Cold comforts and warm welcomes…

OOE resident John Goldsmith cruises the Northwest Passage from Nunavut to Greenland

JOHN GOLDSMITH

As a last-minute spousal replacement, I joined a 17-day voyage from Kugluktuk, Nunavut through the Northwest Passage to Greenland aboard the Ocean Endeavour, an Adventure Canada expedition that promised to be a kind of floating symposium, rich with insight and humanity, set against some of the most dramatic landscapes on earth.

Our journey began with a warm welcome, drum dancing and singing from the Kugluktuk community. On our first hike at Port Epworth, we stood among stromatolites – fossilized colonies of the planet’s earliest life, more than three billion years old. That evening, the expedition team of 39 (10 of them Inuit) introduced themselves, experts in archeology, biology, geology, botany, history, marine, terrestrial and airborne wildlife, and Inuit culture, traditions and governance.

In Cambridge Bay, a municipal councillor greeted us beside a striking muskox sculpture made from scrap metal by the community’s youth. We toured the impressive Canadian High Arctic Research Station, the community library, and Red Fish Studio, where young artists transform salvaged materials into art. The visit concluded with a “taste of place” -including samples of muktuk (whale), muskox, – and lunch on board with a group of Inuit youth sponsored by the Ayalik Fund, a charitable initiative that provides confidence-building outdoor adventures for young people from Nunavut.

As we moved eastward, the landscape broadened and flattened. Each day brought “shipinars” by the Expedition Team. The Franklin expedition was a recurring thread woven throughout our passage. Landings at Pasley Bay and Aston Bay offered discoveries of ancient Thule tent rings, bear tracks, and hardy tundra flowers. In Bellot Strait, we saluted Zenith Point, the northernmost tip of continental North America. At Beechey Island, we stood beside the graves of three of Franklin’s men, and a fourth from one of the search parties sent to find Franklin, the wind sharp off the sea, and we imagined the courage and desperation of those who had wintered there nearly two centuries ago.

Later, we set foot on the Devon Island ice cap, the third largest in the world, (after Antarctica and Greenland), then crossed Baffin Bay in a morning of rough seas to reach Greenland. Each new landing revealed traces of early Thule life, lush moss and willow, and cliffs rising sheer from the sea. We watched from zodiacs as icebergs drifted by like floating cathedrals. Our Inuit expedition team shared traditional food – halibut, caribou, muskox, kelp, and berries – linking the landscape to the lives it sustains. Speaking of wildlife, we saw wildlife mostly at a distance – binoculars and long lenses an absolute necessity – except for one nearby polar bear perched on an ice pan as the ship sailed by: kittiwakes, fulmars, loons, gulls, ducks, dovekies, belugas, narwhals, walruses, seals, arctic fox, among others.

The voyage continued to Ilulissat, Greenland’s “iceberg capital,” where we walked a boardwalk overlooking the Icefjord, at the foot of which – 56 kilometres distant – the vast Sermeq Kujalleq glacier calves ice bergs filling the fjord, leading eventually to the Atlantic Ocean. Back aboard, the Greenlandic Inuit team presented exquisite ceremonial dress – beadwork and embroidery on seal and other skins.

It is hard to do justice to this remarkable voyage of a lifetime in so few words! The Arctic opened itself in layers — historical, scientific, cultural, spiritual – and we were small within it, but changed by its immensity. Adventure Canada could not have been a better guide for our journey.