Travel Blog August 5 to November 8, 2024

Monday, August 5, 2024: Vancouver, B.C., Canada (49.2827° N, 123.1207° W)

After spending most of the morning tidying up the house and garden, washing clothes, and last minute packing, I ordered a taxi around 2:00 p.m. and got a ride to the Canada Place cruise ship terminal, having found out beforehand that my luggage would be taken from me in the underground parking lot level 2. There were two other cruise ships boarding at the same time as mine, one from NCL and the other from Disney Cruises, both no doubt also going to Alaska but likely on a more conventional route. I was therefore surprised that not all the children I saw were going on the Disney cruise ship as some ended up on mine. I supposed they were particularly interested in the scientific angle of Hurtigruten as there is clearly no entertainment, and no water slides or rock climbing on my ship.

It was a fairly simple and painless boarding process, which included having my luggage scanned twice, and surrendering my Canadian passport for the duration of the trip. The U.S. customs and immigration wasn't really evident. Before getting to our rooms, we were asked to try on and pick up the complimentary waterproof/warm jackets offered by the cruiseship and to pick up a badge for our respective zodiac expedition groups. My group is a bow headed whale, one of three whales designating the 56 or so passengers doing the Pole-to-Pole trip, while other passengers on less lengthy journeys have been designated animals such as polar bears, puffins and seals. Then, because I had a credit on my account, I wasn't even asked to show or register my credit card. I was told, in fact, that I wouldn't be expected to pay anything until the very end of the voyage, 95 days from now!

  

At last I reached my cabin, and, although endowed with a balcony, I was surprised at how narrow it was and more especially how little drawer and cupboard space it had. What's more, it only contained, I think, about 7 hangers. I asked for about 20 more hangers and then was given an intro as to what was included in my price and what was not. None of the wine bottles I saw were included, only the one bottle of complimentary welcome champagne (or in reality vino espumante from Argentina) and a journey diary as a gift to those doing the entire journey to Ushuaia. My cabin steward (from the Philippines) told me upgrades were possible so I thought I'd enquire to see just how much more I would be expected to pay. I was surprised that it wasn't really all that much more for a great deal more perks. I had been saving my money all my life for a rainy day and decided that this was finally the rainy day. I asked to see a couple of suites one floor up so as to decide between the two types of suites, one being more of a square shape with a long desk for working and the other being broader but thinner with a longer balcony, but a very small desk space where I would be sitting with my back to the sea. Moreover, I had originally been designated a cabin on the port side although I felt it would be more of an advantage to be on the starboard side (for land-animal viewing), and, as luck would have it, the two suites I was shown were both starboard-side suites.

Then, having chosen the one that was more spacious, in a square shape, and with a long desk for working, I was told it would unfortunately not be ready until the next day. Consequently, I stayed in my original cabin for my first night. First, of course, we were all congregated for a safety briefing. For this voyage, as we are going into a cold area of the world, not only were we taught how to put on a life jacket, but we were also shown how to put on more protective gear and told we would also be provided with under and over layers to wear under this protective suit. Then, while watching and photographing our departure from Canada Place from my balcony, I enjoyed some first night complimentary appetisers in my room, and still not unpacking anything, I tried out the buffet style restaurant and wasn't all that impressed with their offerings. Once I am in the suite, I shall be able to dine at the exclusive restaurant for suite residents. I finished my evening in my room, watching the film Back to Black about British singer, Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 at age 27. I paused it about halfway through so I could go and watch and photograph the sunset on the top deck, deck 11, the observation deck, at the bow along with many other photographers. They had announced via the general tannoy that there were humpback whales out in them thar waters on the starboard side, but I hesitated too long so missed seeing them. I am sure there will be more on this voyage, however.

  

Tuesday, August 6, 2024: Seymour Narrows, B.C., Canada (50.1372° N, 125.3537° W)

After spending a somewhat comfortable night, but again eager to move to a more spacious cabin, en route to breakfast this morning I checked the situation with the suite and was told it was ready. I was issued with a new suite key/ship ID card and was offered help with my move. However, it was not a problem as I had basically not unpacked and it was only one deck up, so I moved everything myself. I then unpacked and put everything away and there are still unused drawers, although I did manage to use all the 20 extra hangers. I met my new stewardess, who gave me a new gift of two carabiners, each of which also serves as a compass, a flashlight and a watch, although when I checked just now they are still saying it's 10 minutes past ten o'clock! I then learned that the four bottles of wine, two beers, six cans of pop and four bottles of fizzy water are all complementary and there is a fancier keurig coffee maker (not just a kettle and instant coffee) so I am very pleased I decided to splurge. I am getting my money's worth. Plus three meals a day at a more luxurious à la carte restaurant exclusively for suite residents.

Today is a sea day as we travel northwards to Alaska sailing through islands on both sides of the ship, in addition to humpback whales, which I actually spotted ejecting spray through their blow holes, although they were not much more visible than that. I attended a lecture on the optional tours for this leg of Vancouver to Nome and did not feel the need to book anything. I discovered that all three smallish towns are walkable, have coffee shops and museums, not to mention totem parks, and probably contain much more to spark my (photographic) interest than what the (rather expensive) optional tours were offering. The included tours, which are really exploration/landings from zodiacs, seem to offer much more interesting stuff. The snag is we go by groups and the order of groups is changed every day so it seems like it will be a lot of hanging around waiting for one's turn and then having limited time whilst on land. We shall see how it goes. These are small places so perhaps the allotted time on land will in fact be sufficient. Some of the landings are former Russian settlements, while others have Tlingit culture, and all look quite picturesque. Some offer wildlife sightings, while others offer icebergs and glaciers, and one is a bird paradise, including puffins!

  

No great photos today. We were told we were sailing (and very smoothly I might add because I hardly noticed any movement, unless I were to look out the window), through narrower passages than what most cruise ships travel along in the inside passage northward. There were occasional buildings but mostly it was scenes of islands, and probably billions of acres of conifers with the occasional waterfall and a few gulls flying, although there were several sightings of whales throughout the day. In the early evening, there was a welcome cocktail held by the captain, who introduced his officers as well as the expedition crew of 25 or so, led by a young Frenchman. We were told we were 316 passengers to 150 crew and the fastest speed this ship was capable of was 50 knots. I should add that there is a large contingent of German passengers on board, hence announcements are relayed in English and German, and all lectures are simultaneously interpreted into German through headsets distributed to these German speakers on boarding. There is also a large - though somewhat smaller than the German contingent - group of French speakers, so announcements are also relayed in French over the tannoy (albeit not always), while none of the lectures is simultaneously interpreted into French through headsets. We are still sailing through BC coastal waters and won't reach Alaska until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. We were warned that we might feel a slight bump as we sail over the Canada/USA border.

I had a lovely lunch and dinner in the exclusive gourmet restaurant. How quickly one can become used to a life of luxury. In the evening after dinner, I attended a short presentation of what it will be like tomorrow as we pick up our loaned boots, dress up in our waterproofs and lifejacket, and get onto zodiacs in our groups to explore Misty Fjords via sea. I'm more concerned as to how I will carry my camera with such bulky clothing and life jacket. However, there is a lecture tomorrow afternoon on travel photography before our 1-hour zodiac adventure, so I suspect I will ask the official photographer what he does. I also found out we are divided into 12 groups in total so that's about 26 per group in three or four zodiacs, or 10 per zodiac, which should give us enough room to photograph. As I mentioned yesterday, we have been assigned to animal groups: three types of whales (narwhal, bowhead, and beluga), three seals (walrus, bearded, and harp), three land mammals (muskoxen, arctic foxes, polar bears), and the rest are birds (black guillemots, puffins, and little auks). I wonder if we shall see specimens of all of these creatures during our voyage.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024: Eddystone Rock, Rudyerd Bay, Misty Fjord, Alaska, U.S.A. (55.6216° N, 130.6072° W)

I was up an hour early as there was a time change for Alaska and although I had set my watch back to the new time, I had not set my phone so it was still showing the old time. Nonetheless, that gave me the chance to catch up on yesterday's travelogue entry. To the Lindstrom restaurant for an à la carte breakfast, after which we were called down in groups to be assigned rubber boots. I had some time to work on a book translation, since the view outside was nil or with mist until about noon. Consequently, I sat through a lecture on Russian Alaska part one (while my room was being cleaned) before the purchase of Alaska, and heard about various explorers from Russia and the successful fur (sea otter fur for the most part) trade. It was given by a fellow from Chile who used to guide in Patagonia.

  

Then I went out on deck around 12:30 because at 12:45 we were told we would be passing a famous rock called New Eddystone Rock, located in Behm Canal, about 40 miles east of Ketchikan, and made of basalt. It was an ancient volcano that had erupted 13,800 to 15,000 years ago and its total height is about 1,000 feet, of which 850 feet are below sea level and 237 feet are above sea level. The first European to see it was Captain George Vancouver in 1793. Although I recognized its shape right away from quite a distance, it took us about 30 minutes more to reach it, which gave me a chance to try out my telephoto lens. This made me miss lunch, so I had a banana and an apple from my suite fruit basket instead. Then I attended the travel photo lecture, a refresher for me on composition, which was very short and taught by the ship's self-taught photographer. Meanwhile, we finally arrived in Rudyerd Bay, where we weighed anchor, and nine zodiacs were set out on the water. We were the second group to be called as part of the first round of zodiacs in the first hour of four. We saw gulls and bald eagles as wildlife, some gneiss rock, a couple of waterfalls, and lichen. Apart from the zodiacs, there was also a group of 2-person kayakers - an optional excursion offered every day that we have zodiak operations, provided the weather is conducive to kayaking.

   

Well, at least I got to try out my waterproof trousers, expedition jacket, rubber boots, and life jacket for the first time, but since it was a warm day, I didn't really need all those extra layers and could have gone in just shorts, a t-shirt and runners (and life jacket). Misty Fjord was declared a National Monument by Jimmy Carter in 1978, and usually gets 150 inches of rain a year so it was a lucky fluke that it wasn't raining today. The forest here is part of Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in the U.S.A., mainly consisting of Sitka Spruce and Hemlock trees. There is no soil so the roots grab onto rock. The multi-coloured rock you see in the photo with the waterfall is gneiss, while the yellow on the rocks is not graffiti but rather lichen, which apparently only grows where the air is pure.

  

  

Thursday, August 8, 2024: Wrangell, Alaska, U.S.A. (56.4706° N, 132.3815° W)

Wrangell is located on the northern part of Wrangell Island in the Alaskan Panhandle and is 155 miles south of the capital of Juneau but 100 miles north of Ketchikan. Its primary economy is fishing, although it once had a great logging operation.

  

After breakfast, I photographed our entry into Wrangell and again it is a gorgeous warm, t-shirt-and-shorts, sunny day. We've really been lucky so far. We had to wait for the port authorities to come on board and give us clearance, and then we tendered into this town of about 2,300 persons. Originally a fishing village, it has a history of Russian fur trade as well as Tlingit culture. Tlingit is pronounced by some (the expedition crew on board, for instance,) with an initial K instead of a T, but the natives pronounce it more with the tongue at the roof of the mouth as for the 'L' and then blowing like a Welsh 'LL,'

  

  

I wandered on my own around town for the first hour and a half, and then we had an organized included tour. I was in the second group of three starting at 11:00. After signing a waiver to confirm that I was able to climb aboard a bus and did not have Covid, we climbed aboard said bus and were driven to Shakes Island, the location of a Tlingit Clan house replica, built on a cement foundation, and were given an introduction to Tlingit culture by a member of that clan called Badelle, seen here. Behind the long house were old totems that had been taken down and she gave us an explanation about those as well. The Tlingit have a matriarchal society, whereby after marriage, the husband comes to live with the family of his wife and not vice versa.

  

  

Despite the small population, it was interesting to see that it had a large middle school as well as a large high school and at least four churches: Episcopalian (the oldest in Alaska), Catholic (the oldest in Alaska), Presbyterian (the oldest in Alaska) and one other. The Presbyterian one had a sign that said 'come as you are' while the Episcopalian was known as the first church not to segregate the Europeans and the Tlingit.

