Icebergs!

Peeter and Carol Vanker

On our way through Lancaster Sound we saw a beautiful calving glacier.
The wind remained extremely strong most of the day. As we drew closer to Arctic Bay just off the North West passage where our refuelling would take place, we encountered a magnificent towering glacier almost 20 stories high gleaming in the setting evening sun. The ship drew very close for us to admire the ice berg. It was larger than any of the icebergs we had seen in Antarctica. Our expedition leader said that it was a very rare sight in this area. We also saw several other very large icebergs in the distance.

We listened to further lectures about the Arctic and watched a movie about the Arctic.

This morning we arrived at our fuelling station, the only deep water port in the Arctic. This stop was necessitated because of a fuel truck rollover two weeks ago when the ship originally was scheduled to refuel.

During the 7 hour refuelling stop we hiked up the surrounding hillside, accompanied by several armed guides who preceded us, looking for polar bears. Our groups were accompanied by several of the ship’s on board naturalists. The federal government has plans to establish a major deep water port in this remote Arctic region in Nanisivik.

We have learned that the Canadian territory of Nunavut has an area of 2 million square km. (about 4 times the size of France), 30,000 inhabitants, and 28 Inuit communities.

P.S. One of our armed guards just told us that on a previous landing he encountered 6 polar bears.