2024 Northwest Passage - Day 11

August 29 Thursday

3 am stirrings of sunrise. 

Murray Island lies south of Victoria Island in the Coronation Gulf. It’s seldom visited. Our guides speculated that less than 400 non-indigenous people have walked here. 

The expedition staff inspected the landing area and environs for polar bears before we were allowed to land, and stationed armed guards along the distant ridges to scan for any approaching bears. Polar bears swim to the island, and the threat of their presence is taken seriously. We kept our life jackets on while ashore and were prepared to head back to the zodiacs immediately if one was sighted. 

Our landing was uneventful. No sign of human habitation have been found here, but animal tracks are sometimes found. 

Caribou skull, teeth intact, and spine. 

From a distance, the tundra looks brown. But we’re at the height of arctic summer. A closer look revealed berries and splashes of color among the ground-hugging plants.

Wild blueberries

The low lying land was wet and squishy, evidence of the thawing permafrost. 

Even where there was not standing water, it was soggy. We were reminded to spread out instead of walking in lines. It’s easier for this fragile environment to recover from steps that aren’t all in the same place. 

We walked up to a viewpoint and back, spending about an hour on the island. 

2024 Northwest Passage: Day 10 Ulukhaktok

Wednesday August 28

We were welcomed this afternoon by the village of Ulukhaktok, formerly known as Holman Island. It’s located on Victoria Island, the eighth largest island in the world. 

The village is the sixth-northernmost community in Canada. It was first permanently settled in 1937 by a single Inuit family. Today it has a population of 482, comprised of 90% Inuit, 2.5% other Canadian indigenous people, and 7.5% non-Aboriginal. 

A troupe of about 40 performers came on board for a 90 minute long presentation. Demonstrations of athletic skills and competitions were followed by a series of musical performances and dances. 

The large tambourine-shaped instruments are drums. They accompanied singing and dancing groups, which included everyone from a sullen teenager to a respected elder. 

Our zodiacs took us to the harbor, from which we could either hike up a small hill for a view or have a hamlet tour with a local resident. Mark and I choose the latter. 

The village has two churches. The Catholic church has been unused for years and is undergoing renovation. The Catholic mission arrived two years after the first permanent settlers. I don’t know how successful the mission was in conversion, but our guide mentioned that the priest had saved many people in a physical sense, including her uncle at birth. 

The Anglican church is still used. Like all of the village buildings its address is on an ulu knife shaped sign. 

The co-op is the community general store. It has everything from produce to pelts, hardware to canned goods. Prices are high, especially for produce, as everything arrives by ship. 

Mounty’s headquarters (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)

This artist makes stencils which she uses to stamp inks into beautiful pictures. 

These little kids came to chat-up Mark. (“Hazel is shy”)

Three ships were permitted to visit this year. Coincidently, all were within the past week. 

2024 Northwest Passage: Day 9 Encounters & Smoke

August 27 - Tuesday

We saw our first signs of broken sea ice this morning; the weather was chillier. 

Today we came nose to nose with our Hurtigruten sister ship, the MS Fridtjof Nansen. Like our ship, it’s a hybrid expedition ship designed for polar regions. They are not icebreakers but have a PC6 ice-class designation and can push through first year sea ice up to four feet thick. 

First, from a distance

And closer


Until nearly touching 

A friendly competition (prompted by ship staff) ensued as to the largest and loudest crowds on the front decks. 

Both ships launched zodiacs to trade supplies. 

We loaded up on toilet paper and new Hurtigruten Expeditions (HX) jackets. 

I attended a bead workshop taught by Jodie, one of the cultural ambassadors on board. With a new appreciation of the patience required for the skill, I managed to complete an earring. It’s small, about a cm wide. I hope I have the opportunity to make a second one. 

Around 8 pm we arrived at The Smoking Hills, a geological phenomena first observed by nonnatives in 1851. Captain Robert McClure was searching for the lost Franklin expedition (more on that later) along Canada’s Arctic coast near Cape Bathurst when he ‘discovered’ them.

They were first thought to be geothermal sites, but the local indigenous population knew better. They had been coming for centuries to collect coal in the region. 

The underground oil shale and lignite coal are rich in sulfur, causing it to spontaneously ignite as the hills erode and are exposed to oxygen. Hundreds of grams of sulfur dioxide are generated per second. The tremendous heat bakes the surrounding mudstone and, with the sulfur, colors the surrounding land yellow and red.

There are no roads to this hellscape. One can visit by floatplane, helicopter, or boat. Happily, the intermittent fog we’ve been sailing through obligingly lifted for our visit. 





Tonight there were optimal aurora conditions here. Mark and I checked throughout the short polar night (roughly midnight - 3 am) without success - maybe tonight!

😏

2024 Northwest Passage: Day 8 Herschel Island

August 26 - Monday

Herschel Island or Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park lies 3 miles north of the Yukon Territories coastline and 45 miles from Alaska. 

There is archeological evidence of human habitation 1,000 years ago. 

From 1896-1906 hundreds of American whalers and some of their families would winter here while waiting for the sea ice to thaw so they could pursue their prey, bowhead whales. They had quite the social life with balls, theatrical performances, and sport leagues as they waited out the winter. But danger lurked nearby. One year seven baseball players died when caught in a sudden whiteout blizzard. 

