Sir Robert McClure (1807-1873) was an Irish explorer who was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and entered the navy in 1824. He first journeyed into the Arctic in 1836, and later returned, in 1848, as part of an expedition sent in search of the missing Sir John Franklin and his crew. It was on his third trip to the Arctic, from 1850 to 1854, that McClure and his crew aboard the HMS Investigator became the first to both circumnavigate the Americas and successfully travel a Northwest Passage. Upon his return to England, McClure was knighted and he and his crew received a £10,000 reward for their discovery. He died in London on October 17, 1873.

Anthony Dalton is an adventurer, author and public speaker. Between 1970 and 1980 he led regular expeditions across the Sahara, through the deserts of the Middle East and into the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. In 1984 he travelled hundreds of nautical miles along the Arctic coast of north-western Alaska alone in an inflatable speedboat. In 1994 he joined twelve members of the Cree First Nation on a traditional York boat voyage on the Hayes River between Norway House and Oxford House. While canoeing the second half of the Hayes River from Oxford House to York Factory in 2000 he participated in a television documentary on great Canadian rivers for the Discovery Channel.

Dalton has written five non-fiction books and collaborated on two others. His illustrated non-fiction articles have been published in magazines and newspapers in twenty countries and nine languages. He is currently working on two television documentaries based on his books.

Anthony Dalton is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Explorers Club, a Member of the Welsh Academy and National President of the Canadian Authors Association.