ALSO KNOWN AS TIERRA DEL FUEGO TO ALASKA 1960–61 · YEAR WITH THREE SUMMERS
Four Cambridge graduates — the vets Martin Hugh-Jones and Andrew Bacon, with Michael Andrews and Ben Mackworth-Praed — shipped a single 1960 Series II in Cambridge blue to Argentina and drove it with a trailer from Ushuaia on the Beagle Channel up the length of the Americas, shipping round the Darién Gap, to Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1960–61, where winter and money ran out a few hundred miles short of the Arctic Ocean. Their book Year with Three Summers records what is probably the first drive from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska; the Land Rover, found in a Wasilla back yard in 2010, finished the job in August 2015 with three of the original crew aboard.
THE PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS NAME USHUAIA, CUZCO, QUITO, MEDELLÍN, THE DARIÉN, COSTA RICA, GUATEMALA, FAIRBANKS AND ANCHORAGE; THE LINE BETWEEN THEM IS THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY OF 1960 AND THE ALASKA HIGHWAY, NOT A DOCUMENTED TRACK, AND THE INTERMEDIATE COUNTRIES ARE THOSE A LAND ROUTE NECESSARILY CROSSES. THE 2015 COMPLETION RAN ANCHORAGE–FAIRBANKS–DALTON HIGHWAY–DEADHORSE–ENDICOTT ISLAND.
THE JOURNEY IN SIX MOMENTS
1958The ideaBacon and Hugh-Jones on the ferry to Italy: Argentina first, then north.1960UshuaiaOne Series II, one trailer, four men, from the Beagle Channel.1960Darién GapThe car shipped round; three of the crew walk through at the end of the rains.1961FairbanksWinter, fatigue and money end the drive; the Land Rover is sold in Anchorage.1964Year with Three SummersAndrews and Mackworth-Praed's book, published by Cassell.11 August 2015Beaufort SeaThe same Land Rover, with three of the original crew, reaches Endicott Island and the Arctic Ocean.
12 WAYPOINTS · 13 COUNTRIES
DEPARTED1960 Ushuaia, Beagle Channel, Tierra del FuegoARRIVED1961 Fairbanks, AlaskaDISTANCERovers North gives 43,000 miles for the 1960–61 drive; the direct route is far shorter, so the figure includes detours or is a misprint. The 2015 completion added about 500 miles from Fairbanks to the Beaufort Sea.
The idea came in 1958 on the ferry to Italy, when Andrew Bacon and Martin Hugh-Jones, students at the Cambridge Veterinary School, talked about the Oxford and Cambridge drives to Cape Town and Singapore and wondered about one from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Hugh-Jones argued for starting in Argentina and going north, and with their professor's blessing and financial help from the Duke of Edinburgh the expedition was framed as a study of animal husbandry through the Americas, with introductions arranged through the Ministry of Agriculture. They wanted two Land Rovers but could afford one, so a trailer carried the rest of the gear. Two volunteers made up the four: Michael Andrews, who took a week's field-repair course at Solihull that was used often — 'we replaced halfshafts like carrots' — and Ben Mackworth-Praed. The Series II was painted Cambridge blue, carried the expedition's name on its doors and the motto 'Quien no llora no mama' on the windscreen, and had a hydraulic Land Rover winch.
The car was shipped to Argentina in 1960 and the drive began at Ushuaia on the Beagle Channel. Up through the Andes the party visited Cuzco, where a drink from a waterfall gave Bacon jaundice and sent him home; in Quito the American Embassy threw them a party at which Hugh-Jones met Deborah, his wife of fifty years. In Panama the road ended at the Darién: the Land Rover was shipped round the Gap while Hugh-Jones, Andrews and Mackworth-Praed crossed it on foot at the end of the rainy season, looked after by smugglers who told them where to camp and whom not to talk to, and Hugh-Jones swapped a hammock bought in Medellín for a jaguar skin that later kept him afloat when a gully collapsed under the Land Rover and dropped him into twenty feet of water. Costa Rica's roads were mud. In Guatemala a lorry hit the Land Rover and destroyed one side of the rear tub; local craftsmen beat a replacement panel from steel over wooden bucks in a few days, and it fitted. Through Mexico, the United States and Canada the expedition reached Fairbanks in 1961, where the only road north was a summer track and the season was against them. They turned south to Anchorage, sold the Land Rover to pay for their flights, and went home. Andrews and Mackworth-Praed wrote it up as Year with Three Summers, published by Cassell in 1964; Rovers North gives the mileage as 43,000, a figure that must include long detours if it is not a misprint.
