Divers Have Rescued a Modified Ford F-150 from the Waters of Far Northern Canada

• The Transglobal Car Expedition is preparing for a massive round-the-world drive in 2024 and did some test drives of its heavily modified polar vehicles this spring.

• During that time, a modified Ford F-150 called the Arctic Trucks AT44 fell through the ice in far northern Canada. No one was hurt and the expedition ended up completing the crossing.

• The group has a "leave no trace" mentality, so they have spent the intervening time figuring out how best to return the AT44 to the surface. The efforts started for real this past week, and they involve divers, giant flotation devices, and a heavy-duty helicopter. We'll update this story when they get the truck free.

UPDATE 8/29/2022: The F-150 AT44 is out of the ocean. Following the flotation and a "very challenging" takeoff, a heavy-duty helicopter has delivered the recovered truck to Gjoa Haven, above the Arctic Circle. Next stop, Montreal. Arctic Trucks North America said on Instagram that the retrieval operation "left the site in pristine condition, preserving the beautiful yet fragile Arctic ecosystem."

The Transglobal Car Expedition is a great idea that has seen some early success despite a rough start that included the loss of one adventure-modified Ford pickup. The international group of adventure drivers is in the early stages of an 18-month pole-to-pole, vertical circumnavigation drive using floating and amphibious vehicles.

In March, as the group was driving on the ice near the Tasmania Islands in the Nunavut territory in far northern Canada, a heavily modified Ford F-150 with 44-inch flotation tires sank into the depths "in an area of rapidly shifting ice on a heavy current," the group would later say. No one was hurt, and the group continued north.

In the end, the group managed to complete what it's calling the world’s first overland wheeled crossing from the continental shelf of Canada to the high Arctic, just one vehicle short of a full pack.