  

  

  

  

  

Saturday, August 17, 2024: Alaska Peninsula, Alaska, U.S.A.

Amazingly, I slept right through last night, probably due to the exercise I got yesterday and the over 15,000 steps walked. A sea day today so nothing to report except that there are great crowds of various birds in the water as we approach the Pribilofs, a small island group in the Bering Sea, and more specifically St. Paul Island where we hope to land tomorrow. An inhabited island, the human population was 413 at the 2020 census, down from 479 in 2010. Saint Paul Island is known as a birdwatching haven and also has the world's largest colony of Northern Fur Seals. In fact, more than 50 percent of the entire population of Northern Fur Seals breeds on the Pribilof Islands. They have a lifespan of up to 26 years, and males can weigh up to 600 pounds, while the females, just over 100 pounds. I did not do any photography today, but I did attend a lecture on photography editing with Lightroom. I also joined the knitting group and was handed a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool to make a four-inch square to contribute to a large (or perhaps several large) blankets that will be auctioned off at the end of the 95-day trip and the proceeds donated to one of several charities around the world that Hurtigruten supports.

Sunday, August 18, 2024: St. Paul, Alaska, U.S.A. (57.1208° N, 170.2830° W)

Last night I didn't sleep much as the ship was rocking and rolling the entire time as we chased a storm to the North of us. A new captain, came on board in Unalaska because the one we've had up to now, though honestly have hardly seen (also Norwegian), leaves us at Nome to go on his vacation. Last evening, this new captain explained the storm and that we might not be able to land on St. Paul today, but Plan B would be to circumnavigate it so that we could at least have a distant view (and no doubt smell) of the colonies of birds and Northern Fur Seals. Landing on St. Matthew would seem to be possible still, so the plan is to get there tomorrow and then arrive in Nome one day early to avoid an even stronger storm and make sure those passengers flying home from Nome get their flights on time. This will mean that the ship will be speeding up and therefore the voyage will likely be rocky. No mention has so far be made of the International Dateline or King Island, both of which had been originally planned for Tuesday, August the 20th, or indeed Hall Island originally planned for tomorrow together with St. Matthew Island. I'm guessing we'll be missing these, but visibility is very poor today anyway. Finally, somewhere near 8 a.m. while I was still in bed, there was an announcement that they had cancelled the landing on St. Paul and although they had said they would circumnavigate it they did not inform us of the timing of this. When I had looked out my cabin window at 8:00 a.m., it was still dark, so I couldn't even see any land. When I got to breakfast about a half hour later, there was some land in the distance but I kept on waiting for an announcement that they would go around the island so we could photograph it, but said announcement never came. I went down to ask the videographer, but he didn't have a clue. Finally, sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 there was an announcement that the island and its seal colony were now visible from the bow of the ship, which meant putting on my cold weather gear. And, if one squinted, one could just about make out an impression of seals (or perhaps only black rocks) on the shoreline, but it was absolutely impossible, even with my 2000mm lens, to capture anything at all. So, so much for all the hype. Perhaps we'll have better luck tomorrow at St. Matthew.

Monday, August 19, 2024: St. Matthew Island, Alaska, U.S.A. (60.4196° N, 172.7448° W)

St. Matthew is an uninhabited, remote island in the Bering Sea in Alaska. The entire island's natural scenery and wildlife is protected as it is part of the Bering Sea unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The only mammals that live on it are Arctic Foxes and Insular Voles. There is perhaps a reason for it being uninhabited by humans. The climatic conditions in the entire Bering Sea Area, according to the National Climatic Data Center (1986), is reported as maritime with “considerable wind and cool, humid and cloudy conditions” with a mean annual temperature of 37.8 degrees F (3.2 degrees C) and an annual precipitation on St. Matthew Island of 15.3 in (390 mm). The vegetation however, was lush, no trees but a wonderful, springy moss-like ground cover classified as wet, moist and alpine tundra. As for birdlife, hmm ... had I time and better weather, I might have gotten some great photos. Wikipedia talks of significant populations of endemic and migratory birds on St. Matthew Island, which the Department of the Interior has called “one of the richest seabird nesting colonies in the world,” with over five million seabirds nesting during breeding season. Over 140 different species of birds have been identified on the island, along with its small satellites Hall Island and Pinnacle Rock, containing the entire breeding range of McKay's bunting, while additionally, a subspecies of rock sandpiper (Calidris ptilocnemis ptilocnemis) and a subspecies of gray-crowned rosy finch (Leucosticte tephrocotis umbrina) breed only on the island and the nearby Pribilof Islands. Both McKay's bunting and Calidris ptilocnemis ptilocnemis, with their restricted breeding ranges, are among the rarest birds in North America, making their preservation among the top priorities for conservation groups.

  

  

  

  

We landed on the island in our zodiacs in two groups and had about 90 minutes there. I climbed up on the mossy verge to higher ground first and photographed some of the flowers and mosses. One of the expedition team was up at the top and was telling us he could see an Arctic Fox down below on rocks. I couldn't for the life of me spot it, so asked if he would photograph it with my camera if I gave him credit for it, so you will see that here too. His name is Avery P... (a long Polish name I wasn't about to ask him to spell for me, but he was happy with my suggestion of Avery P.). He also asked to borrow it to photograph an Insular Vole (rather shy and about the size of a field mouse) but it had no doubt popped down one of the million or so vole holes by the time I handed over the apparatus to him. I then walked back down and along the black volcanic sand to photograph some of the sandpipers in the stream and then to the far end of the beach near the promontory where hundreds of birds were nesting and where the ship's ornithologist was holding court. However, I was unable to capture either flying birds or swimming birds with my camera, despite attempting to. The man was constantly pointing out three different types of puffins in flight. When I finally peeled myself away and climbed onto one of the zodiacs, our driver Misty took us for a (much too brief) visit of the promontory of nesting birds and pointed out Common Murres, dapper, black-and-white seabirds that nest in raucous throngs on crowded sea cliffs and are often described as 'flying penguins,' as they have a tuxedoed appearance, but are actually relatives of auks and puffins. There were also tufted puffins, which you may just manage to see in one of these photos. Nevertheless, the zodiac was moving the entire time, so any serious photography was absolutely impossible. I should probably clarify that although the island was actually visible from the ship when the first zodiacs went out around 8:00 a.m. (the first photo here), the fog soon came in and visibility was seriously compromised. This too should be evident from the photos.

  

  

  

  

Tuesday, August 20, 2024: Nome, Alaska, U.S.A. (64.5006° N, 165.4086° W)

Before our arrival on land this afternoon, I attended two special events on board. First was a video presentation of our Vancouver to Nome journey taken by the ship's official photographer and videographer. It was excellent and I recognized most of it. The best thing is they will send us a link to it so that we can share it with our friends and family, which, of course, is additionally a strong marketing tool for them. At the same session, we were told who of the expedition team members and other officers and senior crew were leaving at Nome, including the Executive Chef, the Food and Beverage Manager, the Housekeeping Manager, and all eight of the Alaskan zodiac drivers.

We Pole-to-Pole guests were also invited to a special meeting accompanied by a glass or two of Argentinean sparkling wine to announce an itinerary change that had just come up. As the ship needs to replace a part sometime before we start our leg to the Antarctic, our Boston to Miami leg will be somewhat different. We will only have a few hours in Boston instead of an entire day (which means I'll have to cancel my proposed meeting with an old graduate school chum), arriving there on September 19th instead of September 21st, and will miss our visit to Martha's Vineyard, much to my chagrin. Then we will hurry to Charleston, South Carolina, (a state I have not yet been to, as it happens) arriving there on September 22, where the ship will enter dry dock, and we passengers will be put up for two nights in a Hilton hotel and taken on various tours of this city of antebellum architecture, tea gardens, and plantations, and learn about the slave era. We will also receive an onboard credit for the inconvenience, which is, of course, always welcome.

So, on the whole, happy with the news, although it will be a shame not to see my friend in Boston, and to miss Martha's Vineyard, we arrived in Nome, whose motto is “There's no place like Nome,” during lunch time. While we awaited clearance, I took part with a team that consisted of myself, a couple from Washington State, a couple from Australia, and a German man, in the second event: the trip quiz. I wrote down our team's answers and we ended up with 21 points out of a possible 30. The winning team - a couple on their own - had 24 points. The quiz was divided into three sections, and the questions were all based on our trip, and what we had learned during it, such as the wildlife, geography, history, culture of Alaska, and then facts about Hurtigruten and its crew.

Busses arrived to take us into town at 3:00 p.m. Nome came about originally due to the discovery of gold and today they still mine this mineral in the Bering Sea off floating dredges and through holes in the sea ice. Gold was initially discovered on the beaches in 1898, and then three Swedes, called Erik Landblom, John Bynteson and Jafet Lindeborg (who was actually Norwegian), discovered it in Anvil Creek just a few miles from Nome proper. In 1898, Nome was the biggest town in Alaska, with a population of 20,000, while now it's about 3,700, although it increases in the summer when people still come to sift sands for gold. To me, it appears bleak and poor with wooden houses on raised wooden platforms. Apparently, snow covers the land from November to April and temperatures can go down to 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Apparently, at 19 degrees below, the school children are still sent outside at recess, but at 20 degrees below they are allowed to stay inside! It is about 7 degrees Celsius today, which is about 45 degrees Fahrenheit; dry but a bit of a wind. A few native Indigenous people were hanging about in clumps, one of whom approached me cautiously on the street and offered to sell me something. I gathered it was not weed, but I had to ask him twice what he was offering and finally understood him to say a piece of baleen whale. So, I politely said no thank you and moved on. Talking of weed, there was a weed store on the main street, Front Street, and some European tourists were proudly photographing themselves outside it. I'm assuming it's still illegal where they live. We were initially dropped off outside the visitors' centre, inside of which they had a number of free brochures, one of which was a 156-page Nome Area Wildlife Viewing Guide containing masses of photos. They also had a stuffed Musk Ox (Ovibos moschatus) in a glass display case and I was surprised to learn that it is more closely related to sheep and goats than to oxen. It is known for its warm wool, tuffs of which, as the animals moult, get caught on trees and bushes. Locals collect it and spin it into yarn and then knit hair bands, toques, and scarves with it. Thinking that this would be a unique yet useful gift, I later enquired at the nearby souvenir shop but was surprised to learn that such knitted apparel was in the USD200 to 400 range. I then asked about just buying a skein of the wool with the idea of knitting something myself, but was told a skein would cost me USD225 and it was only enough to knit myself a neck piece or head band, so I dropped that idea. Also at the visitors' centre, a group of young Alaska University students were conducting a survey about visitor awareness regarding bringing invasive foreign plant life into Arctic areas. One of the questions on the six-page survey asked me to list all the countries I'd been to in the last 12 months, and I managed to come up with 26!

  

  

  

From there, I walked down Front Street, which “has been the business district of Nome since the Gold Rush. In 1900, the street was lined with businesses, bars and bunkhouses. A miner could buy anything, from French lingerie to a hot bath,” according to one sign I read. Its electricity poles were decorated with artwork of huskies as Nome is the official finishing spot for the annual 1,049-mile Iditarod Dog Sled Race, which starts in Anchorage and has been going on for 52 years. I had first heard about said race during a Princess cruise I had taken some years ago during which we'd had a stop in Anchorage. Dog mushing is a popular activity all year round and is a traditional mode of transportation in Native culture. About 50 percent of Nome's population identifies as Alaskan Native, hailing from Inupiaq, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, or Yupik heritage and apparently there are variants in language. It was, in fact, two Inupiaq boys, who showed the three Swedes the location of the gold deposit near Nome. Being native, they were denied the right to stake claims or to benefit from the find due to the law in the Gold Rush era. Natives were in fact not granted citizenship in the United States until 1924, by which time most resources had been extracted and gold strikes had ceased. In one of the photos displayed for today, you will see statues of the three so-called 'Swedes' (photo 15) and another of the two Inupiaq boys (photo 20). The statue in photo 6 is of the Alaska Territorial Guard from 1942 to 1947. The other prominent statue you'll see below is of Roald Amundsen, famous Arctic (Northwest Passage) and Antarctic Explorer, after whom our ship was named.

