Kickstarter project launched to fund search for warships lost in 1697 Battle of Hudson Bay at York Factory, Manitoba
International team uses crowd funding to create an educational adventure for use
in teaching early North American history.
Contact: David Collette
Fara Heim Foundation
513-277-0202
david@faraheim.com
CINCINNATI – 07/22/13 – Today an international team led by the Fara Heim
Foundation launches a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to support the search
for warships lost in the 1697 Battle of Hudson Bay. The naval engagement is
one of Canada’s most significant military battles during which an attacking force
of Canadians, led by Captain Pierre Le Moyne D’Iberville, engaged 3 British
warships defending a Hudson Bay Company fort at York Factory, Manitoba.
D’Iberville fought 3 British warships and won. After the naval engagement
Captain D’Iberville’s sinking ship, Le Pélican, was beached to save his crew. He
then led his men across the polar bear infested landscape to capture York
Factory.
The Fara Heim Foundation is leading the expedition to York Factory as part of
their mission to expand the knowledge of early North American history. “To
prepare for an upcoming expedition into the Canadian Arctic to search for signs
of early Viking exploration last summer we travelled down the Nelson River and
over to York Factory. While researching the history of the area and while
standing at York Factory we came across the incredible story of the Battle of
Hudson Bay. Our core team grew up in the province of Manitoba and we’d never
heard of this historical event,” said U.S. team leader David Collette who had
spent 11 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
“There is a real need for teaching aids for use in teaching early Canadian and
North American history and the concept of Educational Adventures was born,”
said the Canadian team leader Johann Sigurdson III. “My son, Johann IV (22),
and David’s daughter, Mackenzie (15), talked with their friends and class mates
about their classroom experiences and confirmed that there is a great opportunity
to take historical events and package them into effective and memorable
adventures.” The Battle of Hudson Bay educational adventure will include an
instructional kit for teachers and a 45 minute video featuring Johann and
Mackenzie on a dramatic adventure from Winnipeg to York Factory and back that
embeds syllabus requirements into an engaging while entertaining teaching
package.“Like Christopher Columbus, Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Richard Branson have
found before us expeditions are expensive,” said David Collette. “While
becoming an official federal non-profit may help with donations we believe we
can use the creation of educational adventures as a sustainable funding model to
support our future expeditions. After meeting with non-profit foundations,
educators, historians and other expedition teams across Canada and the U.S.
the feedback on the concept of educational adventures has spurred us into
action and we will start with the very important Battle of Hudson Bay.”
“Kickstarter is the ideal platform to generate the seed capital for this expedition
and crowdfunding is a very effective way to reach out to a lot of people in a short
amount of time,” said Johann III. “In Kickstarter tradition we have a wide range of
rewards for funders ranging from digital pictures, to t-shirts, to a copy of the video
to actually joining as a team member for 7 days on the shores of Hudson Bay.”
“Last year we were constantly encountering polar bears, beluga and other wildlife
on our trip down the Nelson River from Gillam, Manitoba,” said Mackenzie. “We
will be uploading daily reports to our website and anyone that whether you’re
watching the video a year later or you come on the expedition with us you are
going to be excited about the adventure, the locale and the Battle of Hudson
Bay,” said Johann IV.
“We are also are a flag carrying expedition of the Explorers Club,” said Johann III
who has been a member since 2011. “We are working with the best expedition
leaders and explorers in the world and will document and create a digital data
package for historians and archaeologists to use in future recovery operations.”
More information on the Battle of Hudson Bay expedition can be found at:
http://faraheim.com/the-battle-of-hudson-bay-project/ or on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Battle-of-Hudson-Bay/543089279087845.
The Kickstarter campaign will run for 30 days and can be viewed at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1040035365/the-battle-of-hudson-bay
About the Fara Heim Foundation:
The Fara Heim Foundation is a Delaware, U.S. non-profit corporation focused on
research and discovery leading to writing new pages about early North American
history. Their primary expedition is to search for signs of pre-Columbian Norse
presence between Hudson Bay and Iceland.