Gateway to the Northwest Passage: Greenland & Canada

The morning is at leisure followed by lunch and a tour of the city ending at either the National Museum or the Whale Museum. Transfer to the airport for a chartered flight to Greenland and embark the ship at the head of Kangerlussuaq fjord, a 120-mile-long waterway whose name means “large fjord” in Greenlandic.

Dozens of deep fjords carve into Greenland’s west coast, many with glaciers fed by the ice sheet that covers about 80 percent of the country. Discover this beautiful and rugged coastline in Zodiacs, keeping an eye out for humpback and minke whales. At Sisimiut, a former whaling port, visit the museum and stroll around a picturesque jumble of historic and modern wooden buildings.

Sail into Qeqertarsuup Tunua, also known as Disko Bay, to explore the World Heritage site of Ilulissat Icefjord, a tongue of the Greenland ice cap that extends to the sea. Take an extraordinary cruise among towering icebergs at the mouth of the fjord. Visit the town of Ilulissat and walk to the archaeological site in Sermermiut, an abandoned valley previously inhabited by several distinct Inuit cultures.

Continue exploring the Canadian High Arctic with a visit to the small Inuit community of Pond Inlet, Nunavut. Explore some of the beautiful bays and inlets along Baffin Island’s Lancaster Sound, a favorite Inuit hunting and fishing location for hundreds of years. Carved by Ice Age glaciers, Lancaster Sound is also the eastern gateway to the Arctic Archipelago, where European explorers like William Baffin first ventured in the 17th century to search for the Northwest Passage. Days here will be spent searching for ringed seals, arctic foxes, walruses and polar bears, as well as beluga and bowhead whales. Visit Devon Island and take a walk with the ship’s archaeologist to learn about the Thule people—ancestors of the modern Inuit—that once inhabited this region.

Explore the ice-choked channels and glacier carved islands that stretch for hundreds of miles— a stunning display of raw geology. Delve into the rocky Mars-like terrain of uninhabited Devon Island. Take cues from nature: following wildlife, stopping for hikes on the tundra, dropping anchor in a beautiful fjord or an iceberg-strewn bay to explore and kayak beneath massive ice sculptures and soaring cliffs. Sail past the northernmost part of mainland North America in the Bellot Strait, one of the narrowest and most infamous of the passage. Learn about the Inuit peoples who have hunted and fished here for thousands of years, as well as be on the lookout for the animals that call this region home such as ringed seals, arctic foxes, musk oxen, walruses and polar bears, as well as beluga and bowhead whales.

Heading ever northward, the ship makes her way up the beautiful and remote east coast of Ellesmere Island. Cruise along scenic Smith Bay (a.k.a. Skog Inlet) bordered by a steep wall of mountains, with a glacial ice tongue which pours down the mountains on either side. Be up on the bridge to search for a patch of “polar bear ice,” the mixture of first-year and multi-year sea ice that is the preferred habitat of the ice bears. Your binoculars seek out any small ivory-colored dot on an otherwise white ice surface, then strain to see the dot move. Yes, it is a bear, spotted at a considerable distance. The ship approaches, ever so slowly, stalking the polar bear much as the bear stalks seals on the ice. At the end of the bay, go ashore to hike or kayak in picturesque surroundings. Ice is always present here.

During the next day, enter Buchanan Bay and turn into Alexandra Fjord to reach the area of Skraeling Island. (“Skraeling” is the word that the Norse settlers of Greenland used for the Inuit.) This is the site of an important archaeological find. Norse artifacts show that the Norse traded with the natives here on Ellesmere Island, far north of their settlements on Greenland. Last summer, quite unexpectedly, the remains of a summer encampment of natives were discovered, possibly of the Thule Culture (the third of the three Inuit cultures to occupy this area.) Travelers saw rings of stones that held down the edges of skin tents against the wind, and stone chambers that might have been constructed for storage. Perhaps the Inuit camped at this very site as they traded with the Norsemen, exchanging skins and walrus ivory for European goods, especially metal.

On these two days, explore to 80ºN and beyond, ice conditions permitting. Take full advantage of your “human resources”—your experienced captain, expedition leader and naturalists—as well as the ship’s technological resources. Chart where the ice is impenetrable and where there are leads guiding all to exciting discoveries.

Marking the southern border of Melville Bay, Kiatassuaq Island means “a large torso” in the Greenlandic language and is known as an important area for whaling in the 19th century. Spend the day exploring the southern reaches of Melville Bay and shores of the island, marveling at the ice dispatched from the Greenland Ice Cap as well as being on the lookout for whales and other marine life.

Continue south, stopping to explore the volcanic Disko Island, home to isolated Greenlandic settlements, dramatic cliffs laced with waterfalls and black-sand beaches.

Sail back into Søndre Strømfjord to Kangerlussuaq and disembark the ship. Take an evening charter flight to Reykjavík and transfer to the Marriott Keflavik Airport Hotel. On the final morning, choose to enjoy a soak in the Blue Lagoon or take a tour of the Reykjanes Peninsula before transferring to the airport for flights home.