  

  

  

As I walked around town, I was noticing the multitude of flowers in strange large metal pots and later learned that these pots were in fact part of the dredging machines used to dig gravel out of the ground in search for gold. I was also interested to note signs in support of Democrats for the upcoming election. I saw no signs supporting Republicans. Apparently, the locals are voting this week for the primaries in the lead up to the November election. My final visits today were to the two souvenir shops in town, both of which had lots on offer. One told me they get several cruise ships visiting: one other besides ours was expected this week and there were six more visiting in September. We were told by the ship not to buy anything from the general stores (there was a Safeway inside a trading store) because these supplies were needed to feed the local populations and the only way supplies got into Nome were via sea and via air. Also, they explained, once supplies were brought into Nome, it was difficult to get them out again, which is why there were so many pieces of rotting machinery lying out on the landscape. One of the souvenir shops had this sign on its door: “Nome, AK, We're all here because we're not all there.” You will see the other sign I liked from this shop as photo 24 for today. It was at the second shop, in the post office building, where I first saw an example of a carved 'Oosik' and a poem that went with it. I enquired and it was not for sale, but it had originally come from the first souvenir shop next to the Visitors' Centre, and if I asked nicely, I might even find a copy of the poem that was displayed above the object in question. So, thinking that this might be an interesting piece of art that one could use to start a conversation, back to the previous store I went, and was shown a total of four carved Oosiks of differing lengths. But as the prices varied from USD600 to USD1,400, they too were out of my price range. So, what is this item you ask? Well, the poem I shall reproduce here will explain all and as a caveat, it is probably not something you would want to read out to your children. Kudos to Maruskiya's of Nome who owns the copyright from 1973. Please note that I did edit the punctuation to more accepted rules. The objects in question appear in photo 23 below.

Ode to an Oosik

Strange things have been done in the Midnight Sun,
and the story books are full,
but the strangest tale concerns the male,
magnificent walrus bull!

I know it's rude, quite common, and crude,
and perhaps it is grossly unkind,
but with first glance, at least, this bewhiskered beast
is as ugly in front as behind.

Look once again, take a second look, then
you'll see he's not ugly or vile.
There's a hint of a grin, in that blubbery chin,
and the eyes have a sly, secret smile.

How can this be, this clandestine glee
that exudes from the walrus like music?
He knows, there inside, beneath blubber and hide
lies a splendid contrivance: the Oosik!

The “Oosik” you say, and quite well you may.
I'll explain if you keep it between us.
In the simplest truth, though rather uncouth,
the “Oosik” is, in fact, his penis!

Now the size alone of this walrus bone
would indeed arouse envious thinking.
It is also a fact, documented, and backed,
there is never a softening or shrinking!

This, then, is why the smile is so sly.
The walrus is rightfully proud.
Though the climate is frigid, the walrus is rigid.
Pray, why is not man so endowed?

Added to this, is a smile you might miss.
Though the bull is entitled to bow,
the one to out-smile our bull by a mile
is the satisfied walrus cow!

  

  

Wednesday, August 21, 2024: Nome, Alaska, U.S.A. (64.5006° N, 165.4086° W)

Inupiak Word of the Day: Quyanaq (Thank you). Today was the official end of leg one of our Pole-to-Pole Expedition. We have so far travelled around 5,288 nautical miles. The ship organized us into six groups: first, groups one and two left for the airport to check into their charter flight. About an hour later, groups three and four did the same. However, all four of these groups, after airport check-in, were bussed back into town for an hour tour and then lunch at a hall called Old Joe's, which used to be one of the two Catholic Churches in town. Then it was our turn, also two groups, one of the Pole to Polers and the other group consisted of passengers who were doing both the Vancouver to Nome and the Nome to Halifax legs. The weather, as predicted, was pretty nasty: it was raining, the wind was blowing, and foam was being blown into town from the sea. We were hoping that the bus tour would come across musk ox en route, but this was unfortunately not the case, probably due to the weather. Meanwhile, we were shown (from the bus) an active dredger, which seemed to be their pride and joy, as well as the high school (grades 6 to 12) cum sports complex and swimming pool.

We were dropped off at the local community centre, where there were hot and cold drinks and demonstrations of gold panning, which I did not listen to, and dog mushing including information about the Iditarod Race by a musher and four of his dogs: a mother (Sparky), her two daughters, and her son. Her daughters looked exactly like her while the male was larger and had golden fur. I listened for a while but eventually the smell of the dogs got to me, so I had to move away. I decided to take the shuttle to the Foster Building, which contained a museum and culture centre, which was very interesting. It was there that I learned that all the seal and walrus ivory was protected by CITES and did not allow for exportation into Canada or any of the European countries other passengers were from, so it's surprising they sold so much in their souvenir shops. Of course it was lovely to look at, nonetheless. And probably similar stuff will be available in Canada anyway (good news for Canadians but still prohibited for Europeans). I spent about a half hour there and took a few photos, interested by one or two displays, in particular about the Indigenous languages and clothing. There was one display about the local words for the months of the year, which I will try to reproduce here.

  

  

Two items of clothing that caught my eye were snow goggles “to protect the eyes from reflected light when traveling over ice and snow ... handmade of caribou hoof for the lenses, leather and thread for the band” and a Qawilidaq, a “headband made from muskrat and sealskin ... designed to protect a hunter's eyes from freezing, and to keep the forehead warm.”

Finally, one description I read on the museum wall is also worth transcribing here, I think. It comes from Through the Yukon & Alaska by T.A. Rickard in 1909 and is called Dogs & the Art of Survival in Nome in 1909.

“Dogs make Nome lively, especially at night. A fire on Sesnon's Wharf incited the dogs to a special outbreak of howling on an otherwise quiet night. The noise was something between the sad plaint of friends in Hell and the caterwauling of felines on the garden wall. The outcry was especially weird when it became faint, as if in hopeless agony.

'Huskies' and 'Malamutes' roam on every street and alley of Nome. Huski is a native word for Eskimo and Malamute is the name of a tribe at the mouth of the Yukon [River]. These dogs are stocky and sturdy, extremely muscular and longhaired so they are well fitted to pull sleds over snow.

When on the trail in winter the dogs are fed with dried salmon, one fish weighing two pounds being given to each dog. After the fish, the dogs are fed with 3/4 of a pound of fat bacon of the cheapest variety. Some men cook a mixture of salmon, rice or cornmeal and bacon drippings. When cooled, this mess is arranged in little mounds on the snow at regular distances, so that the dogs may not poach on one another's allotment. They will eat anything fat, such as lard or tallow, the appetite for such food being developed both by man and beast through adaptation to a cold environment. If the bacon is not rendered out before being mixed with the cooked food, a clever dog will go from one pile to another and use his paw to pick out the scraps of bacon. This will lead to fighting, of course, for the dogs recognize no friend except the man who feeds them.

When fish is fed dry to the dogs, it is first thawed by being broiled slightly over a fire, so as to bring the oil to the surface. When on the trail, dogs are fed once a day, at the end of the run; if fed in the morning, they become torpid.

Travelers must take care not to be frost-bitten in winter when 'mushing' with a dog-team. In extremely cold weather, especially when windy, a patch of rabbit skin with hair attached, is put on the tip of the nose and on each cheek bone. This will delay freezing. The fur is moistened and becomes attached on the hairy side, the idea being that it protects the spots on the face where freezing would otherwise start.

The natives wear wooden spectacles or a wooden eye-mask, with a slit for each eye, to guard against snow-blindness. If blinded by the glare of snow, a bit of raw meat or even raw potato serves as to lessen the inflammation.

When traveling in the North during winter, care must also be taken not to become so hot as to perspire, for if a man becomes warm and then stops to rest, the moisture freezes and he is in danger of a sudden chill, leading to pneumonia. The aim is to keep cool without becoming cold. When on the march, the outer garments are doffed as soon as the traveler becomes warm, the experienced men usually wearing only a drill parka to protect them from the wind, leaving the fur parka for the time when they are weary or when their vitality has run down.

Great care is taken of the feet, to keep them warmly clad. A man with frost-bitten toes in the wilderness of snow is in a bad plight. Ordinary socks, 'German socks', straw in the sole, and then 'mukluks' over everything, constitute the best footgear.

The malamute dogs are miserable in the summer, but full of life in winter. On the wildest night that blows, a malamute will lie where the wind will strike him fair. They are extraordinarily hardy. By service with the sleds they develop into lively bundles of muscle; they enjoy their work in harness and run like spirited horses, so that the driver is compelled to apply his brake. The usual price of good malamute is $50, although some of the dogs in the celebrated race brought $400 to $500 apiece.”

  

  

After visiting the Carrie M. McLain Museum, Bering Land Bridge National Preserve/ National Park Service Visitor Center and local craft fair at the Ricard Foster Building, and having just missed a shuttle bus, I decided to brave the cold wind and walk to the Catholic church conversion for our group's lunch served by the locals. Then, I wandered back to the main souvenir shop to ask about those special goggles and to see if they sold them. They didn't have any currently, but the shop proprietress phoned up one of their artists to see if he could deliver some and to find out the price, but they too were out of my range being USD500. In any case, as they were made of seal parts among other CITES prohibited animal parts, I would not have been able to import them into Canada either. Instead, I found that about the only souvenir of any interest that I could import into Canada would be earrings made of mammoth bone. As mammoths were extinct, there was no longer any threat to them and these objects were quite economical. As I was there, I got to talking to a French couple, and we found out the proprietress also spoke some French in addition to Spanish (she had been a school teacher of Spanish), and was now learning Portuguese as she was about to impart on her fourth Santiago de Compostela walk, this time from Lisbon. She also told us she spent her winters in Texas, where she has a second house, and only came to Nome in the summer/cruise ship visiting and other tourist visitor months. I imagine her shop must do significant business should this be the case! Then growing tired of all the talking I was doing, and the socialising, I walked back to the hospitality center on Front Street to await a shuttle bus back to the ship. However, we were met with the news that the ship was now unboardable due to the high waves and we would have to wait inside the hospitality center until the weather was expected to calm, around 5:00 p.m. I was joined at my table by some of the new passengers joining the ship today. Two single travelling women sat either side of me, one from Toronto who'd already travelled to the Antarctic with Hurtigruten last February, and one from Prince Rupert, who'd done a lot of solo traveling, period. We were also joined by an elderly couple from Melbourne, Australia, who'd done the Hurtigruten Antarctica trip last January. When the weather became no better, we were asked to continue to be patient and around 5:30 p.m., two members of the expedition team, who were there to look after us, informed us they would now order pizza, wine, and beer for us courtesy of the ship (but that we would still be served dinner once we were on board). This kept us busy and entertained until finally I think it was 7:30 p.m. or so they said they would try to embark those passengers who had arrived by plane in Nome today, while we Pole to Polers and the others who'd been on the Vancouver to Nome voyage would still need to be patient for a bit longer. Apparently, we were 80 passengers left behind at that point in Nome, and although the ship had been looking at other options, there were only 12 rooms available in Nome's two hotels. Well, the upshot was that the new passengers boarded safely, and it was now thought that we as the final group could too. Many members of the expedition team were on the pier outside the ship (it had stopped raining at least) to help us up the gang plank (not all that difficult really) and finally we were all on board. They postponed the safety drill until 9:00 p.m. (it had originally been scheduled for 5:30 p.m.), after which we were invited to join an information session in the Deck 10 lounge. At said meeting, we were told we might be leaving Nome at 10:00 p.m. since we had been given the all clear, but that if the weather was still iffy at that point, we would plan to leave at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. They were not all that concerned about the late departure given that we had four days at sea before we would reach Herschel Island off the coast of and belonging to the Yukon, so the ship could be sped up or slowed down at will, depending on requirements. Needless to say, I did not need dinner on the ship and got to bed at a fairly reasonable hour, only noticing that we had not left Nome at 10:00 p.m.

