Meeting Aaron and Nathan Russ, their mother, Shirley, and their families during my journey with Heritage Expeditions felt a bit like stepping into the pages of an adventure novel. They’re real life explorers and adventurers – there are very few corners of our planet that they haven’t ventured.
Aaron and Nathan run Heritage Expeditions after taking over the family business in May 2018.
It was January 1985 when their mother, Shirley, and father, Rodney, started the business – originally focusing on the goldfields of Otago and quickly expanding.
“We just had a belief that people wanted to see different places,” recalls Shirley. “The first boat we charted into Fiordland was probably in ’86 or ’87. It took 12 people and we spent eight days going from Preservation Inlet to Doubtful Sound and four days from Doubtful up to Milford, and then we would go back in reverse.”
Aaron was six and Nathan was three at the time, born into something as special as it was challenging. On the wall of their Christchurch office is a chronological timeline of the ships and boats they have used. Each season the ships get bigger.
“Then around 1991 the political scene in Russia was changing dramatically,” remembers Shirley. “Ships were becoming available and we’d met some people who had contacts. In the summer of ’93-’94 we did our first trips on this class of vessel – on a sister ship to this one,” she says casting an eye over the library we’re sitting in on level four of the Spirit of Enderby, a 75-metre long high-class ice craft. “So then we went south through the Subantarctic Islands and did our first trip to Antarctica.”
That first trip wasn’t easy with 17 days without landing.
Shirley smiles, “It was a really tough trip.”

Aaron first went south to the Subantarctic when he was 7 and Nathan went to Antarctica for the first time when he was 9.
“He was as sick as a dog,” laughs Shirley, remembering the voyage. “But, yeah, they all go through it.”
Despite the expeditioning both boys managed a normal education in Christchurch.
The main philosophy of Heritage Expeditions is preservation through education and they take the environment seriously. Rodney was one of the key people behind resurrecting the flightless teal population on Campbell Island.
“I saw a flightless teal on this trip,” offers Shirley. “Rodney swam onto Dent Island and found one of the few remaining birds of that species in the ’70s. So to see them come back from the brink is pretty cool.”
Aaron joins us in one of the few breaks he gets as expedition leader on our voyage.
“We’ve always viewed our role as a critical part of a conservation story as well,” he adds. “It’s all very well to preserve everything and protect it, but to continue to preserve and protect you have to have advocacy. That’s very difficult to monitor and measure, but it’s something we track very closely in terms of seeing that people are leaving advocates for the regions we travel to. If they leave as advocates, then we’ve found that spreads as well.”
“I sit very much in the camp that conservation will succeed if people are passionate about the places,” Aaron explains. “It’s one thing to see them watching a natural history documentary, or reading a book about something. But you need a percentage of the population to have experienced these places as well. While right now we might have strong protection in places, politics is a flexible playing field. The more people who are passionate advocates for protecting these places and the values that they maintain and offer then the more likely that protection will continue.”
Aaron said the pest eradication programmes were crucial to improving the biodiversity of the Subantarctic Islands.
“I’ve known of people who have travelled on these voyages and then significantly contributed to the funding of conservation programs or predator eradications,” he reveals. “It really is a win-win scenario.”
He said it was paramount for their voyages not to have a negative impact.
I witnessed this first hand when my gear was checked meticulously and vacuumed ahead of our first landing on Campbell Island. Hems were turned out, pockets cleared, camera backpack cleaned of any foreign material and shoes scrubed and doused in chemical. Biosecurity without parallel. It’s for good reason.
“There’s no point impacting on where you’re travelling for advocacy,” Aaron states. “Because I believe you can. I think what we do with these voyages is create advocates without having negative impacts on the places that we’re travelling to.”
Aaron studied zoology and then geology at university in Canterbury. He worked in every role aboard the ship and became an expedition leader in his early 20s.
“I worked very closely with Dad for a number of years,” offers Aaron. “But I also went off and led expeditions overseas for a number of other companies as well. So, you always have things that you want to do and see differently.”
Aaron said the plan to buy their Dad out had been discussed for a period of time.
