Bernard Voyer, Explorer-Inspirational Speaker

Rimouski, where I was born. Very early on I knew the air of the St. Lawrence, the winter wind, the pleasures of sledding... and the desire to roam grew in me.

Even as a child, I was drawn to the forest, the hills and the snow. As a scout and during summer camps, I wanted to get to know them. Out in the St. Lawrence lay Ile St-Barnabé, which I intended as my first adventure. But my father would not allow me to go there by canoe, and certainly not by ski across the ice floes. So I always look out at the Island and dream...

I spent my teenage years in Saint-Hyacinthe, combining my studies with canoe trips, cycling, hiking and skiing. I took up parachuting and tried scuba diving. At age 17, in the Canadian Rockies, I climbed to 3 000 metres. Then the Arctic blew a few good storms my way.

I spent ten years in the French Alps. There in the mountains I experienced the splendours of their peaks, the lure of challenges and the euphoria of looking down on the world from above. As a teacher and guide, my need to roam took me to Africa, into the Sahara and the High Atlas mountains of Morocco.

I returned to Quebec in 1992, but wanderlust quickly seized me again: Greenland, the ice floes, the North and South Poles... I put together my polar expeditions while at the same time indulging my passion for communications, through teaching and the print and electronic media.

Since 1997, I have climbed above the clouds to stand atop mounts Maïpo, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Carstensz, Elbrus and McKinley. And on May 5, 1999, I stood on the top of the world, on the summit of Mount Everest. Since the year 2000, I climbed 8 mountains, five in the Andes, one in Indonesia, one in Russia and Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest summit of North America.

On December 10, 2001, I stood atop the world's coldest peak, Mount Vinson, in Antarctica, crowning my World Tour via the highest mountain on each of the 7 continents.

Now I am spinning my globe, I want to start again.

Publications

Last new

>	Bernard on Facebook
>	Bernard in Peru in may 2010
>	Bernard became president of Conseil de l'Ordre national du Québec