Thursday, August 22, 2024: Diomede Islands, Alaska, U.S.A. (65.7522° N, 168.9243° W)

Our ship finally left Nome at about 10:00 a.m. this morning. We are now 277 passengers and 150 crew. Given that we have four sea days ahead of us, I was hoping to work on my book translations, but have instead today been distracted by various lectures and presentations, some of which had been exclusive to Pole-to-Pole guests like myself. The first presentation I watched was about life on board. Then there was an introduction to the Cultural & History Program (first for the Pole-to-Pole guests and then it was repeated for everyone else, so I watched it twice.) Just before dinner, there was the Captain's welcome drink, at which we were introduced to a lot of new staff, including a total of four polar bear guards, (by which I understood they will accompany us on our landings and will be carrying rifles to protect us from any polar bears that come too close!) and, in the evening, an overview of the voyage, at which the cultural ambassadors introduced themselves for the third time.

So now I will talk more about these cultural ambassadors of various ages and sexes as well as origins. All identified as Canadian Inuit, one of three Indigenous Groups in Canada: the First Nations, formerly called Indians, of which there are 639 groups in Canada, the Métis, which were the offspring of First Nations and the French Voyageurs and had their own culture and language, and the Inuit (formerly called Eskimos). These particular ambassadors stem from the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Labrador. The eldest is in her sixties and the youngest is a teenager. Some now live in Ottawa. Inuktitut is a language, Inuuk is one individual person, Inook are two people, and the Inuit are three or more people. There is an Inuit Circumpolar Council made up of Inuit peoples living in Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland and yes, interpreters are used for communication for their council meetings as not all Inuit peoples speak the same language or dialects, although Inuit are usually able to communicate with the groups they live beside map-wise. Nunavut, created in 1999, is a region that used to be part of Northwest Territories. Various land claim agreements created various communities and as of 2021 there were 70,000 Inuit in Canada, although 27% live outside the Inuit territory, i.e. in the big cities (for the most part various provincial capital cities). Two of these ambassadors are National Film Board of Canada film stars. Nataq (aka Nathaniel) Ungalaq (original Eskimo registration number E-1653) is the star of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner while Martha Flaherty (original Eskimo registration number E-1900) is the star of Martha of the North and the granddaughter of the person who made the silent film Nanook of the North in 1922. To explain these registration numbers, they were like dogtags issued to Eskimos up until 1962, at which time they were allowed to use their own last names although the government sometimes transliterated these names incorrectly so that blood siblings sometimes go by different spellings of their last names. The E designated that they were from the Eastern side while W numbers were assigned to people from the Western side of the territory of Canada. These Inuit are also divided by language, dialects, and different styles of clothing though, on the ship, of course, they are all wearing the same clothing as we are. Although they do now have words for good morning, good afternoon, and so on, (we will be given an Inuit greeting of the day in our daily program as the trip goes on ), they usually greet each other by raising their eyebrows and smiling (like Filipinos do). While the older members of this group will be talking about their experiences in residential schools, (of which there were about 100, started in the 1970s all over Canada, and whose last one closed in 1996 - boarding and day schools alike, and one apology for which was issued by the Canadian government in 2008), story telling, ivory art, their government displacement, and hopefully showing the two films they were in, the younger ambassadors will talk about Inuit games, throat singing, art, tattoos, and various sundry they have learned about their traditional culture that they were not necessarily exposed to from birth. All exciting stuff indeed, and, for me, an unexpected plus to our passage through Canadian lands north of the Arctic Circle.

Now to give you an introduction to the two films mentioned above, and which I found online, never having heard about them before. “Martha of the North is the story of a journey, and a childhood spent in a new and unwelcoming land. Martha was only five when she and her parents were lured away from their Inuit village. Along with a handful of other families, they were moved to Canada's most northerly island, Ellesmere, to ensure Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic” (because, we were told, Russia was trying to claim these lands for itself). “They were told that game would be plentiful, and life would be easy. Instead, they discovered that the islands of the Arctic are among the least hospitable to human life in the world. For years, they endured hunger and extreme cold.” (When they arrived, Martha told us they had no housing, no food and it was pitch black.) “Deprived of the right to an education and a childhood, Martha had to help her family survive. Yet she proved as resilient as the other people from her community who appear in the film.”

“Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner is a 2001 Canadian epic film [and] the first feature film ever to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language. Set in the ancient past, the film retells an Inuit legend passed down through centuries of oral tradition. It revolves around the title character, whose marriage with his two wives earns him the animosity of the son of the band leader, who kills Atanarjuat's brother and forces Atanarjuat to flee by foot. The film premiered at the 54th Cannes Film Festival in May 2001, and was released in Canada on 12 April 2002. A major critical success, Atanarjuat won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes, and six Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture. Atanarjuat was also a commercial success, becoming Canada's top-grossing release of 2002, outperforming the mainstream comedy Men with Brooms. It grossed more than USD5 million worldwide. In 2015, a poll of filmmakers and critics in the Toronto International Film Festival named it the greatest Canadian film of all time. It also topped the CBC's 2023 list of the Fifty Greatest Films Directed by Canadians.”

At 10:40 p.m. there was a bit of a bump as we crossed over the Arctic Circle (66°33'47.5“ North) and, despite the late hour, an announcement was made in our cabins to inform us of the fact.

Friday, August 23, 2024: Bering Sea, Alaska, U.S.A.

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Ullaakut (Good Morning). Today being another sea day, I worked on my travelogue, which I am now rather behind on, there being so many interesting lectures to attend. Our first lecture this morning was from our resident ornithologist and was all about the arctic life we were likely to encounter up here above the Arctic Circle. Land will include high and low tundra and the continental ice cap, with little plant life apart from perhaps prickly saxifrage, though there would be insects such as mosquitoes, midges, and black flies, which are, of course, food sources for the birds. As summer is basically over in the Arctic, wildlife diversity in general will be low. There may, however, be occasional song birds such as Snowbunting, American Pipit, and Lapland Lonspur, but also Common Ravens, Rock Ptarmigan, which, like the Arctic Hare, Arctic Fox, and Gyrfalcon, turn white to camouflage themselves against the snow. There may also be Snowy Owls and their prey of rodents, namely Lemmings, as well as Hawks, Jaegers, Gulls, Terns, Guillemots, Eider, Geese, Loons, Murres and a few Puffins. We then had the Arctic Circle crossing ceremony, complete with Neptune/Poseidon (or as the Norwegians call him Njörd), bare chested and in a toga (brrr), with a narwhal whale horn (which I learned is a long spiral tusk of the male narwhal and one of a pair of canine teeth positioned horizontally in the animal's skull. It has been determined it is a canine and not an incisor because the tusk originates in the narwhal's maxillary bone, where canine teeth in mammals originate) and the captain ready with a bowl of ice to pour down the necks, or over the heads, of willing passengers, who wished to be baptised, and who were rewarded afterwards for their bravery with a shot of brandy.

  

  

In the afternoon, I attended a lecture from the new ship's photographer about capturing photos with a smart phone, and learned a few things I wasn't aware of. We had another meeting with our Inuit cultural ambassadors, which was more of a question-and-answer period. I gather they will start to give lectures individually tomorrow. Sometime in the afternoon, we were informed there were humpback whales on both sides of the ship, so I am displaying what I captured, though it is, of course, difficult to take good photos as the mammals are constantly moving. As per our lecture yesterday, signs of whale activity are the regular bouts of steam coming from their blow holes, the amassed gathering of birds, who are after the prey the whales bring up from lower depths, and, of course, fins and flukes (tails). As this is all I got, I am showing them now, though, of course, I hope there may be better photographs to display later on in the trip. I then joined the knitting group, handed in the five squares I have knitted so far, and started a sixth with the same ball of wool, and then picked up a new ball, and slightly thicker needles to make more. At this session, I met a woman knitting to my left from Friedrichshafen am Bodensee, a place in Southern Germany I had worked at back in my 20s, and found that the Hafenbahnhof I had worked as a Buffetdame at was still in operation though the restaurant I had worked in was temporarily closed for renovation. To my right was a younger woman from Britain whose partner (not on board) is Argentinean. She was onboard with her entire family of mother, two sisters, brother-in-law and two nephews, and the latter two were learning how to knit at this same session. We found out among us that there were two ways of knitting. The way I was taught by my British grandmother, which seems to be unsurprisingly British and also used in North America, Australia and New Zealand, while the German, Swiss, (and perhaps other continental European countries) hold the needles in the opposite hands and basically knit left to right instead of right to left. Just before dinner, we received a letter about our newly arranged schedule for Charleston, South Carolina, and the tours and hotel information, plus a list of tours we could book for the rest of the Pole-to-Pole trip after Halifax. I found most of the included trips satisfactory but did find five extra optional ones I was interested in, though, of course, they are dependent upon numbers booked, weather, etc. etc.

Saturday, August 24, 2024: At Sea near Point Barrow/Nuvuk, Alaska, U.S.A. (71.3875° N, 156.4711° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Unnusakkut (Good Afternoon). At breakfast I noticed our ship was stopped, and then, on the way back to my cabin, saw the ship's doctor (a large Nigerian) coming down the hall toward me together with the ship's captain, so realized something was afoot. A few minutes later, an announcement was made over the tannoy that one of the passengers needed urgent medical attention, so a helicopter was coming to the ship to pick him up. Crew then knocked on my cabin door to bring the chairs and tables on my balcony inside so that they would not be bounced around by the helicopter blades. We are apparently stopped somewhere near Point Barrow or Nuvuk, a headland on the Arctic coast in the U.S. state of Alaska, the northernmost point in the U.S.A. and nine miles northeast of “Utqiagvik formerly known as Barrow [which] is the borough seat and largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska” with a population of just under 5,000, so I suppose it contains adequate medical facilities for said patient. In fact, this operation took until just after 1:00 p.m. to complete! It is to be hoped that we can now speed up and catch up to our original schedule so as to arrive at Herschel Island in the Yukon on Monday as programmed.

After lunch, I attended a lecture entitled Understanding Canadian Inuit Culture, which was eye-opening for me, never having been taught anything about Inuit culture in school when I was a child, except perhaps that they lived in igloos and hunted seals. Presented by Heidi Metcalfe, who advocates for Inuit in Ottawa, but has traveled to most communities in Nunavut, we were first shown a map differentiating the Inuvialut, Nunavut, Nunavik (in Northern Quebec) and Nunatsiavut (in Northern Labrador). Nuna means land, Nunavut means our land and Nunasiavut means our beautiful land. A documentary to watch to understand the James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement with the First Nations and Inuit is called So That You Can Stand. Heidi explained that there are no roads in and out of Nunavut, the cost of food is more than three times the cost of food in Southern Canada, hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering are still practiced and they have developed from Igloo to Ipad in 70 years. Inuit land claim agreements and rights make up 36% of Canada's land mass, the average age of the Inuit worldwide is 25.5, while it is 40.5 for the Inuit in Canada, the Inuit put an emphasis on community values, and they are one of the fastest growing populations in Canada. For fishing they don't use bait, they just drop an empty hook into the ice and the fish bite. They also catch narwhal and it is one of the most delicious meats available. Whatever hunting they do, their catch is shared with the community.

Another slide of the presentation listed the issues faced by some Inuit. First of all, there is the language barrier, but they are taught four languages at school, English and French being two of them, the others being Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun (Inuit languages), Inuit meaning 'the people' in Inuktitut. Some of their recent history was shocking to me as I was unaware. There was forced relocation of the Inuit - a subject that will be covered later in the journey by Martha and her above-mention film. Regarding tuberculosis, the rates of TB among Inuit is 400 times that of most white people, and once they were diagnosed, they were sent to sanatoria in Southern Canada. If they died on the way, they were buried and their family was never notified either of the death or the burial site. If they managed to survive the sanatorium stay and were released, they were not given any help to get back to their village. This is illustrated by another film on these sanatoria called The Necessities of Life. The Residential Schools we have heard about were true for the Inuit and the First Nations and this subject was brought to light more recently by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This is where children were forcibly removed from their families and sent far away to schools run by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the Canadian government. More about these can be learned at the Legacy of Hope Foundation. The intention of these residential schools was to take the Indian/Inuit out of the child. The Inuit were also subject to Project Naming, which was also touched on a few paragraphs ago. This project was wound down in the late 1970s. Then there were the dogsled slaughters. In the Inuit communities we will visit, dogs are not pets but working animals. But at some stage the R.C.M.P. killed 100,000 dogs in a very short time although the R.C.M.P. has stated that this was not a policy of theirs. The dogs were shot so as to force the Inuit into communities and to become wage-earning employees instead of semi-nomadic hunters. There is apparently a pdf on line that talks about this dogsled slaughter.

