For The Love of Travel

I was woken with the crunching of the ship through ice. A beautiful blue hue to the horizon this morning with the fog having lifted.

We continue through Nunavut territory waters, but we have had to reverse our pathway overnight as the Strait we were travelling through, was too frozen over. Ice charts indicate our passage to Kugluktuk is no longer possible, so we won’t catch our flight from there to Edmonton. Staff are busy organising an alternate charter in 4 days time, probably taking off from Resolute. That’s the plan today anyway.

We are now back in the Prince Regent Inlet and making our way to Croker Bay.

Wildlife sighting for the morning: a bearded seal relaxing on an ice float just in front of the ship! And afternoon: a polar bear and 2 cubs. That makes our tally 53 bears to date.

We are in the general area where Captain John Franklin’s voyage of Arctic exploration came unstuck in 1845. The combined evidence of all studies to establish what happened to Franklin and his 128 men suggests that hypothermia, starvation, disease (scurvy), along with general exposure to a hostile environment whilst lacking adequate clothing and nutrition, killed everyone on board. (Cut marks on human bones were seen as signs that cannibalism! had taken place).

 

Our voyage with the Canadian Icebreaker continues….and comes to an abrupt halt after lunch, when the ice sheets ahead are too thick to plough through, despite some brute force being applied…the course is altered and we gratefully follow in the wake of the ‘Pierre’….we reflect on the expeditions by the British in the 19thC, who had to ‘winter over’ on a number of journeys when their sailing vessel had become stuck in the ice….and died.

The challenges of the north are many: darkness (Oct-March); ice cold; 80% reflectivity; katabatic (descending) winds from glaciers and ice caps, eg 100 knots; white out; glare and snow blindness; self sufficiency; isolation and psychosis; and dehydration.

We are travelling in near white out conditions, the horizon barely being visible with ice floes surrounding us that are both ‘first year’ and multi year’ layers…..an eerie and a dream-like landscape as we crunch through…..before us is the vast unknown; all around us is silence and solitude.

Went ashore today onto another part of the bleak, harsh Devon Island off Maxwell Bay. Limestone cliffs above us offer little nutrient for the land below, so very little vegetation.
We suddenly saw a couple of wascaly Arctic Hares….very tame, allowing us paparazzi to surround them for portrait photos against the backdrop of the cliffs. 

Later in the afternoon, we braved arctic wind chill to go on deck to see another POLAR BEAR, this time sleeping. He awoke and ambled to the water to investigate us and soon lost interest….going to rest at the back of an iceberg out of our view.

The Canadian Icebreaker, Pierre Radisson, has offered to help us through the Bellot Strait which is covered in at least 5 foot thick ice sheets…. We have joined up with the vessel today for a 340 kms voyage through the ice.

Lovely light tonight, begging for photos to be taken!! Absolutely magical!! 

Tom Ritchie, Naturalist and very naughty boy (he used to get regular “memos” from HO re various stuff ups on board and ashore)…..entertained us tonight with stories from previous Lindblad excursions…..he is a fun guy with a very dry sense of humour…I have bought his book for the vignettes!