KANGERLUSSUAQ TO NOME: ARCTIC & GREENLAND EXPEDITION CRUISE Follow the route of explorers that looked for the Northwest Passage, from Frobisher in the 1570s right up to the world’s most important modern day explorer: you. Whether you are a first timer or well-initiated in the region, expect the savage beauty to seduce you time and time again. From crystal clear glaciers to the abundant marine and bird life, this Northwest Passage crossing is both mesmerising and memorable. ITINERARY Day 1 Kangerlussuaq Kangerlussuaq is a settlement in western Greenland in the Qeqqata municipality located at the head of the fjord of the same name (Danish: Søndre Strømfjord). It is Greenland's main air transport hub and the site of Greenland's largest commercial airport. The airport dates from American settlement during and after World War II, when the site was known as Bluie West-8 and Sondrestrom Air Base. The Kangerlussuaq area is also home to Greenland's most diverse terrestrial fauna, including muskoxen, caribou, and gyrfalcons. The settlement's economy and population of 512 is almost entirely reliant on the airport and tourist industry. Day 2 Kangaamiut (Qeqqata) & Evighedsfjord Only 350 people live in the small Greenlandic community of Kangaamiut. Located on the south coast of Timerdlit Island and facing the Davis Strait, Kangaamiut is situated between the mouths of two long fjords: the Kangerlussuatsiaq Fjord (or Evighedsfjorden in Danish) to its south and to its north Kangaamiut Kangerluarsuat Fjord. Founded in 1755, it was called “Sugarloaf” (Sukkertoppen) because of the appearance of three nearby hills. Within roughly an hour of steaming south from Kangerlussuaq Fjord is Evighedsfjord Fjord. The fjords in this area can reach close to a kilometer (over half a mile) of depth and are lined with tidewater glaciers from the Maniitsoq ice sheet located high up in the interior of Greenland. Some of the cliffs along 0800 945 3327 (within New Zealand) | +64 (0) 3 365 1355 | 1800 107 715 (within Australia) [email protected] | wildearth-travel.com the fjords of this region can exceed 2,000 metres (6,600 ft.) in height. ranges nearby. Many archaeological sites of ancient Dorset and Thule peoples can be found near Pond Inlet. The Inuit hunted caribou, ringed and harp seals, Day 3 Nuuk (Godthab) fish, polar bears, and walrus, as well as narwhals, geese, ptarmigans and Arctic hares long before European and American whalers came here to harvest Nuuk, meaning “the cape”, was Greenland’s first town (1728). Started as a bowhead whales. Pond Inlet is also known as a major center of Inuit art fort and later mission and trading post some 240 kilometers south of the especially the printmaking and stone carving. Arctic Circle, it is the current capital. Almost 30% of Greenland’s population lives in the town. Not only does Nuuk have great natural beauty in its vicinity, Day 8 Dundas Harbour (Devon Island) but there are Inuit ruins, Hans Egede’s home, the parliament, and the Church of our Saviour as well. The Greenlandic National Museum has an outstanding Dundas Harbour is located in the southeast of Devon Island, Canada’s 6th collection of Greenlandic traditional dresses, as well as the famous Qilakitsoq largest island. It is a forlorn but starkly beautiful spot. The island was first mummies. The Katuaq Cultural Center’s building was inspired by the sighted by Europeans in 1616 by the English explorers Robert Bylot and undulating Northern Lights and can house 10% of Nuuk’s inhabitants. William Baffin. But it did not appear on maps until after explorer William Edward Parry’s exploration in the 1820’s. Parry named it after Devon, England. Day 4 Sisimiut In the local Inuktitut language, the place is called Talluruti, which translates as “a woman’s chin with tattoos on it.” This refers to the deep crevasses and Located just north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut is the northernmost town in streaks on Devon Island, which from a distance resemble traditional facial Greenland where the port remains free of ice in the winter. Yet it is also the tattoos. On land there are remains of a Thule settlement dating back to 1000 southernmost town where there is enough snow and ice to drive a dogsled in A.D., including tent rings, middens and a gravesite. There are also much more winter and spring. In Sisimiut, travelling by sled has been the primary means recent remains a Royal Canadian Mounted Police outpost. The first post was of winter transportation for centuries. In fact, the area has been inhabited for established in 1924 to monitor and control illegal activities, such as foreign approximately 4,500 years. Modern Sisimiut is the largest business center in whaling, in the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage. But