Three more shameful behaviours of the Canadian government toward the Inuit include medical experiments, a medical ship, and the sixties scoop. Medical experiments were conducted without the knowledge or consent of the Inuit. For instance, women who would go to the hospital to give birth were forcefully sterilized. This practice was supported by the church and by the government. There were also skin-graft experiments and once again there is a documentary to watch called The Experimental Eskimos. Medical ships started off being a great idea, providing onsite medical, dental and other treatment to Inuit so that they wouldn't have to travel down to hospitals in the south. However, the execution of the idea was another matter entirely. They were forced on board the ship, C.D. Howe, X-rays were taken, they would be examined by nurses, doctors, and dentists, but if the X-ray came back positive, patients would not be allowed to leave the ship. In this way, family members were separated and never seen again. Wikipedia describes it as follows: “C.D. Howe operated as a hospital ship, carrying two doctors, two dentists, and two nurses while travelling through the Arctic. The ship stopped at remote Aboriginal communities and provided medical services to the inhabitants, while also screening them for signs of tuberculosis. This was at times, performed against the will of the inhabitants, with the vessel forcibly removing those Aboriginals who were considered by the medical professionals aboard to need further care. The forcible removal of some of those patients, sometimes without warning to family members, caused distress among the remote populations, causing some to flee the sight of the ship upon its arrival in Aboriginal communities.” The Sixties Scoop, on the other hand, had to do with a policy started in the 1960s, which still continues today, whereby Indigenous children are removed from families, supposedly for reasons of abuse, neglect, or a lack of resources, and adopted by non-Indigenous families. For the first two years, these children would be in foster care and the law gives families two years to fight the court so as to get their children back. After these two years (and the courts are famously slow), they are transferred from the foster system to the adoption system. Again according to Wikipedia, “The Sixties Scoop, also known as The Scoop, was a period in which a series of policies were enacted in Canada that enabled child welfare authorities to take, or 'scoop up,' Indigenous children from their families and communities for placement in foster homes, from which they would be adopted by white families. Despite its name referencing the 1960s, the Sixties Scoop began in the mid-to-late 1950s and persisted into the 1980s. It is estimated that a total of 20,000 Indigenous children were taken from their families and fostered or adopted out primarily to white middle-class families as part of the Sixties Scoop.”

Finally, the Inuit suffer not only from food insecurity, as already mentioned (prices being higher in Northern Canada compared to Southern Canada due to the fact that everything must come by air or sea), but also from a housing crisis. In an effort to solve the latter, in the 1970s, the government built what are known as matchbox houses, but these were of poor quality and not suitable for the elements, so there is a problem of mould. Moreover, one can find 14 people living in houses with three bedrooms. Finally, the way the Inuit raise their children does not sit well with the government welfare system. Inuit children have more freedom in that they can choose whether or not to go to school. Some of the parents of today's children were sent to residential schools, so, naturally there is a distrust of schools. Plus, they feel that the Inuit education should include learning to hunt and fish so as to support their families. They need to be outdoors to do this, so why keep children sitting for long hours inside schools learning information they will not require in their futures?

However, not all is negative. The Inuit also have their strengths: they are a tight-knit community, which is family focused, they are resourceful, have strong language skills and a strong culture. They are extremely resilient, as we have seen from their history, and have a deep respect for the land. We will be exposed to some of their culture over the coming days while we are sailing among their lands and visiting their communities, such as throat-singing, drumming, family group singing, and games, and we will also learn about their tattoos and the meaning behind them. I just hope we will be allowed to take masses of photos while we are there! I'll add here some information I found in a travel brochure. “For thousands of years, the Inuit have adapted to extreme conditions - hunting and trapping to ensure their survival. Relying on animals such as seal, whale, caribou and fish, they followed their movements - and their shelter, clothing and traditions reflected this nomadic lifestyle. Hunting, and the connection to the land, is at the very heart of Inuit culture and cultural history ... It was only around seven decades ago that the Inuit way of life started to undergo extensive change - they were leaving their camps and moving into settlements with permanent buildings.”

We were invited to a private cocktail party tonight for the Pole-to-Pole group, but I have a cold, am taking cold medication, and am not feeling my best so although I attended for the first few minutes to hear what the captain had to say - and he is apparently not staying with us the entire time so it looks like we will have a third captain before long - but left after a few minutes so I could instead finish up this travelogue for today as it has been a lot of information to consolidate. I hope you have learned from it as much as I have.

Sunday, August 25, 2024: Beaufort Sea, Alaska, U.S.A.

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Unnukkut (Good Evening). I was feeling quite lousy today after not sleeping well because of my cold and by the late afternoon, I had only one cold medicine tablet that I had brought with me left (expired in September 2023), so I went down to the ship's shop to see what over-the-counter medicines they had. Well, they had none, and, instead, I was asked to go to the onboard medical clinic. The latter had what I needed (from the UK) and sold me enough tablets for 2 days at 2 euros a tablet! These don't expire until 2026 so they should work better. I wore a mask when out in the public areas today so no one else could catch my cold and tried to minimize my impact on others. For instance, in the morning I was able to watch the AECO (Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators) & boat safety briefing, which was mandatory, and where we learned all about the precautions to take so as not to damage wildlife and to respect the people of the Arctic, among other things. We then had an in-person meeting for us Pole to Polers about the changes in our itinerary from Boston to Miami again - repetitive but they had managed to find photos of the places our included tours went to. I then watched a presentation of Inuit TV and Filmmaking by Nataq from my cabin but did not watch his film The Fast Runner part 1 in the evening because there is a change of time tonight: we will lose one hour and our group's landing on Herschel Island tomorrow is first thing. I also wasn't sure how my new medicine would work, so wanted to make sure I slept long enough to visit the island tomorrow. Besides, I discovered that there are several copies of this film available at the Vancouver Public Library, so I can watch it at my leisure in my own environment once I get home. I also managed to work on a couple of chapters of one of my book translations today.

Monday, August 26, 2024: Qikiqtaruk/Herschel Island, Yukon, Canada (69.5795° N, 139.0762° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Nunaryuam Qaangani Tariuq (Arctic Ocean). Finally, after four days at sea, we sighted land and we are now in Canada, the Yukon Territory, and the Inuit Land of Inuvialuit. I am looking forward to lectures on throat singing and clothing this afternoon. We had a briefing by one of the local park rangers from the Island before we were allowed to get off the ship via zodiacs wearing our new lifejackets (the others had been the thick, orange ones prescribed by the USA government, whereas now we have thin black ones that only inflate once they hit water and are therefore much more comfortable.) In any case, the park ranger, Richard, an Inuit, explained that the permafrost was fast receding, and the island had suffered from land slides so it is doubtful how long they can keep having tourists visit. This is the first time in three years that passengers on the Roald Amundsen have been able to land due to erosion and flooding issues AND it is a lovely, sunny today, finally, and a balmy 5 degrees Celsius. I think the last time we had sun was in Dutch Harbor! Nonetheless, I was bundled up in various layers of merino wool, though I found out my Hurtigruten jacket was not waterproof as I got splashed in my seat in the zodiak on the way back to the ship.

  

  

  

  

Herschel or Qikiqtaruk (meaning: it is island) Island, 'a haven in the ice pack,' its marketing says, although there was no ice pack today, “has always been a gathering place. Inuvialuit have used the site for thousands of years and remnants of old dwellings are still visible. In the late 1800s, American whalers established a station at Pauline Cove where ships were protected from storms and sea ice. Since then, the Anglican Church, Hudson's Bay Co., other fur traders, reindeer herders, the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, and the R.C.M.P. were all present on Herschel Island at some point in the past 100+ years. Today, Inuvialuit families continue to use the area for traditional activities, while researchers from around the world study the unique and rapidly changing Arctic environment.” Herschel Island became Yukon's first territorial park in 1987. I also heard someone say it is Yukon's only island. After getting off our zodiacs as we landed at Simpson Point (Kuvluraq), we were allowed to wonder around specific areas so as to minimize our impact on the land. According to a map I picked up in one of the buildings, this area contains historic structures, some of which were opened to us so we could have a look inside. These include the Northern Whaling and Trading Company Store (1926), the Canada Customs Bonded Warehouse (1926) a bonehouse, a blubberhouse, an Anglican Mission's House, various dwellings and ice houses, a sauna, three outhouses and separate graveyards for Whalers, Inuvialuit, and R.C.M.P. We were invited to take a boardwalk over wet areas, which made for great photography as buildings were reflected in the water, and over to the beach, which was filled with dark brown sand, pebbles, and driftwood. By following the beach, we would eventually reach a path going up the hills for the chance to see over everything but as we only had an hour on land, we had to choose what we wanted to see. I made it as far as the first steps along the path but then had to run part way back to the landing stage along the beach in order not to be late for our return zodiac. We were told we might see grizzly bears, polar bears, musk ox, and caribou, but the only animal I saw, and it had to be pointed out to me from the zodiac going back to the ship, was a Barren-ground Caribou with an impressive set of antlers on the horizon.

  

  

  

 

As mentioned above, I attended two lectures this afternoon, the first was about Inuit throat singing presented by Heidi and Ashley. Apparently, there are three types of throat songs. Competition songs are where two (usually) women stand and sing together facing each other and try to make the other one laugh. Then there are lullabies and imitation songs, the latter imitating the wind, river, wolf, seagulls, etc. in the environment. There's even one that imitates a saw. Throat-singing was nearly lost until the Northern Quebec Inuit, who had kept up with it, revived it and shared it with the rest of the Inuit. After demonstrating a few songs with her Inuit colleagues, Heidi then divided the audience in half and had us repeat the word 'humma.' Our side started and then the other side came in with the syllable 'hum' when our side was saying 'ma.' And then she gave instructions to vary the volume and the speed at times. The other lecture was on Inuvialuit clothing changes over time by Catherine Navalut Cockney, who talked about parkas, leggings, mukluks and gloves as well as her mother's Mackenzie Delta braid work using bias tape. She was hoping to show us some of her own traditional clothing, but unfortunately her luggage hadn't arrived in time to get onto the ship. There was a lot of animal fur used in the past - such as wolverine, caribou hide, or bearded seal hide for the soles of mukluks - it was very labour intensive, and they used the sinew of caribou to sew the pieces together. The fur was worn on the inside. Nowadays they still use some fur (wolverine and wolf, especially) but it is mostly used as trim around the hoods or at the base of parkas or dresses. They now also use sewing machines and incorporate zippers. Anything made with real fur is difficult to maintain. The hair can fall out, and the natural oils in the furs will cause the skins to disintegrate.

Tuesday, August 27, 2024: Smoking Hills, Northwest Territories, Canada (70.2526° N, 127.2078° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Siku (Ice). Today, due to two time changes for yesterday and today, I slept in and did not wake until 11:00 a.m. local NWT time. My cabin stewardess and one of the waiters were concerned for me, came to see if I needed anything, and brought me some ginger tea and more kleenex tissues. I had lunch in the restaurant and got down to work. At about 2:00 p.m., our ship met its sister ship Fridtjof Nansen, which was on its way to Nome from Greenland, doing the Northwest Passage in reverse. The reason for the meeting was to switch over some of the zodiacs as the U.S. has some specific certifications where they are concerned, so it was easier to meet in the middle of the Arctic Ocean apparently to do said exchange than to have to go through all the necessary paperwork with the U.S. government authorities twice. We were all encouraged to go out on deck and wave flags because we were told the two ships had a competition to see how many people they could each get out on the observation decks (7 and 11) and wave flags. The ship only had Norwegian flags for us to wave, so I declined, but snapped a few photos as you will see below.

