Nuestro Equipo

Birgit loves being out and away – that is why her life has changed from award-winning writer to Arctic-addicted adventurer.

Working 15 years for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, she reported in 2007 from a North Pole expedition aboard the icebreaker Yamal, where she was infected with the “Arctic virus.”

She then took up circumpolar studies at the Canadian University of the Arctic, and in 2010 and 2011 skied from the ice station Barneo to the North Pole. In 2013 she crossed Greenland and became a Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York.

Birgit has published two books, is often a guest speaker, and speaks several languages. She enjoys nature and silence, and lives beside an idyllic mountain lake in Bavaria.

Arthur Yakovlev was born in Petrozavodsk, the capital and largest city of the Republic of Karelia, in northwestern Russia.

At the age of 15, he started training at the Maritime College in Petrozavodsk, where he graduated in 1999. At 18 he began his career as a seaman on a dry cargo vessel.

One year later, he was promoted as third officer on the same type of vessel, and later as second officer, working on various cargo vessels until 2007.

That same year, Arthur began work as a second officer on the passenger vessel Marina Cvetaeva, now Ortelius. As of 2008 he has worked for Oceanwide Expeditions, and in 2019 became a captain on Plancius.

Arthur never dreamed that most of his career would be spent in the polar waters, but he considers this his destiny and would not have it any other way.

He is married and has a son, and during vacation he enjoys spending most of his time with his family, while also traveling and enjoying nature.