Wednesday 28 August: Devon Island – Sylvia

As we were eating dinner yesterday I was looking out the window and spotted a few killer whales towards the stern of the boat. Unfortunately there weren’t any naturalists around so we didn’t stop for a closer look, which was a shame as the sun was glinting off their dorsal fins beautifully.

I started the day as usual with the stretching class on deck 8. I am enjoying this as a way of preparing for the day ahead. Afterwards we headed for breakfast. We have been asked about the food on board. Breakfast is generally a buffet with a range of fruit, yoghurt and cereal, breads and pastries, cheeses and cold cuts as well as scrambled and boiled eggs, sausage, bacon and some cooked vegetables. You can also order omelettes and eggs cooked to order.

During breakfast we arrived at Dundas Harbour on Devon Island. After the expedition team had scouted the area we suited up and headed down to deck three to board the zodiacs for the short trip to shore. I joined the long hiking group and Roger the photography group.

This area was once a Royal Canadian Mounted Police base and had the remains of their camp – a few run down buildings and a cemetery. It must have been a huge shock to the system for the men who were sent up to this inhospitable place from the cities further south. One of the graves in the small cemetery was from a man who had committed suicide, the other there was less clarity on how he died. Some said he died hunting walrus, others surmised another suicide or perhaps even something more sinister.

My group headed up the hill behind the camp, eventually reaching a point where we could see the ice cap in the distance. We then climbed up another small ridge to get a good view back over the camp and the ship. I have been amazed at the variety and density of the fauna here. With the permafrost the ground is quite spongy. The ground is strewn about with lichen-covered boulders. It is all very picturesque.

We headed back down the ridge to a small tarn, where two red-throated loons were swimming, then made our way back down to join the rest of the group at the old camp, and from there back to the ship for lunch.

Lunch is usually a la carte with several choices but today was a barbecue buffet with burgers and grilled wahoo as well as a range of salads and different toppings for the burgers.

During lunch and the early afternoon we cruised further up Devon island to Cuming Inlet. At 3pm we had another very informative presentation from Wade about the Inuit hunting traditions. He is a very good storyteller and shared some great insights.

I was just getting ready to go to the gym when we had a call over the loudspeaker that a polar bear had been spotted. I kitted up and headed to the observation deck. A thin-looking, probably young male, polar bear was walking slowly along the rocks on the side of the fjord. As with most of the wildlife sightings in the Arctic he was at some distance but I had a great view through the binoculars. A lot of our photos are a bit blurry as they are taken with a zoom lens and then often cropped as well.

After watching for a while I decided to carry on with my gym. I just had just gotten back to the cabin when another call came. Now there are Musk ox. These animals average 285kg and are quite impressive with their shaggy coats. I raced up to the gym and managed to spot them out the window.

I got started with my workout and was interrupted a couple more times – harp seals and then walrus were also spotted. What a great afternoon. And I was happy to be able to see them all and complete my workout.

I have been studiously avoiding the afternoon tea, which is served on the 8th deck observation area. There are always snacks available up there – tea, coffee, chilled and sparkling water, nuts, dried fruit and cookies. The afternoon tea seems to vary – scones, cakes, sandwiches etc.

Just after 6pm we headed back to the Ice Lounge for the recap and briefing for tomorrow. Recap always includes a number of short presentations on things we have seen during the day or that may be of interest. Yesterday one of the naturalists shared about oosiks (walrus penis bones). Today we had short talks about musk ox, the polar bear we had seen today, the part of the Arctic Ocean that we are in today that doesn’t get covered with sea ice, some Inuit food and a few other topics. The recap is always accompanied by cocktails and appetisers and leads up to dinner time.

Dinner is a la carte and is served in the main dining room. There are always three choices for entree, then main options include vegetarian, fish, meat and pasta and there are always steak, chicken and salad available. This is followed by the dessert of the day, or ice cream, sorbet or cheese plate. Tonight I had chilled lobster entree and the vegetarian Poke bowl main. Roger had the roast vegetable and tomato soup and venison loin. We both had the lemon tart. Unfortunately I only remembered to photograph the desert. In general I think the portion sizes are not too large, which is good as there is certainly no shortage of food. This evening we shared our table with one of the cultural ambassadors and his wife and a couple of the staff and had some interesting conversation. It was great to get a bit more insight into the Inuit culture.

