Journey Across the Northwest Passage

Warmed by the Gulf Stream as well as by highly active thermal hot springs and volcanoes, Iceland is somewhat misnamed. While it is a stark and barren country with three huge areas of glaciers, one theory is that early Norsemen sought to mislead other potential settlers by giving a pleasant name to fierce, inhospitable Greenland, and a forbidding name to the imminently habitable Iceland. Irish monks and hermits established themselves here in the 8th century, but left a century later when the pagan Norsemen arrived. Europe’s first Parliament of General Assembly, the Althing, was established in the year 930 and still functions as the legislative body, although it was suspended by the Danes at the end of the 18th century and not reconvened until 1843. Reykjavik was the site picked by the island’s first permanent resident, Ingolfur Arnarson in 874, and is home to more than half of the island’s total population. The world’s northernmost capital, Reykjavik is proud of its virtual lack of air pollution. Both electrical power and home heating are derived from the geothermal activity on the island. The city’s large swimming pools are always warm, and in the countryside exotic fruits such as grapes and bananas are cultivated in greenhouses made cozy with the help of underground hot springs.

In October, 1941 the United States Army Air Force constructed an airbase at the site of Kangerlussuaq. It served as a refuelling stop for single-engine military aircraft being flown to Britain during World War II. Form their last port of call, Goose Bay, Labrador, it was 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to Kangerlussuaq until they could refuel. Kangerlussuaq fjord (‘Big Fjord’), is 170 kilometers (105 miles) long and was often shrouded in fog, providing a serious navigation problem for those aircrews.

Today, with the use of modern technology, navigation is no longer an issue. The landscape was ideal for the site of an airport. A large alluvial plain, deposited by the nearby glacial-outflow river, provided a perfectly flat environment for an airport. Kangerlussuaq is the largest commercial airport in Greenland and supports a population of 500. A little known fact, from 1971 to 1987, 33 missiles from various countries, were fired from Kangerlussuaq for upper atmospheric scientific research.

Located in Disco Bay, Ilulissat is home to Sermeq Kujalleq, the fastest-moving glacier in the world. This tremendous river of ice flows from the Greenland Ice Shield toward the sea, funneling through a narrow opening at nearly 40 meters a day. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is the “Mother of Icebergs” that fills its fjord and the bay with great quantities of floating icebergs that parade down the bay and into the Atlantic Ocean. No formal excursions are planned for the town, which is home to about 4,600 people and some 3,500 sled dogs.

Sisimiut is Greenland’s second-largest town, and large by Greenland standards, housing some 6,000 people. It is located just north of the Arctic Circle, and is a popular base for visitors seeking adventurous pastimes in the surrounding country. Although there are no shore excursions planned for Sisimiut, guests may wish to investigate the local market, where the products of the country are sold, including meat from whales, reindeer, musk oxen and many kinds of fish. Watch for the stocky little Icelandic horses trotting along the highways, and keep an eye out for sea eagles often seen perched on the surrounding mountains. Whales are also often seen in the sea nearby. On the hill above the harbor, there is an artisan’s workshop where they create and sell Inuit crafts, and nearby is the town museum, which has examples of colonial period houses, peat houses and other early buildings.

Lady Franklin Island, is an uninhabited Baffin Island offshore island located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in the territory of Nunavut. The island lies in Davis Strait, 25 mi from Hall Peninsula. There are at least seven smaller, unnamed islands off its northwest shore.

Croker Bay is a 35 kilometer (20 miles) deep fjord on the southern shore of Devon Island and is flanked by colorful 450 metre (1,500’) high table-like mountains. The tidewater glacier at its head descends 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the icefield at the center of the island and terminates in spectacular cliffs of ice. Some 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) wide, the glacial front calves huge amounts of ice into the bay. Here polar bears, seals and even a pod of beluga whales can be seen travelling amongst the brash ice.

To the east is the abandoned community of Dundas Harbour. The derelict buildings of the R.C.M.P. post are all that remain and serve as a silent reminder to the 52 Inuit that came here in 1934. Here, set amongst a landscape aglow in the colors of Arctic Autumn, lay the stark white crosses and picket fence enclosure of one of the most northerly cemeteries on Earth. Nearby, 1,000 year old stone remains of earlier Inuit settlers can be found.

Croker Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It lies off the southern coast of Devon Island in the eastern high Arctic. Like Maxwell Bay to the west, it is an arm of Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait. The abandoned Dundas Harbour is 32.1 miles to the east.