  

I attended two lectures in the afternoon via my cabin TV. The first was a lecture on improving our photography, which was rather technical and brought me back to the earliest days of my photography classes, 20 years or so ago, learning about aperture, ISO, and focal length. After that one, I watched one on Inuit tattoos presented by Ashley, at which I learned that each tattoo is personal and may consist of dots, lines, arrows, fishhook designs and more, and is usually applied to the face, arms, and legs as well as upper chest. They are traditionally black or dark blue. Many more women than men sport tattoos, basically because the women have more time to indulge in having them applied, the men being mostly outdoors hunting and fishing. Tattoos can mark significant moments such as childbirth, the deaths of family members, the first fishing or hunting expedition, etc.

  

  

Finally, after dinner, we arrived at Smoking Hills, a geological phenomenon located on the east coast of Cape Bathurst of the Northwest Territories. “They contain strata of hydrocarbons (oil shales), which have been burning continuously for centuries. The fires result from autoignition of sulfur-rich lignite deposits ... Over time the sulfur dioxide from the smoke has acidified the shallow ponds ... and tundra [in the area]. Elevated concentrations of metals (aluminium, iron, zinc, nickel, manganese, and cadmium) occur in these acidic ponds. Soils and sediments have also been chemically altered ... Weathering of the coastline ... leads to the continuous exposure of new mineral deposits from the muds that make up the underlying geology [which] are typically coloured red when iron-rich.”

  

Wednesday, August 28, 2024: Ulukhatok, Northwest Territories, Canada (70.7368° N, 117.7704° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Quana (Thank you). I note that it is very similar to the Inupiak from August 21, which was Quyanak, so clearly they are related languages. I worked most of the morning on my photos from yesterday and then on one of my book translations. We arrived at about 2:00 p.m., an hour later than originally planned, at Ulukhaktok, which is a small hamlet on the west coast of Victoria Island, in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories. It was known until April 1, 2006 as Holman or Holman Island. “Like other small traditional communities in the territories, hunting, trapping, and fishing are major sources of income, but printmaking has taken over as the primary source of income in recent years. The two principal languages in Ulukhaktok are the Kangiryuarmiutun dialect of Inuinnaqtun, which is part of the Inuvialuktun group, and English ... In 2006, the community was renamed, Ulukhaktok, the traditional Kangiryuarmiutun name for the area, which means 'the place where ulu parts are found' ... An ulu is an all-purpose knife traditionally used by Inuit, Iñupiat, Yupik, and Aleut women. It is used in applications as diverse as skinning and cleaning animals, cutting a child's hair, cutting food, and sometimes even trimming blocks of snow and ice used to build an igloo.” You will see one depicted in the final set of photos for today where an elderly Inuit women is filleting a red-fleshed fish, about which more details are below. Ulukhaktok is also the location of the world's most northerly nine-hole golf course. Unfortunately, said golf course is located a bit of a ways (not within walking distance I was told) from the town proper, so I was unable to get a photo of the sign. “The community was covered in the Inuvialuit Final Agreement as part of their land claims and is in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.”

  

  

  

After anchoring in the cove facing the town, we then waited for the zodiacs to collect about forty people from the hamlet - singers and dancers from two separate groups. The first performers were two youths from the Arctic Games who showed us one-foot and two-foot jumping and jumping from a sitting position all to kick with their feet a small bean bag suspended on a stick, a few feet above the ground. We were told that there were records for this activity of eight to nine feet which seems astounding. Next was a group of drummers, mostly men, who sat in chairs and drummed in costumes including decorative mukluks and vests, while women or men took it in turns to dance. The women's movements were rather gentle while the men's were more aggressive, sometimes yelling at impulsive moments and making movements as if to mimic holding spears. There were two young male dancers for one set who donned gloves with fur hanging down as if, I suppose, to imitate the claws of polar bears. One photo shows these gloves lying on the floor before they were donned.

  

  

  

After their energetic performance, another, older, group came onto the stage and were introduced to being from another area. The drummers were out on the floor, three at a time drumming gently and taking turns, while others, sitting on chairs or standing, sang. In one of the photos above, you will see the lyrics of one of these songs with several verses. I believe these are called ayayaya songs. Then, to my great surprise, they announced that the next set would contain an accordion. And along with the young accordionist came a young violinist and a slightly older guitar player. Well, things were beginning to get interesting. Next, to my delight, they started playing what I would call Quebec/Acadian music, just as one might expect with a violin aka fiddle and an accordion. And then, what do you know but the elderly Inuit performers then coupled up and started dancing like Quebeckers and Acadians, and we were clapping along, as you do with such music. This went on for a bit, and of course we were encouraged to join them in all their dances (Inuit and Quebecois alike). Noticing that time was getting on as we were also scheduled to visit the town via Zodiac, they finished off with three couples enacting a very Western square dance to the same type of music. I was, to say the least, flabbergasted, but at the same time pleased. I wondered if this type of music had been introduced to the Inuit back in the 1600s during the time of the French Explorers or Voyageurs, or whether more modern visitors to the region had introduced it. Another passenger I met later (a Dane) suggested that perhaps some of these Inuit visiting Quebec had been introduced to it there and had brought it back to the village themselves and taught their neighbours. It was now closer to 4:30 p.m., so, seeing that most other passengers concerned with time had already crept away, I did too, to change into my waterproof clothing and lifejacket and await the call time for my group for the Community Visit.

  

  

  

We landed safely and I was assigned to a tour group with a young mother named Carla, who was carrying her 1-year-old daughter, Keisha, inside her parka. She led us up unpaved roads to the Ulukhaktok Arts Centre. There wasn't much room in there, so I basically did a round of the room to see what was on offer but didn't buy anything. We then passed the old Anglican Church, which was being repaired, the Holman Eskimo Co-operative building, which included a grocery/hardware/arts materials store and the official Canada Post Office. Although this community gets supplies for their store via barges about twice a year as it is far too expensive to bring goods in via air, our guide was telling us she buys stuff on e-bay and has it shipped to the post office here. I had a look at prices of commodities at the store, and they seemed comparable to Vancouver prices where bread, cereal and a few other articles were concerned but I noticed ice cream was quite expensive at $13.00 per litre while it's about half that in Vancouver or less if it's on sale. I also took a photo of the prices of various meat packages, not something I buy much of in any case so I can't really comment on it being dearer or cheaper. I was amused to see animal pelts hanging in the haberdashery section along with other sewing materials. These are likely wolverine.

  

  

  

Our final visit with Carla was the school, which taught children from pre-school to grade 12. I asked her if the teachers were local too, and she said that they came from Ontario. I then asked if they were taught the curriculum of Ontario or if the Ontarian teachers taught a special Northwest Territories curriculum, which would include Inuit knowledge, and she said she wasn't sure. She had studied here up to the end of Grade 11, and then had gone on to college. There is also a college in town. However, she also said she had done some online studies as well. Also, when I asked her, she told me the entire population of Ulukhaktok was 500, of which 350 were under the age of 18, which seems astounding to me. Not many of the children were actually out and about and seemed in general quite shy. Carla's daughter Keisha wasn't talking yet, but she was walking and had a lot of teeth so that she was able to eat one of the ship's apples. The ship had brought some boxes of fresh fruit to give to the community. The aforementioned Dane told me he had met two of the musicians from earlier - the guitar and accordion players - on land who had been carrying two large watermelons and seemed very happy and proud to have been given them, according to him. Inside the school, which was attached to a skating arena, we first noticed a collection of ice skates and learned that ice hockey was pretty popular here (as is it everywhere in Canada). Inside the gymnasium was another display of arts and crafts made by and being sold by the locals, which included printing on paper, bead work, and earrings and a number of fur products. I asked and was allowed to photograph this group of females, who I learned were all related to each other. The woman on the end, whom I actually talked to, told me the older woman on her right was her mother, and then there was her daughter and her grand-daughter, so four generations. I also picked up some bilingual French/English brochures of the Northwest Territories Arts, an entity under the Government of the Northwest Territories, and from it I learned that birchbark basket making is also practised by the locals in NWT. They use spruce and willow for structure, but the baskets are waterproof and resistant to rot due to the natural waxes in birchbark. These are sometimes adorned with natural and dyed porcupine quills. Did you know that one porcupine can provide up to 40,000 usable quills?

  

  

Leaving the school on my own, after taking another photo of Carla and Keisha in their indoor clothing, I then wandered around town photographing street scenes, a seagull, and pictures of Inukshuks but never actually saw any Inukshuks (those piles of stones the Inuit are so well known for). Arriving back on the beach again, I photographed a couple more elderly women, the one in a green parka is Carla's mother and she was selling some racoon and beaver gloves she had made for $200 a pair, down from $280. When I asked, she said the beaver was not from here and she had had to import it from Southern Canada (probably the racoon too but she did not specify). I now wish I had asked the ages of all of the seemingly elderly women I had photographed. This final series of photos is of the elder I had photographed singing on the ship filleting an Arctic Char, which looked like Sockeye Salmon to me. Apparently, it is a lake fish with the omega-3 fat of salmon but the taste of trout. As mentioned at the beginning of this entry for today, she is using an Ulu knife to fillet the fish. Passengers were trying little bits of the flesh she had put aside for tasting like sashimi, though I never heard anyone comment on its taste when raw.

Thursday, August 29, 2024: Murray Island, Nunavut, Canada (68.4333° N, 111.0833° W)

  

  

  

  

  

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Illaali (You're welcome). Another almost full day of sorting photos and writing up my travelogue from yesterday after getting up late, missing breakfast, and consuming fruit and a coffee in my room. Consequently, I attended no lectures at all today but hope to catch up on some on future days of this leg, after which they will disappear from my television.

  

  

  

  

  

The bits of land we passed were for the most part flattish and barren, i.e. devoid of trees, brown, and full of rocks. I saw no wildlife except for the very occasional bird (gull-like) flying by. And certainly no signs of ice. However, we were told we would be doing a nature landing on Murray Island a very remote spot - a small island south of Victoria Island in Nunavut. Knowing there would be probably no animals, although our expedition team went out first to check for their existence, especially of polar bears, and definitely no local people (i.e. no culture) and no buildings, it was nevertheless, I found, a unique opportunity to step on permafrost-like tundra, yet shallow swamp-like in parts, and view lots of colourful micro organisms, tiny plants and flowers, lichen, and a few whitened bones of animals. I spent an hour walking first up one hill and then another and the results of my photography are, naturally, above and below. Our visit via zodiacs took place in the early evening, so we were back for a late dinner.

  

  

  

  

Friday, August 30, 2024: Cambridge Bay/Iqaliuktuuttiaq, Victoria Island, Nunavut, Canada (69.1169° N, 105.0597° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Umiaq (Large boat). And our Umiaq was certainly able to anchor close to Cambridge Bay today, so it made for a lovely, short, dry zodiac ride in. Iqaluktuuttiak means 'good fishing place' and with a population of 1,829 according to 2024/25 Nunavut Visitors Guide it is the largest community and administrative centre for the Kitikmeot region. Archaeological sites indicate the area has been inhabited for 4,000 years. More modern history includes stories of building a Catholic church in 1954 using seal oil and sand as mortar. It is located on the southeast coast of Victoria Island. Upon our arrival, we were asked to register our cabin numbers at an art studio opposite the landing beach, and I was surprised to learn that the young man registering us was originally from Cameroon. One of the young artists, who was selling her jewellery creations at the art studio, was Quebecoise and the young woman serving us snacks later on was half Spanish and grew up in the Basque region. The man who owned the grocery store was Irish and, well, clearly Cambridge Bay is of a more eclectic composition than our last hamlet landing. It would even seem that Santa Claus lives here and drives a caterpillar tractor in the summer months (see photo 35 for today). Those of us who wanted a tour gathered into groups and our group was led by cadets Mitchel (16) and Marcus (14) (two of about 30 cadets in this hamlet, both male and female, from age 13 to 18), who told us that the hamlet has about 2,000 inhabitants (1,760 as of the 2021 census according to Google) of which about 900 are under the age of 18 and are schooled at the large elementary and high schools we visited. Mitchel is the second child of seven in his family and was clearly the more responsible of the two boys.

