AN EVENING WITH CHRIS BURKARD: NEW YORK

Chris Burkard is an explorer, photographer, creative director, speaker, and author based on the Central Coast of California. Travelling throughout the year to pursue the farthest expanses of Earth, he works to capture stories that inspire humans to consider their relationship with nature, while promoting the preservation of wild places everywhere.

After starting his career contributing to Surfer Magazine, he found himself drawn to the cold waters of the Arctic - where he expanded into adventure travel, landscape, and aerial photography, and took his first steps as a filmmaker. 

His 2017 film Under an Arctic Sky debuted at Tribeca, and his TED Talk, The Joy of Surfing in Ice-Cold Water, has been viewed more than 2.2 million times. 

Cycling has become as central to Burkard's adventures as the camera itself. What started with a cheap bike bought off Craigslist - just a way to get to work - grew into a passion for ultra-distance riding, with the bike increasingly becoming a vehicle for storytelling in some of the world's most remote landscapes. 

He has completed multiple bikepacking firsts across Iceland, including a solo record on the 844-mile WOW Cyclothon and an unsupported winter fat bike traverse of Iceland's highlands alongside Rebecca Rusch and Angus Morton. He rode the Tour Divide, and in 2025 took on the Silk Road Mountain Race - a 1,200-mile unsupported route through the remote mountains of Kyrgyzstan, with nearly 30 miles of hike-a-bike. He finished just off the podium in fourth place.

His mission, in his own words, is to tell stories about wild places that can't speak for themselves. Reaching them demands suffering - freezing temperatures, brutal terrain, months of planning - but that suffering is what drives him to capture moments most people will never have the opportunity to experience. And when that work inspires others to go outside their comfort zone and explore the unknown, every bit of suffering becomes worth it.