers filming and being interviewed expressed confidence in their safety, and Quark Expeditions, noting its "30 years of experience navigating polar waters" and its "purpose-built, ice-class fleet and expert crew", communicated via email that safety, and "ensuring guests are well cared for in all conditions" remained its "top priority", stating that its "ship, crew, and passengers completed their... voyage safely and without incident".[10]
Polar expedition fleet
According to Lynn Elmhirst, Quark Expeditions "invented consumer polar expedition travel" with its 1991 expedition to the North Pole.[6] As of this date,[when?] the company was reported to have the largest and most diverse fleet of passenger vessels in the Antarctic.[citation needed] Quark offers both cruises and land-based expeditions.[citation needed] Expeditions involve the following ships:
This section needs expansionwith: an updated prose expansion of the most important of the awards the company has received, over its history, an expansion that adds more important citations that might be missing, and leaves off any less informative. You can help by adding to it. (April 2025)
Quark Expeditions has received multiple industry awards for its expedition cruise operations and itineraries. The following honors have been reported in travel trade publications and award programs:
↑ Eds. Ency. Brit. (April 29, 2025). "Drake Passage". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved April 29, 2025. Drake Passage, deep waterway, 600 miles... wide, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans between Cape Horn (the southernmost point of South America) and the South Shetland Islands, situated about 100 miles... north of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Drake Passage defines the zone of climatic transition separating the cool, humid, subpolar conditions of Tierra del Fuego and the frigid, polar regions of Antarctica. ...first traversed in 1616 by a Flemish expedition led by Willem Schouten... The Drake Passage played an important part in the trade of the 19th and early 20th centuries before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. The stormy seas and icy conditions made the rounding of Cape Horn through the Drake Passage a rigorous test for ships and crews alike, especially for the sailing vessels of the day. ... The passage has an average depth of about 11,000 feet... with deeper regions of up to 15,600 feet... near the northern and southern boundaries.
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