Iqaluit was the landing point for our charter and as we toured around in 3 school buses, it seemed to me to be quite a desolate place – my impressions emanated from its ocean-edge location, the billowing shrouds of dust as well as the worn-out looking buildings and homes. There was a strange feeling of abandonment emphasized by our visit to the “Road to Nowhere” – a peculiar focal point to show visitors. The town had grown up during the days of commercial whaling and then the fur trade, however when this market crashed in the 20′s, the town languished. It feels almost as if people here have given up.

The ship zodiacs were waiting for us on the outskirts of town and we had quite a ride out of the harbour to the ship as the tide can change by as much as 35 feet! Off we set about 1600, but soon we experienced our first Plan B. There was so much ice in Frobisher Bay that our ice-strengthened ship, the Russian Akademik Ioffe, required the use of an ice-breaker. The Terry Fox joined us about 2200 and it surged ahead through thick growlers and bergie bits until 0500 the next morning. We got up to watch it peel off to the right on its way to help some other ship out of trouble.

Monumental Island was to be our first stop but again Plan B came into play. Hayley Shephard, the expedition leader, let us loose on our first zodiac wildlife cruise even though we could not land on the island due to the ice surrounding the island. It was cold (because it was our first ride and we did not yet know what clothes were going to work on the zodiac rides) but sunny blue skies prevailed. This would become the pattern of the next week through the Davis Strait as we approached Greenland, our stops there, and our journey north. Sea ice was our companion which is water that has frozen into a berg. This is quite different from glacier ice which comes from the land and breaks off to float and dissolve eventually. What were incredible were the mirages that appeared on the flat surfaces ahead of us. Office buildings, walls and flat-topped structures rimmed the horizon and we wondered if you could take a picture of a mirage?

Cumberland Sound was completely blocked by ice and so we headed to Plan B and missed Pangnirtung. Heading north-east instead, we were all up at 0320 one morning as we crossed the Arctic Circle. The next morning we were in port at Sisimiut and we tromped through the settlement for about 8 hours. 6200 people living here make it the second largest town in Greenland. Cars and buses, a funeral at the church, a picnic lunch, seal meat for sale at the butchers, working dogs, and one coffee shop all seemed a bit of a mirage after the solitude of the previous few days. Culture shock Arctic-style!

The next morning we woke up at Jacobshavn Glacier which is the source of 60% of the North American glaciers. Most zodiac-ed in 10 rubberized motorboats and the 6 or so kayakers paddled around massive bergs up to 3 kms. deep. As we approached them, it would appear to be just a wall of ice and snow but then we began to see individual bergs and were able to appreciate the size better. 40 kilometres of glaciers are backed up into the glacier proper. As they edge forward out of the harbour mouth, the tide will carry them north to Ellesmere Island where they turn south again and travel down along the east coast of Baffin Island to reach Newfoundland. This journey can take up to 3 years.

A BBQ on the back deck in the brilliant blue sunshine was dinner. There is a tag you can put on your cabin door if you wish to be undisturbed. It is a picture of a polar bear and it says “Currently hibernating – please come back later”. This is quite funny really because polar bears do not hibernate!

2 more stops in Greenland – Ilulissat and Uummannaq – and more great hiking opportunities as well as unique chances to poke around the back streets. Activities were organized for the 110 or so passengers in these places but I just wandered around on my own. At lunch, before we left Uummannaq, Hayley brought on board 2 school teachers (270 kids in the school) to tell us a bit about life here above the Arctic Circle. Their eyes were as big as saucers when they saw the bowls full of fresh lettuce and tomatoes laid out for our salads. Anyway, one chap told us that the school janitor did not use his first name until after he had been there over one year. Apparently they get so many volunteer and short term contract workers that the local people do not have the energy to invest in itinerant people. Only when you prove that you are there for “the duration” will they start to open up to you and engage you in a relationship.

Up until now, ice had been in sight everyday day and perceived as a benign and beautiful part of the landscape. Thomas Wharton once wrote “I sometimes get the feeling that ice is alive.” For the people who live in the Arctic, the ice is just a means of getting to where they need to go – usually for food. At this point though, the ice, to me, took on a personality and not a very accommodating one at that – more like obstinate. We had to sail directly north along Greenland for the next 48 hours in order to get around a big ice flow making its way south through Baffin Bay. This took us north of 75 degrees latitude! With the ice conditions as they were for our passage through Lancaster Sound, we endeavoured to get to Prince Leopold Island by late evening July 31 to be in position to see the Solar Eclipse.

And as mother nature rules these things, the night of July 31/August 1 was the cloudiest night of the whole trip. “A vista that is breathtaking to the eye rarely keeps that awe-inspiring grandeur intact on film” wrote Thomas Wharton. Some people had brought special camera equipment to take pictures and there are some good ones on the DVD that Quark gave to everyone at the end of the trip. What we all did see though was this: at its totality, the whole sky was virtually black except for a 2 inch rim around the whole horizon of pinky/reddish/orange. This must have been the area of sunshine beaming from the corona of the eclipse. Fantastic and unforgettable.

Humans are quite contrary creatures – we wanted to see ice as that is where the polar bears live but the ice floes we were running into (figuratively speaking only) prevented us from landing at many of the destinations in Nunavut including our supposed end point Resolute. Plan B was not always worse though as in this case we had a landing at Cape Joy in Admiralty Strait and spent 2 nights at the hamlet of Arctic Bay near the airstrip at Nanisivik.

Trip Trivia: The word “Arctic” comes from the Greek ARKITROS meaning great bear. The GReeks had no knowledge of polar bears but the land was situated under the Ursa Major constellation – the Great Bear. Sometimes we employed one engine and plodded along at 8 knots and other times, when the currents or the ice slowed us down, we utilized both engines and reached a maximum speed of 13 knots. The temperature hovered between 2 and 10 most days but when sitting in the sun in Tshirts out of the wind, you would think it was closer to 20C. We had sightings of polar bears and musk oxen at distances that were hard to photograph. Seals and whales did swim closer to the ship. During the last 5 or 6 nights, we were so far north that the sun did not actually go down below the horizon at all during the night. The yearly number of hours of sunlight at the Equator and the Arctic Circle are virtually the same – they just vary considerably by season. The Inuit never invented the wheel for the simple reason that wheels are virtually useless in the far north. Theirs is a fragile environment and the growth of economic and tourist enterprises raise environmental concerns not all unique to this region, but the remoteness and harsh conditions make it difficult to enact legislation.

After 400 years of exploration, death, starvation, heroism and downright stupidity, the route through the Arctic is well charted. The original driving forces to find it were wealth, trade and commerce. Nowadays, with airplanes everywhere, the need to sail across the top of the world does not exist. However, the fantastic feats of discovery and endurance remain a testimony to the men who gave their all just to see what was really at the end of that strait or that inlet. Thanks to them, Quark’s navigation of these waters was safe and truly marvellous.

Arctic: land of mirages and Plan B’s.

Arctic: not a destination but a journey.

Enjoy.

By: Anne Fairlie

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