Sarah Marquis

Sarah Marquis
Sarah Marquis speaking on February 25, 2009
Born (1972-06-20) June 20, 1972
Montsevelier, Switzerland
OccupationsAdventurer, explorer
Websitewww.sarahmarquis.com

Sarah Marquis (born June 20, 1972) is a Swiss adventurer and explorer. From 2010 to 2013, she walked 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) alone from Siberia to the Gobi Desert, into China, Laos, Thailand, and then across Australia. In 2011, she gave a TED talk[1].

Early life

Marquis and her two brothers were raised in Montsevelier, a village in the Canton of Jura in northern Switzerland.[2][3] Her father worked as a watchmaker for Swatch and her mother was a housewife.[3] She began exploring at a young age, and at sixteen years old she took up a job with a European train company so that she would be able to travel for free.[2] At age seventeen she traveled to Turkey, where she rode a horse across the Central Anatolia Region.[4]

Adventuring

Marquis cites a trip she took to New Zealand in her twenties as the first time she "actually got in touch with the wild": she spent a month in Kahurangi National Park without bringing any food. Her subsequent travels included canoeing through Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada, camping in Patagonia, and hiking the United States' Pacific Crest Trail in 2000.[2] In 2002–2003, she walked seventeen months inside Australia's outback, covering 8,700 miles (14,000 km). In 2006, she followed part of the Andes from Chile to Machu Picchu 7000 km for eight months.

In 2010, Marquis began a walk from Siberia through Asia and, traveling by boat from Thailand, across Australia. She pulled a 120-pound (54 kg) cart containing her clothes, equipment and supplies. She was evacuated in Mongolia in 2011 after developing a periodontal abscess and returned to her exact location where she continued her journey. Along the route, she was harassed by a group of Mongolian men on horseback, threatened by Laotian drug dealers, and contracted dengue fever.[2] For reasons of security, she sometimes disguised herself as a man and tried not to leave tracks so as not to be followed. She completed her journey in May 2013,[4] when she arrived at a particular tree in the Nullarbor Plain that she had identified on her previous trip to Australia.[2] In total, she walked for approximately 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) on her three-year journey.[3][5]

In 2015, Marquis walked 500 miles across Kimberley in Western Australia where she passed three months and survived in the wilderness.[6]

Controversies

She received the help of a guide and her brother to place water caches along parts of her route. The guide revealed that she used a bike for 500 km and the guide transported her by pick-up to the foot of a volcano. The TV show « Mise au point »[7] of the Télévision suisse romande revealed Sarah Marquis didn't mention this in her book (La voie des Andes).[8][9]

In April 2024, the fact-checking show Vraiment (Really?) on Radio Télévision Suisse cast doubt her 2018 expedition across Tasmania. After the first revelations of 2010, she had claimed to carry a tracker to prove her walks. She refuses to share her GPS data even to the journalist, adding doubts on the wilderness and off-the-beaten-track status of her trek. It is found she followed marked trails used by recreational hikers. The scientific part of her expedition and collaboration with CSIRO is called into question as her alleged encounter with a Tasmanian tiger, extinct since 1936.[10][11][12]

Awards

Books

  • 2007 - La voie des Andes
  • 2014 - Sauvage par Nature ("Wild by nature")

References

  1. ↑ "TED 2011". TED (conference). February 28 – March 4, 2011. Archived from the original on 13 March 2013. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Weil, Elizabeth (25 September 2013). "The Woman Who Walked 10,000 Miles (No Exaggeration) in Three Years". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 September 2014. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "Une journée avec Sarah Marquis". Elle. 25 November 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 "Adventurers of the Year: Explorer Sarah Marquis". National Geographic. 2014. Archived from the original on 24 September 2014. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Sarah Marquis, femme vs wild". Metro International. 21 May 2014. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  6. ↑ Weil, Elizabeth (25 September 2014). "The Woman Who Walked 10,000 Miles (No Exaggeration) in Three Years". The New York Times.
  7. ↑ Mise au point, 24 october 2010
  8. ↑ Sarah Marquis a menti sur son parcours au Chili
  9. ↑ Mise au point VIDEO, 24 october 2010
  10. ↑ "De nouveaux doutes sur une expédition de l'aventurière suisse Sarah Marquis". RTS. 16 April 2024. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
  11. ↑ "Révélations sur une expédition de Sarah Marquis". RTS. 16 April 2024. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
  12. ↑ "Révélations sur une expédition de Sarah Marquis-RTS". RTS. 16 April 2024. Retrieved 8 May 2026.
  13. ↑ Clark, Jayne (15 November 2013). "Meet National Geographic's top adventurers of the year". USA Today. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
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