The idea for the Great Penguin Adventure emerged over dinner one evening. I think I was merry with the company of those dear to me and living very much in the moment. I’m fond of dreaming up adventure in this modern age. It seems to me that the great adventures and great frontiers have passed into the halls of literature, history and fantasy. The unexplored lands that remain on our great planet have become remote and hard to access, these are not the days of the blazing trails and finding new species. Though I hesitate to present too grand an opinion of those times, as they were also times of conquest, genocide and destruction, there is something notably different about them. What of the adventure of the high seas? Perhaps, I muse, I was born in the wrong century. Maybe my true calling is privateer, sadly born too late for the Spanish Main and far too early (or in the wrong galaxy) for the Kessel Run.
Eureka! The Great Penguin Adventure is born. Doubtless the discussion emerged along with the great hypothetical of winning the lottery. I see myself with my trusty team and sled scouring the Antarctic plains for penguin, for whatever reason, my favorite animal. A film expedition that shares much with the recent March of the Penguins. The main difference being that my expedition consists of adventurers. Not only are we searching for penguins to document and study, we are racing across the barren, frozen desert. It is a challenge of endurance and will, man against the elements in a land as far from common as we might encounter. It represents the pinnacle of conservation efforts and extreme sport.
Perhaps it diminishes the grandeur of the notion, if I mention that all members must undergo initiation consisting of penguin hats and secret penguin dance-handshakes. Somehow, for me, that completes it.