  

  

  

Our first photography was of the metallic muskox and two wolves outside said art center. A sign tells us that “The muskox and wolves are dynamic sculptures created by ten creative youth and their mentors from 2017 to 2019 using repurposed materials found in the metal dump. Symbolically, the sculpture represents the contrast between traditional and modern life. The muskox, placed specifically between the buildings and the water, symbolizes Inuit society caught between modern settlements and their cultural traditions on the land. The wolves are positioned between the muskox and the water to represent both positive and negative challenges to culture.” These are part of Itqaumavik Park which is “a place of memories offering a glimpse of our settlement history from the 1950s when families moved in from the land for jobs, services, and trading opportunities. Cambridge Bay's settlement history was shaped by the arrival of the R.C.M.P., the Hudson's Bay Company, the Church, and the establishment of the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line [a series of radar stations across the arctic, from Alaska through Canada over Greenland to Iceland] to monitor Canada's Arctic air space during the Cold War.”

  

  

  

Mitchel and Marcus led us by the R.C.M.P. station, the Health Centre, the Arena and Curling rink, and an Inukshuk image in lights that is lit up at Christmas time, and over to the complex that houses the primary and high schools. Here we were invited to enter, a group at a time, the school library, which doubled as a museum and limited souvenir store, and contained mosaics, murals, fur clothing, kayaks, and, strangely enough, custom-made coffee by a company in Colombia. Next, we were led by two churches, Anglican and Catholic, both of which looked to be in fine tick, and the Elders' Palace, which was like a seniors centre, as far as we could gather. Our destination was the Arctic Coast Visitor Centre, which was a museum of the Arctic and had some good displays inside. One sculpture that intrigued me was labelled as a Bowhead Whale Skull from Creswell Bay that had been carved by an artist in Gjoa Haven, and which was one of the last the artist had been working on before he died in 1999. There were also wolf pelts complete with heads, a stuffed snowy owl, and a complete Muskox pelt - reputed to be the most expensive wool there is. I also photographed an explanation about Inuksuit (the plural of Inukshuk) “meaning 'to act in the capacity of a human' [that] can be found throughout the circumpolar world. Built from stone, each ... is unique and has some form of meaning. They vary greatly in shape, colour, size and in how they are constructed. Some are navigational or directional aids, offering hunting information, or indicate caches of food or supplies. Some are practical 'helpers' that once assisted in hunting caribou or geese. Other stone objects that look very much like inuksuit were objects of veneration, indicating places of power or the abode of spirits. Inuksuit are among the oldest and most important objects placed by humans upon the Arctic landscape and have become a familiar symbol of Inuit and their homeland.”

  

  

  

Our final visit with Mitchel and Marcus was the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS), built by and belonging to the Canadian government at a cost of 250 million dollars (give or take, according to the Canadian Army in situ guides). There were lots of free post cards, maps, and brochures for us to take. Several world-class environmental research projects are conducted across the Canadian Arctic as it continues to experience rapid and unprecedented changes in the climate, cryosphere, and biodiversity, among others. Some of the projects it is currently active in are: assembling a comprehensive DNA reference library of arctic life forms (plants, insects, animals); developing a region-wide program to monitor snow, ground temperatures, and permafrost degradation; studying the movements and ecology of migratory birds; and it trains and employs northern community members to ensure the ongoing success and future development of long-term monitoring and research programs. The main building we were in also contains local art, two floors of which you will find in this set of photos. Another CHARS guide told us that one project they had been asked to study was the reason for the diminishing muskox population and it was found that they were dying from lungworm that were brought onto the land in the faeces of Canada geese. Our two guides left us here and we were left to make our own way back to the ship, during which I took the opportunity to take some more photos, naturally. The only wildlife I saw here were six Canada geese, along with the usual gull-like birds flying in the sky. We were served a snack on our re-entry to the art studio consisting of a Caribou patty on Bannock (bread), a slice of smoked Arctic Char on a cracker, a small piece of Beluga whale on a stick and a piece of candied Narwhal, plus a spicy shrimp concoction served on another cracker and a puff pastry dessert with a cream cheese and Arctic berry topping. There were also masses of cookies as well as coffee, tea, and water we could help ourselves to. There were some explanations about some of the food and I shall transcribe the one I found most interesting. “Narwhal Skin and Blubber or in the Inuinnaqtun language, Muktuk, is the traditional Inuit meal of frozen or cooked whale skin and blubber. It is most often made from the skin and blubber of Narwhal, Beluga, or Bowhead whales. Usually eaten raw, it is today occasionally finely diced, breaded, deep fried and served with soya sauce. It is sometimes pickled. When chewed raw, the blubber becomes oily, with a nutty taste; if not diced, or at least serrated, the skin is more than a bit rubbery. Muktuk has been found to be a good source of Vitamin C, the epidermis containing up to 38 mg per 100 grams. Blubber is also a source of Vitamin D.”

  

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

At last night's presentation of what we would be doing today, the captain came to the lecture theatre to explain that he was very excited about this visit as we would be the very first modern expedition passenger ship ever to circumnavigate it in kayaks and zodiacs or, even better, land on it, because Borge was the name of his birth town and incidentally also Roald Amundsen's birth town in Norway. Despite our Inuktitut word/phrase of the day being Qajaq (Kayak), no kayaks could be put on the water this morning due to the fog, the wind, and the swell of the waves. It was also decided that it was not possible to do a zodiac circumnavigation of the island. But after waiting for the wind to calm down and the sun to come out, it was decided that a landing would be possible. However, the space we could explore was once again restricted and our polar bear guards were in place to protect us ... in case. According to the expedition team, I heard after our visit, they saw arctic hare, loon, swans, and even a polar bear skull, but the only signs of animal life I saw was (Canada) goose droppings, rabbit droppings, and a few small bones. Although, when I think of it, I do remember hearing a loon, although I was told at the time by a passenger that it was a crane. I also figured we were not necessarily the first humans to land on the island for I kept seeing wet tissues on the ground before somebody told me they are a type of algae - you will see two photos here. I also figured someone had had a picnic lunch for I saw a large piece of eggshell - probably actually from a goose egg snatched by some other creature and dropped on the rocks. The rest of my photos are very much like some of those I captured on Murray Island, such as small plant life, colourful rocks and lichen. And as a bonus, Roald Amundsen himself (aka our captain) had pitched his tent on the island, put up his Norwegian flag, and his nameplate, and we were invited to take photos with him!

  

  

  

  

In the later afternoon after we had come back on board, I joined the third instance of our knitting group whilst chatting to a couple of the women and have now completed another six squares for the blanket or blankets.

  

  

 

Sunday, September 1, 2024: Gjoa Haven/Uqsuqtuuq, King William Island, Nunavut, Canada (68.6243° N, 95.8722° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Sila (Weather). I have cell phone service again, and the temperature is between 7 and 9 °C today, however, it remained cloudy throughout today with just a flash of sun for a brief moment. Uqsuqtuuq means 'lots of fat' and its population is 1,410. We had dry zodiac transportation to the King William Island, and the hamlet of Gjoa Haven with an average age of 26.5, at around 11:00 a.m., and were taken in a group by our local guide, Maggie. Gjoa Haven was named after a ship called the Gjoa, which was used by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the first person to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage in 1906. Our first visit was past the Kativic Health and Social Services Centre and the Continuing Care Centre to the Nattilik Heritage Centre, with artistic renditions of musk oxen on its metallic walls. Outside on the step, an artist was selling his sketches of Inuit life for $300 apiece and inside, we found a museum of interesting displays, as well as a small souvenir shop, including fur gloves and mittens from beaver and rabbit fur and sheepskin for $225 to $280. Descriptions on a couple of the displays caught my eye. About marriage: “All family members contribute wherever they can to help everyone live more comfortably. In the past, cooperation started with the arranged marriage of a hunter and a seamstress. Each filled the day-to-day needs of the other: to eat, be clothed, have shelter, and feel secure in old age.” About children: “Traditional Nattilik Inuit families were small; children were few. Harsh Arctic conditions meant couples, long ago, practiced iqitaujug (putting out babies to die) to limit family size to ensure there was enough food to go around. Children who survived through infancy were loved and treasured by all.”

  

  

  

We then passed by a thriving Roman Catholic Church, for which there was a priest, while the Anglican church was in great disrepair and did not have a minister, so local elders take it in turns to lead the services. The Anglican church was built by Maggie's grandfather, who died in 2018 some months after celebrating his 99th birthday! We waited outside another building to watch some elderly ladies sing ayaya songs while younger men took turns to dance and beat the drum for a while. This went on a bit long, to my ears, so, since space was limited, we quietly snuck out at the end of one set to let the next group come in. The only photos I took here were of a grandmother carrying a grandchild in her parka. The other little girl in pink with her is another of her grandchildren. We were also taken to view the original grocery store, quite a small building, although, just like the other large Inuit communities we have visited, their main stores are now much bigger and are chain suppliers called Northern and Co-op. Our next stop was to the Hamlet Office to see Roald Amundsen's bust. This will be the second one we've seen out of the five that exist in the world (two being in Norway - Svalbard and Tromso, I believe - and the final one in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. The first was in Nome, Alaska). It would seem that many have rubbed his prominent nose for good luck. We then passed the aforementioned Anglican church on our way to the school. Maggie told us that they now have some recently graduated local teachers in this school, who had taken a five-year training course to become teachers. An arctic college building lies adjacent to the high school.

  

  

  

Our final stop was at the Katuaq Cultural Centre/Community Hall, containing a large gym, where we were all gathered - locals and guests alike. We were served a tasting of Arctic Char pie, which reminded me of the salmon/potato casseroles my mother used to make, but our group was too late for the pastries that we heard had been available earlier as well. We were supposed to have a demonstration of the Lighting of the Qulliq, which is basically the fire that served as heat and light in igloos, but this was cancelled and instead things started off with a delightful performance of square dancing by a group of 12 children, some of clearly mixed race, accompanied by a local band. It appeared that the local media was videoing it all, as well as all of us, so I suppose we may be on TV somewhere. Then a couple of women throat singers came onto the stage and sung a couple or three songs. Heidi, our cultural ambassador from the ship, then informed the ensemble that we had all learned throat singing from her and so we gave the locals a demonstration! Then an athlete from the Inuit Games gave us some examples of his jumping prowess, but didn't quite manage the last demonstration whereby he had both legs strapped with a leather belt around his head and raising himself on his two hands from a sitting position tried unsuccessfully to hit a sack suspended from a pole with his feet. After trying three times he gave up and left. The entire thing ended with the band playing about 3 or 4 songs to which the entire audience was invited to get up and dance. I just sat back and watched. We then walked back to the zodiacs on our own and I chatted with some locals on the beach and managed to get a few family snaps with their permission. The man is George Bachman and he is with his sons, aged 11 and 8. The group of four are all related somehow and the woman with the two small children, who had been dancing with them at the cultural centre, asked me if they were allowed to visit the ship. I referred her to the expedition staff, but I gather they had told her no, as we were soon about to leave, and there would be no time. (But I am sure, too, that there are certain protocols in place regarding visiting locals - if they were hired for cultural performances or to give lectures they would of course be allowed on, but not merely curious locals).

  

  

  

Back on board, I downloaded my photos and then attended a few more lectures. The first was given by a hunter from Taloyoak/Talurjuaq, which means 'large caribou hunting blind' (population 1,144), the northernmost community on Canada's mainland and located on the south coast of the Boothia Peninsula, who hunts lots of Caribou that migrate through his community. More importantly, however, he is involved in the annual hunt of Beluga whale in early August as long as it is not icy, or what is known as 'harvesting country food' to provide for his family, friends, and the community in general. This whale hunt takes place in Coningham Bay, which is located in the southeast of Prince of Wales Island. About 10 groups in (motor)boats go and kill about six to eight Beluga whales each - preferably young males, since they are the tastiest, and measuring 16 to 22 feet in length - skinning them in about 8 to 10 minutes flat, while those not involved in the killing itself keep a look out and notify them of any polar bears near by. The polar bears to be wary of are the ones who are thin and weak because they will eat anything. The hunters store in their motorboats all edible parts of the beluga whale - skin, blubber, meat, and intestines - while leaving the carcass for the polar bears to feed off. For those years he cannot get Beluga, he barters or trades with other communities, offering them Caribou meat in return. He sometimes finds buyers on Facebook! The community elders have first pick of the product, next, some is given to those who cannot hunt, such as widows, then he sells or trades the rest, keeping enough, of course, to feed his own extended family. All hunting is subject to quotas set by the Hunters and Trappers Association.