“Rodney has very much an all or nothing philosophy,” shares Aaron. “He was 100 percent in charge until the last day he was in the building, so to speak. We’ve taken it from there, sculpting it and continuing what the company’s always done and the way we’ve travelled and that sort of style. Obviously, adding our own touch to the programme and the experience for the people as well, but that’s a gradual progression rather than a catastrophic change.”
One immediate change is that the Spirit of Enderby is heading back into Fiordland after a 15-year hiatus. We were able to visit Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound.
“It’s fantastic to be back again,” offers Aaron who has been in the area personally a lot in the intervening years. “What we saw with this expedition is just the leaps and bounds that the Department of Conservation is making with its predator control in there. I think the last time we had the Spirit of Enderby in there, Anchor Island was only on the drawing board for predator eradication. In that time they’ve really evolved what they’re able to achieve and I think the results are really speaking for themselves.”
Rodney and Shirley started the Enderby Trust Scholarship programme that allowed young scientists and explorers to visit the Antarctic and Subantarctic Islands. Shirley lets me in on the fact that both Aaron and Nathan met their wives through the programme. I quiz Aaron about his Southern Ocean romance … he laughs and denies it was a thinly veiled dating service.
“Yes, I met my wife, Sarah, through the Enderby Trust Scholarship, but that’s the only romantic encounter that I’m aware of.”
The scholarship started in 1998 and was managed by Rodney and Shirley until last year.
“It’s on my list of jobs and projects,” admits Aaron. “I’m really keen to connect with some of those people in terms of the ongoing community. Because we were catching people at the start of their careers, and now 15-20 years in, we have this alumni of people who are well into their professional careers.”
Aaron said they were running the scholarship with the same ethos, but were looking to evolve the principles and methodology.
“We’re looking into developing a side branch, where we can communicate through the arts a bit more,” he reveals. “We have some ideas about connecting to education as well.”
During the New Zealand winter Heritage Expeditions operates in the Russian Arctic and the shoulder seasons are spent around the Pacific and soon, Indonesia.
The Spirit of Enderby takes 100 people. We have 50 passengers, 22 Russian crew running the boat and about 12 expedition staff. Aaron and Nathan plan to double that with a 200-passenger capable full icebreaker for the 2019 Arctic season. It’s a big step up.
“Operationally it will be a challenge,” admits Shirley. “But a lot of the ground work of operations is already in place, because they’re so accustomed to operating this size of vessel.”
Shirley was involved in a company in Canada that made the same step a few years ago.
“I was rolling out a program that delivers on the same level, but with much greater numbers of people,” she offers. “And trying to give those experiences in the same personal way.”
“It’s a full ice breaker,” adds Aaron. “We’re using that to get right up to where the polar bears are and the walrus, and to explore that high Arctic environment. Just having the capability of putting an icebreaker into that part of the world, we think will be a real strong addition to what we do. I mean we are increasing the number of passengers we have travelling together, but we are also increasing the expedition team, and we can pool together more diverse knowledge and expertise at one time, which I think can only add to the experience for people as well.”
For the past 5-6 years Heritage Expeditions has been operating expeditions in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
“The ethos is along the same lines of what we do down here, but adapted for travelling in an areas where the culture’s a big part of the story,” Aaron begins. “You’ve got to get up early to go into the forest … all those sorts of things. And, yeah, Indonesia is the next step. We’re looking at taking the ship into remote parts of Indonesia. The nice thing about travelling with a maximum on 50 people is that we’re really able to engage with communities rather than overwhelm them. So we go in and have the morning with them. And while they might welcome us, we then go off and meet a local, and learn what their lives are like. We just had Tim Flannery on board up in the Solomon Islands –– when you’re travelling to these remote islands, you hear about sea level rise. All these villages are being highly impacted by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. So having Tim on board and getting an insight into what’s really going on … this is the stuff you never actually really read about or see. And that’s a great example of what we’re able to do and achieve with having a ship and going to these places.”
One thing is for sure, travelling into places like Dusky and Doubtful Sound and having a fleet of zodiacs at your disposal for exploring the coastline is the stuff of dreams … the fabric of a novel that’s impossible to put down.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS Have you heard of Taranaki's Ariana Shewry? She's 15 and just finished second at the Sunset Pro Junior in Hawaii. Full story here on New Zealand Surf Journal.
Proudly supported by:
