Mark Agnew



Mark Agnew is a UK adventurer notable for kayaking the Northwest Passage. Mark was awarded European Adventurer of the Year 2023. He is the heir apparent to the Agnew baronets. Mark is the son of explorer Sir Crispin Agnew QC. Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

Mark and three teammates kayaked the Northwest Passage. Mark, expedition leader West Hansen, Jeff Wueste and Eileen Visser, known as The Arctic Cowboys, were in two tandem kayaks, supported by their shore team Tom McGuire and Barbara Edington. They are the first people to kayak the entire Northwest Passage, and the first people to complete the route by human power, without the use of sails or motors, in a single season. They kayaked from Baffin Bay to the Beaufort Sea, the recognised boundaries of the Northwest Passage as defined by the International Hydrographic Organization. They experienced extreme cold and dangerous polar bear encounters. Agnew and his fellow expedition members were subsequently charged with various offences under Canadian environmental and wildlife legislation for allegedly entering a National Park without permits. All charges were withdrawn.

In 2013, a team of rowers attempted the Northwest Passage by human power; in 2019, two kayakers attempted it; in 2023, as Mark and the team kayaked the Northwest Passage two other rowing teams were attempting the human powered world first. No one has succeeded until Mark and the team.

Mark was born in 1991 in Edinburgh. He attended Fettes College. He went to Newcastle University. Mark lived in Hong Kong from 2013 to 2021.

Mark's failed to row the Atlantic twice, once in 2016, and again in 2018 with a team called Atlantic Albatross. Mark experienced a mental health crisis as a result of the failures.