  

  

  

Next, I attended a short presentation on the Inuktitut alphabet, which contains 32 different syllabic characters, introduced about 150 years ago by missionaries. At first it was used as a way of teaching the bible, but the Inuit soon adopted it for many other purposes. The purpose of this lecture was so that we could learn to write our names in Inuktitut. The final photo in this series contains said alphabet. I had also seen a poster of the alphabet on the wall of the hall where we had attended the performance of ayaya singing and drumming today and had wanted to photograph the poster, but had never gotten the chance, so I was glad to see it reproduced onboard here. The final column denotes ending letters. After dinner, I attended a presentation given by the same couple from Taloyoak, Joe and Maryrose, called 'Grocery Shopping in the Arctic' and which explained how remote communities in Canada receive their food (annually on a barge in the summer months - which would explain why the stores we went into were so well stocked at the moment), and how much it costs to feed a family.

  

  

Monday, September 2, 2024: Bellot Strait, Nunavut, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Nunavut (Our land). Well, our first polar bear (Ursus maritimus, which means 'sea bear') was sighted this morning by one of the expedition leaders and an announcement was made on the tannoy. Unfortunately, I was still in bed at the time (at 8:38 a.m.) but it got me up and showered and by the time I came out, the bear was gone, but I did see my first iceberg in these waters since Alaska. We are now at 71° 20' N and 96° 52' W, the air temperature is 3°C and the water is 2°C. I worked on my photos from yesterday and my write up for Cambridge Bay in the morning and after lunch we were invited for our group's visit to the bridge, where we learned that, although the ship has an anchor, more often this captain uses a dynamic positioning (DP) method to keep the ship in one place. Then we celebrated something with sparkling pink Argentinean wine (I was told later that it was because we had arrived at the most Northern spot in contiguous Canada/North America.) After this, we were encouraged to go out on deck as we sailed through Bellot Strait and I'm glad I did because then, in a period of what must have been a couple of hours as we passed through, we were close enough to the land so that not only did we see a total of three polar bears, but also a total of three muskoxen (our first muskox sighting) and some much bigger icebergs off in the distance.

  

  

  

Tuesday, September 3, 2024: Prince Leopold Island, Beechey Island/Iluvialuit (74.7115° N, 91.8460° W), Radstock Bay (74.6500° N, 91.0000° W), Nunavut, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Saima (Peace). I think they should have chosen the Inuktitut word for Cold or Snow instead. Another time change this morning, so we are now on Manitoba time. We were woken in our cabins at 6:40 a.m. as there was another polar bear sighting as we were sailing past Prince Leopold Island, a migratory bird sanctuary, and through some ice. I got up at that point, but by the time I got out onto the top deck after my shower, fog had rolled in, so visibility of the island was compromised. I attempted to take some photos of birds flying past, nonetheless. It was noticeably colder, and there was frost on the deck. The bow on deck 11 was consequently cordoned off due to slipperiness. Later on in the morning, we were told that we were at our Northernmost landing for the trip and that the temperature was 1°C so we should wrap up extra warmly for our landing. This took place after lunch, at Beechey Island, where the Franklin Expedition wintered over, and where three graves can be found from that expedition. There was also a grave for French naval officer Joseph René Bellot, who died aged 27 from falling into the Wellington Channel, northwest of Beechey Island, and after whom yesterday's strait was named.

  

  

  

  

Wikipedia informs us as follows: “Beechey Island is best known for containing three graves of Franklin expedition members, which were first discovered in 1850 by searchers for the lost Franklin expedition. The searchers found a large stone cairn, along with the graves of three of Franklin's crewmen - Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell - but no written record nor indication of where Franklin planned to sail the next season. In 1852, Commander Edward A. Inglefield arrived at Beechey, along with a physician Dr Peter Sutherland. John Hartnell's grave was opened, damaging his coffin, and Hartnell's memorial plaque on the coffin lid was removed. During a later expedition, a searcher named Thomas Morgan died aboard the vessel North Star on May 22, 1854, and was buried alongside the three original Franklin crew members. In the 1980s, during two separate expeditions to Beechey, Canadian forensic anthropologist Dr. Owen Beattie examined the three bodies and found them (externally) remarkably well-preserved. Autopsies determined that lung disease and lead poisoning were among the probable causes of death; the lead appeared to come from the thousands of lead-soldered tins of provisions with which the Franklin expedition had been supplied (although later studies would suggest that the unique water distillation system used by the ships was the major source of lead poisoning). Later research, however, found through hair sample comparisons between the Beechey remains and those of expedition assistant surgeon and naturalist Harry Goodsir (who died on the expedition a year later, and would therefore be expected to have yet further exposure, under the lead poisoning hypothesis) that the lead in the three men's remains, while indeed present at high levels now recognized as deleterious, was no higher than Goodsir's, and thus evidently mostly the result of exposure prior to the expedition (due to high everyday lead exposure common in the 19th century), and consequently was unlikely to be solely responsible for their deaths. In the 1990s, due to the deteriorating condition of the Beechey grave markers, all markers were replaced with bronze memorials.”

  

  

  

  

  

Before dinner, I participated in some Inuit community games. First was something like cat's cradle using knitting wool tied around our fingers, and the second one consisted of throwing two seal bones (called wish bones) in a ring and when it landed upright, we would shout 'Mukak' and then grab the ball of wool that we would wind into a new ball until the next player got Mukak and if so they would then get the chance to wind up the ball of wool. The person to finish winding the ball of wool would win. There were some lovely prizes of Inuit art, but I did not win any of the games, to my regret. After dinner, we were to have a zodiac cruise of Radstock Bay, but upon arrival at Caswell Tower, an imposing rock rising 270 metres straight up from the shoreline, seen here in the middle photo, on the southern coast of Devon Island, Nunavut, it was decided that it would be delayed due to 'something in the water.' It was then cancelled about an hour later, while I was having a delightful dinner with marvellous views on the port side. Instead, we cruised the bay in our ship. To compensate for the disappointment, I was offered a small, complimentary glass of a Muscadet dessert wine from Portugal, which was delicious. We then turned around and came out of the bay to head toward our next destination. I have been told we are changing captains once again as we are also planning to meet the Hurtigruten ship MS Fram tonight while we are asleep.

  

Wednesday, September 4, 2024: Croker Bay (74.7000° N, 83.2400° W), Dundas Harbour (74.5333° N, 82.3833° W), Nunavut, Canada

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Qilalugaq (Beluga whale). We haven't seen any Belugas today, just a polar bear. Today's air temperature is 0°C and the water temperature is 2°C. We have a new, dashing young Norwegian captain (Rune Andre Alme) on board, father of three little boys. We Pole to Polers were invited to a special cocktail party after lunch to meet him. Apparently, he was supposed to have joined us in Vancouver - and will be with us until Colón, Panama - but one of his children got the flu and it then went through the family members one by one. This fellow knew he wanted to be a ship captain at the age of 6 and worked for a while with Royal Caribbean. I have yet to ask him what years he was there to find out if they coincided with mine, but I think I would have noticed him had I worked alongside him previously! Of course he would not have been a captain twenty years ago, but certainly an officer of some sort.

Before lunch, however, we had a long time cruising slowly around beautiful Croker Bay in the sunshine, with its two glaciers, lots of icebergs in the water and (we were told) three polar bear sightings, though I only managed to see and photograph one of them. According to Google, Crocker Bay lies in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, off the southern coast of Devon Island in the eastern high Arctic. It is an arm of Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait. We have been extremely lucky with the weather so far, and I remember saying this during our Alaska section too. We were told by other officers at the cocktail party that last year's Pole to Pole trip (which had a contingency of 33 passengers, while the year before had 21 and this year - the third Pole to Pole trip - we have 55 and are told HX will not offer this trip next year), they had had to cancel four days of expeditions (landings) due to lousy weather.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

In the late afternoon, we arrived in Dundas Harbour (or Talluruti, which means a woman's chin with tattoos on it), an abandoned settlement in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut. It is located on Devon Island at the eastern shore of the waterway also named Dundas Harbour. In August 1924, an outpost was established at this isolated harbour as part of a government presence to curb foreign whaling and other activity. It was manned by three men, whose sole communication with the outside world was a supply ship once a year. Before the three-year assignment was over, one had committed suicide, and another had died in a hunting accident (shot himself in the foot). In 1933, the Hudson's Bay Company leased the outpost. The following year, 52 Inuit were relocated from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) to Dundas Harbour but returned to the mainland 13 years later. In the late 1940s, Dundas Harbour was populated once again to maintain a patrol presence, but closed in 1951 due to ice difficulties. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment was moved to Craig Harbour on southern Ellesmere Island. Only the ruins of a few buildings remain, along with one of the northernmost cemeteries in Canada. There are four graves here within a white-picket-fenced off area on the hill: the two aforementioned R.C.M.P. constables, the baby of a daughter of one of the Inuit special constables sent to Devon Island to help the Mounties, and a Scottish whaler. All the remaining wooden buildings were boarded up when we visited, including one, or perhaps two, outhouses, one with possibly polar bear claw scratches on the door! The bones you see in my photos are, I read later, from dog, walrus (you can see the tusk stumps), polar bear, and whale. Passengers were given the opportunity to take an Arctic Ocean swim as the water here was 4°C and I saw one man from Seattle do so while I was on site.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Thursday, September 5, 2024: Pond Inlet/Mittimatalik, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada (72.7001° N, 77.9585° W)

Inuktitut word/phrase of the day: Qanuippit? (How are you?). Well, we are fine today ... as we got to stop at Pond Inlet, which, with a 2021-census population of 1,555, is the largest community in northern Baffin Island, in the Lancaster Sound region on the east side of Eclipse Sound. Baffin Island is Canada's largest island at 507,451 km2, and the fifth-largest island in the world after Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, and Madagascar. Baffin Island also contains the city of Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay, with a population of around 7,000), which is the capital of Nunavut. The Inuktitut name for Baffin Island is Qikiqtaaluk, which means 'very big island' (qikiqtaq 'island' + -aluk 'very big'). The region has one of Canada's most inhospitable climates with long, dark winters and temperatures averaging -35°C. An important part of the traditional diet in Pond Inlet comes from ringed seals. On 29 August 1921, the Hudson's Bay Company opened its trading post near the Inuit camp and named it Pond Inlet (Englishman, John Pond, after whom the place was named, was the sixth Astronomer Royal), marking the expansion of its trading empire into the High Arctic. Inuit youth from Pond Inlet were taken from their families and sent to the Churchill Vocational School in Manitoba, which operated from September 1964 to June 1973. Pond Inlet has a higher unemployment rate than most of Nunavut.

This is our last bit of Canada before we leave for Greenland across Baffin Bay, which is the body of water that separates Baffin Island from Greenland, though we should be back in Canada on September 11 in Red Bay, Newfoundland. This means we have five days in a row of rolling our clocks forward, one hour per day, though we will gain two hours on the way back. I look forward to the sea days with no landings so as to have time to catch up on my travelogue, my photos, and my translations. Our stop here is essentially to pick up the Greenlandic pilot, a Greenlander. It is a beautiful setting for houses to look out onto. As we left, I attended a lecture at the stern on deck 10 about bird photography given by the ship's photographer with assistance from the ship's videographer, who, because there were no birds to photograph during the lecture, stepped in as a bird model. There were some impressive lenses on various cameras of the small group of people attending. Here endeth Part 1 of my travelogue for this trip. Please see Part 2 to continue your virtual journey.