Laurie Dexter TOPICS: Adventure/Travel Athletics/Sports Ecology Inspiration FEE CATEGORY:* 2.5k to 5.0k TRAVELS FROM: Northwest Territories Profile Program Outlines Testimonials/Client List Request This Speaker

Laurie Dexter: Profile

Laurie has a diverse background in physical education, theology and anthropology. Originally from Scotland, he immigrated to Nunavut, Canada, where he learned the survival skills and language of the Inuit. Laurie has led expeditions to the North Magnetic Pole and to the South Pole. When Laurie is not leading expeditions for Quark he is a motivational speaker and competes as a long-distance runner.

Laurie has run over 60 marathons, but he is also an ultra-distance runner. He ran 200km in 24 hours, 600km in six days; and ten marathons in ten days. He has taken part in many extreme expeditions, including skiing to the Geographic North Pole; across King George Island in Antarctica, and across the Greenland Ice Sheet. As a mountaineer he has made numerous first ascents in the Arctic and in the Swiss Alps.

Laurie is a Fellow of the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographic Society, and a member of the Arctic Club. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada and the Golden Jubilee Medal.

Laurie will lead Quark Expeditions voyages to the North Pole in 2008.

Cross-cultural Experience
While his initial training was in physical education in Scotland, Laurie Dexter spent much of his professional life as a clergyman in the Canadian Arctic. He learned to speak Inuktitut (Eskimo) and for thirteen years served the most northerly Inuit communities in Canada. The next thirteen years were spent in the Western Arctic, where the native people are predominantly Dene.

Many of his studies at university in Canada were in the cross-cultural field: anthropology, linguistics, northern studies, cross-cultural education. His academic training has been augmented by years of experience and international travel, visiting such diverse cultures as the Yentsi reindeer herders of Siberia and the Aborigines of Australia.

Athletic Experience
Laurie has been involved in a wide range of wilderness expeditions: mountaineering, sled hauling, skiing, kayaking and back-packing. Two of these have been featured on national television: the first longitudinal crossing of Bylot Island, and the Soviet-Canadian Polar Bridge expedition that skied from Siberia to Canada, via the North Pole.

He is an experienced runner, having completed many marathons such as Boston, New York, Atlantic City, Honolulu, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Antarctica. However, Laurie is known best as an ultra-runner. For example, he has run the Nanisivik Midnight Sun double marathon 16 times, 203 km in the Canadian 24 hour Championships, 10 marathons in 10 days in Czechoslovakia, the 87 km Comrades race in South Africa, the 100 mile West Highland Way in Scotland, the World 100 km Championships in Belgium, and over 600 km in 6 days in New York.

On July 4 of this year (1998), Laurie became the first person to run 100 miles on the hilly Nanisivik course, in a time of 20 hours and 25 minutes.

Media Experience
Laurie has been a guest on many radio and television shows, including two occasions on Morningside. He has been featured on two CBC television programs, "Man Alive" - 1991, and "Running the Midnight Sun" - 1992. In addition to the book "Polar Bridge" co-authored by the four Canadian members of that expedition, he is one of five Canadians whose inspirational stories are told in the book "One Step Beyond". Laurie has also been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles.

Honors Awarded

• Soviet Order of the Friendship of Nations: received at the Kremlin. (Moscow, January 1989)
• Male Athlete of the Year for the Northwest Territories. (Yellowknife, May 1989)
• Pierre de Coubertin International Fair Play Trophy, from the International Committee of UNESCO. (Paris, September 1989)
• The Kurt Hahn Award from the Canadian Outward Bound Association. (Toronto, April 1992)
• Member of the Order of Canada, presented by the Governor General. (Ottawa, October 1992)
• The Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada, conferred by the Governor General. (December 1992)
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Waterloo University (May 1997)

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