After dinner, more excitement. We cruised into Blanket Bay and spotted another polar bear, more walrus and a bowhead whale. It was great to be up in the Observation lounge or on the bridge watching these incredible animals.

All in all a fantastic day!

 

Thursday 29 August: Beechy Island, Radstock Bay – Roger

We are floating just off Beechy Island, with a thick fog surrounding us as Doug gives us a briefing on our trip ashore to visit the grave site of three men from the Franklin expedition of 1845.

Around 1000 hrs we headed out, in groups of 20, over to the island to check out the graves, two from HMS Erebus and one from HMS Terror. The fourth grave is from HMS North Star, which was part of an expedition sent out in 1850 to look for Franklin’s Expedition. There are also many interesting fossils embedded in the limestone rock on the shore.

As the zodiac landed, in light snow, there were armed sentries strategically placed around the grave site just in case a hungry polar bear wanted an easy feed. It’s a rather barren beach with stones ground to shingle over many years. The well-preserved, frozen bodies were exhumed a few years ago to find out why they died. Apart from high lead levels, which were common for the time, the results were inconclusive. Apparently the three bodies were reburied somewhere further south.

It appears that the Franklin expedition was somewhat ill-prepared with too large a group and clothing not suited to the climate. Many expeditions from the US, Europe and Britain perished, through not learning from the Inuits, who wore clothing that was both fur lined and had fur on the outside. They lived in small groups to be able to find sufficient food. This is an extremely harsh and inhospitable environment.

The HMS Northumberland expedition of 1850 was one of the many to come searching for Franklin. They wintered here on Beechy Island. Of the 5 ships joining the expedition, 4 were crushed by ice. A building was erected, a little further down the beach from the cemetery, from the shipwrecked remains, known as Northumberland house.  We could make out its ruins through the fog; apparently there are still hundreds of cans of food that came off the ships stored inside it.

After we were all back on board, with our boots washed and scrubbed to ensure nothing is transferred  to our next landing site (this is something we do after every landing),  we headed back eastward about 30kms, pulling into Radstock Bay. While we were transferring we enjoyed a delicious lunch – vegetable soup and Icelandic Lamb pie, with Linze torte for dessert. 

We stopped just off Cardwell Tower. Here in the 70s a guy had built a hut on top of the tower, which is about 250m high, and from there studied polar bears. The hut is still there. Erland, one of the naturalists, went up and took some photos of it, the hut being in the same state as it was left.

We headed across on the zodiacs, in reasonably heavy snow, to the shingle beach to go and visit the Thule sights, supposedly a one mile walk from the beach. It was in actual fact only a few hundred meters. There are a number of ruins of old Thule winter houses here, built some 1200 years ago. These houses had a tunnel leading in from below and Bowhead whale bones to form the rafters, with reindeer skins thrown over to make the roof. Here they survived the winter before heading off hunting and tenting in the summer.

There are rings in the shingle that run back hundreds of meters from the beach here as the land is raising about a metre every 100 years. This is the result of the glaciers melting and the land raising without the weight of the ice,  the ice having disappeared from this part of the island after the last big ice age. From there Sylvia and a few others went on the ‘long walk’ up a shingle slide onto a ridge and then around the tower, returning back along the beach.

A few million years ago an asteroid hit Devon island about 100kms northeast of here, leaving a crater about 1.6kms wide. The area is now used by NASA to trial Mars vehicles and prepare astronauts for an eventual Mars landing as it is similar terrain to what is expected on the red planet.

Back on board, at 1745 we had the daily round up where Lars, the Inuit from Greenland, gave a great presentation on how tasty the various hunted foods are. This was followed by a presentation from Anne Hedlund, the chief diver on board, who had been out diving and studying the sea life around the coast here. She had some great footage of sea angels consuming sea butterflies, and some jellies with hairs protruding from their clear body propelling themselves through the water.

We enjoyed another delicious dinner and some more great company before heading for an early night to catch up on some sleep.

Friday 30 August: Phillpot Island, Baffin Bay – Sylvia

We arrived at Phillpot Island, off the east end of Devon Island, while we were enjoying breakfast. Out the window, with gorgeous orange early morning light, we could see many seals and sea birds in the water around the icebergs that dot this area. A large ice sheet reached all the way to the water off in the distance.

