After our aborted attempt to go to the Northwest Passage back in August 2018 because our ship hit the rocks within 24 hours (the story can be found in our early posts on this website), we are leaving for Toronto this week to start our latest attempt, make the journey and tick that off our bucklist.
This time we are sailing with Quark Expeditions on its new ship, Ultramarine, which will be a massive upgrade from the old Russian cold war ships that were used by One Ocean in our 2018 attempt. We have travelled with Quark Expeditions before to Antarctica in 2012 and from Kangerlussuaq across the Davis Strait to the Hudson Bay in 2014, both voyages being fantastic memorable experiences. The voyage is entitled “Northwest Passage: In the footsteps of Franklin” and we board the ship in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland after a charter flight from Toronto.
The trip, like the 2018 one, is primarily historical and follows in the footsteps of the ill-fated voyage of Sir John Franklin which left Greenhithe, England in 1845 tasked with finding a way across the top of Canada, referred to as the “Northwest Passage”. Franklin and his men sailed in two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and overwintered on the ice for two winters before they abandoned the ships. Franklin had already died by this time and the crew tried to hike back to the nearest civilisation via the Back River. All 129 perished hundreds of miles from the nearest civilisation.
We hope to see the graves of three of the Franklin crew who died in 1845/6 on Beechey Island as well as other artefacts left over 170 years ago. As you would imagine and even with climate change, the window for this trip is very short and there is normally only a couple of months a year when the ship can navigate this area, so expeditions are always subject to weather and ice conditions. This means that the route can change at a moment’s notice if the ship’s captain feels that safety is compromised.
In addition to the historical side of the trip, we will also visit remote Inuit communities and see the fantastic wildlife such as polar bears, walruses, whales and countless species of birds.
Some polar bears we saw in the Hudson Bay in 2014
Our posts on this trip will be more sporadic as we will be out of good wifi range for much of the trip but updates will follow when better communication allows. We look forward to you joining us on this very chilly trip.
Copyright: Words and photos John Cruse 2022 (apart from the Quark Expeditions route map above)
Can’t wait to hear about this one. Very jealous.
Hopefully we will actually get there this time