For The Love of Travel

 

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!

It’s colder today, 0 degree C. I’ve purchased a ‘buff’ on board ship, to shield the face from the bitter winds.
Another walk ashore….along raised beaches, the result of rebound of the land after ice sheets melted about 100,000 years ago. We saw the best example of a Thule site located on a beach terrace, which once would have been the shoreline of a shallow cove in the Bay. There were 10 Bowhead whale skulls used as construction in the walls of a Thule house. There are some existing brave flowers and lichen (Red Elegant Sunburst) and yellow moss (nmium species)… that brave this bleak, harsh and overall barren landscape….and muskox (we saw hoof prints)….what a desolate spot.

Beluga whales were also sighted today…the whites of their back arch just above the waterline giving you the impression that there’s a small lapping wave breaking, but no, it’s the whale.

Kim Campbell, ex Prime Minister of Canada is aboard the ship as a ‘Global Perspectives’ speaker and I, together with 6 others, had the honour of being invited to her table for dinner in the Chart Room.