Jon Turk

Teaches at New York Open Center

Jon Turk, Ph.D., left academia to engage in extreme expeditions around the world —and has done so for the last 40 years. His two year kayak passage across the North Pacific Rim was named as one of the “ten greatest sea kayaking expeditions of all time.” His 1,485 mile, 104 day circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island with kayaker, Erik Boomer was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventures of 2011; and it made the front page of the New York Times. Among his many adventures on four continents, he has kayaked across the North Pacific and Cape Horn, mountain biked through the Gobi desert, and made ski descents in the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzia. But his greatest journey has been his mental and spiritual passages which he chronicles in a trilogy of books: Cold Oceans, In The Wake of the Jomon, and The Raven’s Gift, and his latest title, Crocodiles and Ice.