At about 9:30am we suited up and headed out for a zodiac cruise. They have this working like a well oiled machine. The 15 zodiacs can be unloaded and in the water in seemingly no time. We all head down to base camp, and get loaded up to the zodiacs.

The icebergs have fantastic shapes and colours and we cruised around them. The light was quite flat and the photos do not do justice to the vastness of the ice sheet. As we were cruising the cloud lifted a bit and the mountains behind the ice sheet started to appear. This is a truly beautiful place. Several Arctic Terns flew around and landed on the icebergs creating some additional interest. Roger reached over the edge of the zodiac at one stage and hauled in the remains of an iceberg.

Returning to the ship we headed to the Ice Lounge to listen to a presentation from naturalist Carlos Navarro about the polar bear. It was accompanied by some spectacular photographs that he has taken over the years. The males of this magnificent species average about 800kg and the females about 400kg. They are incredible well adapted to living in the polar environment with two layers of hair plus thick blubber. The outer layer of hair is hollow, potentially providing additional insulation and/or assisting with buoyancy. The largest polar bear on record was more than 3.8m tall. They can swim 4-6km/hour and have been seen 400km from the nearest land. They are basically walking noses and can smell the breath of a ring seals some 3km away.

We enjoyed lunch up on the 8th floor observation deck as we slowly cruised to the other side of the island. This area is not charted so we had to take a wide berth. During this time Wade Davis gave an interesting presentation on the history of the European exploration of the northwest passage.

Once we arrived we suited up and headed out for another zodiac cruise. A few walrus were hauled out on some of the icebergs. We also saw (and heard) one of the larger icebergs calve and then roll, which was impressive. We had the two biologists on our zodiac and watched while they collected plankton samples for later analysis back on board the NG Endurance. As we were cruising around, we approached one of the other zodiacs to find some of the ship crew dressed as vikings and polar bears handing out hot chocolate, plain, or laced with various liqueurs. A pleasant treat in the cold afternoon.

Back on board, Roger headed for a massage while I blogged and sorted photos, then we met in the Ice Lounge at 6pm for the daily recap. Today Ralph shared some photos from the trip so far. Along with some more photographic tips, we had a short presentation on the migration of Arctic Terns, a bit about the sea ice we might expect to encounter as we head north, Lars shared some cultural insights and Wade shared an interesting story about knives forged from frozen human faeces. Then Bud provided a brief overview on what we can expect from the next few days.

This evening we had been invited to dine at the Chef’s Table. This is an intimate private dining space for about 20 guests. We are all invited there once during the trip and treated to an incredible 7-course meal. As if that wasn’t enough, hand-made chocolates were waiting for us in our room when we returned after dinner.

Saturday 31 August: Jones Sound, Fram Fjord, Ellesmere Island – Roger

When we woke we were parked up in Fram Fjord, off Jones Sound, at the south end of Ellesmere Island. Surrounded by snow covered mountains, a thin layer of grease ice covered the water. At the end of the sound there is a small hut with a couple of quad bikes outside. Hunters that live at Grise inlet, about 30 miles west of here, leave these here so they can arrive by boat and head off hunting musk ox or polar bears.

After breakfast the kayaks are set up on the port side.  Two by two we head off to explore the sound, pushing easily through the thin layer of ice.

Scouts had been sent out to check out if it was safe to go walking. They had spotted a mob of musk ox over a small ridge, not too far from the shore.

After lunch we were ferried to shore in groups to go for a stroll. Sylvia went off up the valley with the long walk group. I plodded along int he snow covered tundra with the medium group.  The fog had come in again and the musk ox had moved on. Hence we just strolled around on the flats above the water. Sylvia and the group she was with did spot a mob of tiny brown dots grazing about 3 miles distant. We also spotted some arctic fox tracks but that was as good as it got in terms of wildlife.

Tonight we are heading up to spend the night in the starboard igloo, one of two on the top deck at the stern of the boat. Bud warned us at the briefing this evening that we might hear some loud bangs and feel some shuddering as we hit some of the sea ice drifting down from the north through the Nunavut passage towards us. 

After dinner we took the night’s necessities to the starboard igloo. Then it was into the spa pool, with a fantastic view of where we have come from. After cooking in there for a while we headed to the sauna on the port side, where we enjoyed the heat and a fantastic view of the Ellesmere Island.

As we lie here writing this there are some clear skies on the horizon but a layer of cloud above us. We are now just over 76 degrees north.