Expeditions & Exploration

We took this expedition “Following in the Footsteps of Franklin” with Quark and the MS Adventurer. Purpose built in Finland in 1991 for polar expedition, the MS Adventurer with just 140 passengers is a Lloyds Ice rated A1 ship, it is a safe, ice strengthened vessel.

The Canadian High Arctic covers 550,000 square miles (1,424,500 square km) and with a population of 112,000 people. There are more than 35,563 islands in the remote Canadian Arctic Archipelago, of which Baffin Island, the fifth-largest island in the world.

We arrived in Kangerlussuaq, a small community nestled deep inside a 118 mile (190 km) long fjord, and visited the 4th of July Glacier and crash site of a flight of T33 training aircraft that crashed here.. Handed out bright yellow jackets and life jackets we took a Zodiac ride as we transferred from shore to ship.

We stopped at Sisimiut with its Saqqaq and Dorset culture, through to the colonial area. The centre is an 18th centre Danish village, with massive bowhead jaw bones forming an arch into the church. Further up the coast we visited Disco Bay and the fasted flowing glacier at lulissat Icefjord, now a UNESCO world heritage site.

Last stop in Greenland was at Qaanaaq, formally Thule USA airbase, and stories of exploitation from the colonial era to the 20th century and enforced settlement of indigenous people. The Museum at Qaanaaq was fascinating visit, and the curator a wealth of Inuit information.

Davis Strait is home to ring and harp seals, both of which we saw, and. Isabella Bay is home to largest concentration of bowhead whales in Canada, but we didn’t see any of these. Or at least we didn’t recognise them! Bowheads are a truly remarkable animal which can reach over 200 years of age - the oldest mammal. A Bow head whale caught in 2007 had a harpoon dating back to 1880 embedded in its shoulder, meaning the 50-ton whale had been coasting around the freezing arctic waters since Victorian times.

In Radstock Bay we visited the reamains of an ancient Thule site. Low stone and grass walls together with the remains of whale bone frames (probably Bowhead whale, slow and easy to catch which is why they have been wiped out) and seal skin covers. Bits of sled and remnants of camp. The Vikings (Norse) called these people Skraeling, which translated as “wretched people.” The Thule people were the ancestors of the Eskimo, or Inuits as we now call them, Greenlandic folk..

Beechey Island and Terror Bay is the home to a small group of marked graves of three crew members who died during Sir John Franklin’s tragic 1845–46 expedition. The bodies lie perfected preserved underneath. Lead poisoning was possible cause of death. Over 150 years later, Roald Amundsen landed here in 1903, during the first successful voyage by ship through the Northwest Passage, although recent events indicate Frankin’s crew beat him to this one. We’ll still give him the North and South Poles and the North East Passage!

What We Loved

IIllustrated ships chart - orginal chart from the expedition - illustrated in Argentinia by Maria of our 2015 North West Passage expedition - shows some of the animals and scenes of the High Arctic (Canada)