Amundsen and crew spent their third winter here during their Northwest Passage transit. 

Americans abandoned the island after 1907 when petroleum and steel springs replaced whale oil and baleen (a flexible material used in whalebone corsets) The Inuit residents left over the next several decades, but still visit the island for cultural ceremonies and to educate their youth. 

This year, the whaling site opened in April via snowmobile access from the mainland. The sea ice broke up in mid-June. During the frozen stage, animals like caribou, grizzly bears, and arctic and red foxes cross between the mainland and the island. 

In the few years since cruise ships began attempting the Northwest Passage, they’ve allowed three cruise ships to visit each year. This year they are testing the ability of the site to handle more visitors and eight ships will be visiting. Note: these are expedition ships with 300 passengers, not mega cruise ships with 10 or 15 times as many guests. The last one is two days after us, and then the site will close down until next year. The staff will leave via seaplane when weather conditions are favorable. 

Palisade smokehouse, being used by park staff to dry fish. 

One of three outhouses, and an abandoned building. 

Scientists project that the remnants of Inuit sites and American structures along the coastline will disappear under the sea within the next 50 years. Already, the site we visited has standing water throughout the settlement, with driftwood scattered everywhere. Only two years ago, the area where we landed had been above the water line. The permafrost is thawing, land uplifting, and graves are coming to the surface. Soon it will all be gone. 

2024 Northwest Passage Days 4-7 Days of Tom

August 22-25 Thursday - Sunday

Our trip on Hurtigruten’s MS Roald Amundsen is billed as an eastbound “attempt” to cross the Northwest Passage. We were supposed to sail on the afternoon of August 21, but the Bering Sea was so rough from the typhoon that our departure was postponed until 10 AM the next day. 

Despite modest hopes, we did not see Russia. 

Famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, (for whom our ship is named and who led the first successful expedition to the South Pole) was the first to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage in 1903-1906. It took him 3 1/2 years. Our plan is to follow his route in reverse. 

The next successful transit of the passage was in 1942. It took an additional 42 years before the first commercial passenger vessel crossing. To date, there have been around 80 passenger ship sailings through the Northwest Passage. With climate change the passage is becoming more accessible. Ships adhere to strict regulations and must obtain permits and community permission to visit historical, archeological, nature, and community sites. 

If all goes well, we’ll cover at least 5,270 nautical miles. There are 277 passengers on board (capacity 530). Forty-some boarded a couple weeks before us in Vancouver and are on a 3-month pole-to-pole adventure, sailing all the way to Antarctica. 

Our first several days are spent at sea, working our way up the long western and northern Alaskan coast.  

We had a ceremony marking our crossing of the Arctic Circle. A god appeared to announce the event. 

Those of us hardy (foolish) enough to participate were handed a shot of brandy for fortification and baptized with ice water. 

We spent these days acclimating to the 4 hour time difference. So we eat and nap, walk laps on the top deck, and attend lectures and activities presented by the expedition team. We picked up our expedition jackets, the heavy boots required for landings, and life jackets worn for small boat cruising / landings in zodiacs

Decorating our water bottles with stencils and colored marker pens

On board we have geologists, ornithologists, marine biologists, astronomers, cetologists (whale guy), environmental scientists, historians, and story tellers. They come from countries as varied as Poland, Chile, the US, and Norway. They will offer lectures and workshops throughout the voyage, usually several times daily. Guests can sign up to participate in additional activities like Science at Sea sample collection, kayaking, and learning about clouds and weather and whales and feathers and plankton and rocks and whatever else we encounter. 

Tom captured this shot of a humpback whale, extremely close to the ship

We also have on board 8-10 cultural ambassadors, representing the Inuit people who have lived for centuries in the area through which we’ll be traveling. They will be presenting talks and workshops on various Inuit cultural and historical topics such as throat singing, history, cultural trauma, tattoos, beadwork, games, film industry, respectful behavior when visiting their communities, etc. Most of the ambassadors are tribal members; others have partnered closely with them doing fieldwork or at the Smithsonian. 

The days are as busy and interactive as one wishes to make them. It’s an environment focused on appreciating the environment and the experience, not entertainment like stage shows and casinos. 

On Sunday, Tom woke up not doing so well. He has a chronic condition that flared up, and the treatment he needed wasn’t available on the ship. 

As disappointed as we all were, the timing was fortuitous. We were due north of Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow, Alaska), the northernmost town in the US, 1311 miles from the North Pole. We were as close to aid as we’d be for the next two weeks. 

The ship doctor, captain, and US coast guard coordinated his evacuation while the ship halted our eastward progress. 

Waiting to board the chopper, still smiling


He was lifted in the basket to the chopper. 

Accompanied by a coast guard medic

And off they go. 

PS Tom was taken to Barrow, where he transferred to a Lear jet and flown to Fairbanks. 

his private Lear jet

They determined he should be seen by a specialist in Anchorage, so he was next flown there. He was able to fly home to Ohio two days later and is doing fine now. We miss him, but all three know it was absolutely the best decision.