The Land Rover stayed in Alaska. Ray Kaiser owned it from 1975 to 1995 and drove it to the Klutina River, Kennecott, McCarthy and the Knik Glacier; by 2010 it had sat for ten years in Wasilla with its head off and a faded expedition logo on one door when Ted Pederson, an aviation mechanic with four Series Land Rovers, bought it for its hydraulic winch and, from a Land Rover Owner International article of March 2010 by Andrews, realised what it was. He traced the three surviving crew and traded the car to Ed Angel of Steadfast Off-Road at Peters Creek, who resolved to keep its dents and its Guatemalan tub side and make it run. When the photojournalist Michael Rudd proposed in May 2015 driving it to the Arctic Ocean, Angel, Kathryn Stone and Andrew Rexford rebuilt it in weeks — a rebuilt head on the 2.25 engine, a Salisbury rear axle in place of the bent original, new springs and bushes, new wiring — with parts from Rovers North. On 3 August 2015 a convoy of seven Land Rovers left Anchorage; Hugh-Jones, 79, Andrews, 76, and Mackworth-Praed, 79, joined at Fairbanks on 6 August, crossed the Arctic Circle on the Dalton Highway, camped in the mud at Coldfoot and reached Deadhorse, and on 11 August, with Hilcorp Alaska's permission to cross its oil lease, Angel drove the old car onto Endicott Island and the shore of the Beaufort Sea while the three Englishmen opened champagne. Andrews thinks it very likely the first vehicle ever to have made it from Ushuaia to Deadhorse, and certainly the first to Endicott Island. The car remains with Angel in Alaska.
The vehicle
SURVIVES WITH ED ANGEL, PETERS CREEK, ALASKAThe Cambridge Trans-American Land Rover1960 Series II in Cambridge blue with the expedition's name on the doors, 'Quien no llora no mama' on the windscreen, a hydraulic Land Rover winch and a trailer. One side of the rear tub is hand-beaten Guatemalan steel after a lorry strike. Sold in Anchorage in 1961; owned by Ray Kaiser 1975–95; found in Wasilla by Ted Pederson in 2010 and passed to Ed Angel of Steadfast Off-Road, who recommissioned it — rebuilt head on the 2.25, Salisbury rear axle, new springs and wiring — and drove it to the Beaufort Sea on 11 August 2015.
Martin Hugh-JonesOrganiser; Cambridge Veterinary School; later Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State UniversityAndrew BaconOrganiser; Cambridge Veterinary School; invalided home from Peru with jaundiceMichael AndrewsPhotographer, mechanic (Solihull field-repair course) and co-author; later BBC Natural History Unit executive producerBen Mackworth-PraedCo-authorEd AngelOwner and driver of the Land Rover on the 2015 completion to the Beaufort SeaMichael RuddPhotojournalist; organised the 2015 completion
Organised by Cambridge Trans-American Expedition (Bacon and Hugh-Jones). Supported by The Duke of Edinburgh (financial aid) and Ministry of Agriculture (introductions) and Rovers North, ARB, Hilcorp Alaska and Perry's Customs (2015 completion).
Books & films
Year with Three Summers Ben Mackworth-Praed and Mike Andrews · 1964 · Cassell, London; Adventurers Club edition 1966, 257 pp
Cambridge Trans-American Expedition Michael Rudd, Overland Journal (Winter 2016) and OutdoorX4 · 2016
Land Rover Owner International, March 2010 Michael Andrews · 2010
