The Love of Adventure By Lynn Martel Jan 21, 2008

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Most romantic thing he ever did “From the middle of [the] Siberian wilderness, he sent me flowers at work using his sat [satellite] phone. It wasn’t even a special occasion.”

Most romantic thing she ever did “Julie made me an unbelievably delicious birthday cake after three months out at sea in a rowboat.”

Best adventure Five months rowing across the Atlantic Ocean.

Karsten Lleuer and Leanne Allison

Together from the start

Leanne was Karsten’s first girlfriend at a Calgary kindergarten in the early 1970s. They even kissed. They didn’t meet again until university, when Leanne’s good friend (and Karsten’s boss) told her, “You gotta meet this guy—he’s the male version of you!”

Both loved skiing, whitewater kayaking, canoeing, backpacking and climbing, and in the early ’90s she took him ski-mountaineering. When Karsten, a wildlife biologist, walked, skied and canoed 3,400 km from Yellowstone to the Yukon in 1998 and 1999, Leanne joined him for the journey’s latter, tougher half. Their 2003 honeymoon was spent following a caribou herd on foot across the Yukon and Alaska for five months to highlight threatened calving grounds for a book and a film (both titled Being Caribou ). Last year, they canoed and sailed from their Canmore, Alberta, home to Cape Breton with their then two-year-old son, Zev, and dog, Willow, to meet iconic Canadian author Farley Mowat, revisiting his book settings en route.

Her best travel trait “Leanne’s the toughest and strongest travel partner I’ve ever had. I’m continually amazed at her ability to stay comfortable and happy in arduous circumstances.”


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