From the steamy jungles of the Solomon Islands, to shamanic wisdom from the Siberian tundra, to the frozen seas of Ellesmere Island, join scientist, explorer, and author, Jon Turk, for an evening of high adventure and rich discovery.

A resident of Montana in the summer, and an ardent skier who snorkles back country powder most of the winter in Fernie, Jon is bringing his slide and video presentation, Crocodiles and Ice to Invermere.

Hosted by the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society (JCCS), Jon’s presentation will kick off the JCCS AGM to be held Tuesday (November 20) at 7:30 p.m. at the Windermere Lions’ Hall on Highway 93/95 at the Visitor Centre. Doors open at 7 p.m. and admission is by donation.

A scientist with a PhD in organic chemistry, Jon co-authored the first environmental science textbook in the United States, in honour of Earth Day in 1971. It sold 100,000 copies and spearheaded the development of environmental science curricula in North America.

National Geographic nominated Jon Turk and Erik Boomer one of ten “Adventurers of the Year” for their circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island in the summer of 2011. It’s noteworthy for armchair adventurers of a certain age that Jon is a pensioner (66) and Erik, at 27, is less than half his age.

The two men walked, skied, crawled, portaged, and paddled 1,500 nautical miles in 104 days, half a marathon a day over a landscape of shifting, grinding ice and polar seas in what polar historian Jerry Kobalenko called, “One of the last great firsts in Arctic travel.”