conditions the north of Greenland, and is one of the fastest growing Greenlandic cities. were so isolated and severe that the post was abandoned in 1933. It was Commercial fishing is the lead economy in the town‘s thriving industrial base. reopened in 1945, but again closed, this time permanently, in 1951. Today, Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island in the world. Day 5 Ilulissat Known as the birthplace of icebergs, the Ilulissat Icefjord produces nearly 20 Day 9 Devon Island (Radstock Bay) & Beechey Island million tons of ice each day. In fact, the word Ilulissat means “icebergs” in the Devon Island is Canada’s sixth largest island and was first seen by Europeans Kalaallisut language. The town of Ilulissat is known for its long periods of calm in the early 17th century. The Thule culture had already settled there many and settled weather, but the climate tends to be cold due to its proximity to centuries before, and left behind qarmat homes, made of rocks, whale bones, the fjord. Approximately 4,500 people live in Ilulissat, the third-largest town in rock and sod walls, and skins for roofs that tell a story of over 800 years of Greenland after Nuuk and Sisimiut. Some people here estimate that there are human habitation. Other striking finds in this area are the many fossils of nearly as many sled dogs as human beings living in the town that also boasts corals, crinoids and nautiloids that can be seen. Just across Lancaster Sound a local history museum located in the former home of Greenlandic folk hero is Prince Leopold Island, a Canadian Important Bird Area, a federally listed and famed polar explorer Knud Rasmussen. migratory bird sanctuary, and a Key Migratory Bird Terrestrial Habitat site with large numbers of Thick-billed Murres, Northern Fulmars and Black-legged Day 6 At Sea Kittiwakes that breed there. Beechey Island is a small island off the southwest coast of Devon Island, separated by a narrow waterway called the Barrow Day 7 Pond Inlet (Nunavut) Strait. Captain William Edward Parry was the first European to visit the island in 1819. His lieutenant, Frederick William Beechey, named the island after his Located in northern Baffin Island Pond Inlet is a small predo¬minantly Inuit father, the artist William Beechey (1753–1839). Beechey Island played a community with a population of roughly 1 ,500 inhabitants. In 1818 the significant role in the history of Arctic Exploration. During the winter of British explorer John Ross named a bay in the vicinity after the English 1845-46, Sir John Franklin and his men camped on the island as part of their astronomer John Pond. Today Pond Inlet is considered one of Canada's ill-fated quest to find the Northwest Passage. Mummified remains of three of "jewels of the North" thanks to several picturesque glaciers and mountain Franklin’s crew were discovered, giving a better understanding of what 0800 945 3327 (within New Zealand) | +64 (0) 3 365 1355 | 1800 107 715 (within Australia) [email protected] | wildearth-travel.com happened before the disappearance of the expedition. In 1850 Edward part of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon and Belcher used the island as a base while surveying the area. Later, in 1903, Northwest Territories. The Beaufort Sea is frozen for most of the year, only Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen stopped at the island at the beginning of opening a channel near the Canadian and Alaskan shore during the months of his successful voyage in search for the Northwest Passage. Subsequently, August and September, the best time for a transit through the Northwest Beechey Island has been declared a "Territorial Historic Site" by the Northwest Passage. Beluga and bowhead whales, seals and polar bears are part of the Territories government in 1975 and a National Historic Site of Canada in Beaufort Sea’s wildlife. 1993. It now is part of Nunavut. Day 20 Herschel Island (Yukon Territory) Day 10 Resolute (Nunavut) Day 21 At Sea Day 11 Cruise Peel Sound (Nunavut) Peel Sound is a 30 mile wide, 125 mile long channel separating Prince of Day 22 Barrow (Alaska) Wales Island to the west and Somerset Island to the east. It was named in 1851 by explorer Vice Admiral Horatio Austin in honour of Sir Robert Peel, a former prime minister of Great Britain. Austin, however, was not the first Days 23 - 24 At Sea person to sail through the sound. Five years earlier, in 1846, Sir John Franklin had passed through the strait, just before his ships became icebound. Peel Day 25 Nome (Alaska) Sound is not always open. Several explorers, including Francis Leopold McClintock in 1858 and Allen Young in 1875, were unable to pass because it Nome is located on the edge of the Bering Sea, on the southwest side of the was blocked by ice.