A great escape in Greenland and Arctic Canada

ALL AT SEA
After a Zodiac adventure around Red Head Island – exploring caves and spotting guillemots – low lying mist falls as we begin a choppy two-day crossing of Baffin Bay.

As the mist turns to fog and we battle seasickness, my thoughts turn to the European explorers who navigated this route in search of the elusive Northwest Passage.

While Inuit have traversed the region for thousands of years, the Italian John Cabot is credited as the first European to attempt the journey, sailing in 1497. Over the next 400 years, hundreds of sailors perished or vanished in their quest to discover a trading route through Arctic Canada to Asia, which was finally found by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen between 1903 and 1906.

During lectures on the hardship the sailors faced – from loneliness and giant waves to starvation and cannibalism – I count my blessings that I’m on Sylvia Earle, which has
two restaurants, a sauna, spa and gym, and an al fresco swimming pool bordered by two Jacuzzis.

There’s also a science centre, library and observation lounge, but I spend most of my time in the lecture room, mingling with guests and the expedition team – two of whom are Inuit from Pond Inlet.

NUIT SPIRIT
Once partially nomadic – living in sod houses or tents – in the 1960s Inuit around Pond Inlet were moved by the government into social housing. Yet they keep their culture alive by hunting for seals, whales and narwhals, as the carcass of a tusked narwhal slumped on the beach demonstrates. Gulls scavenge for its remains.

After the sod house I visit the Nattinak Centre, which resembles the icebergs that float past the village even in summer. The museum is an insight into the Inuit way of life. I learn that Inuit women typically gave birth alone, then named their baby after an ancestor as they believed the spirit of their deceased relatives embodied their newborn.

I absorb as much as I can about their culture, from their talent for turning seal skins into clothes and penchant for Arctic hare and polar bear meat. “In my lifetime, three polar bears have come to town,” says Bernard Maktar.

At the community hall, an elder sings the national anthem and teaches us how to make a caribou from winding string around our fingers, before other locals demonstrate traditional games that celebrate survival skills.

One, Brandon, jumps with both feet to kick a target as high as his head, then mimics a seal on the floor – just like a breakdancer from the Bronx doing ‘the worm’. Two boys wrestle one another into a head lock on all fours, then stick a finger in their opponent’s mouth, yanking their lips till I wince.

There’s a drum dance next, and a man wearing leather boots hops side to side, parodying a crow, and shakes his behind like caribou, finishing the skit with his eyes crossed.

But the highlight is a throat singing contest between Ms Pond Inlet – Angeline – and her competitor. Clutching one another’s arms, they sway to a rhythm of pants, yelps and grunts as deep as a pack- a-day smoker’s cough – a far cry from the usual Miss World beauty competitions – until one gets out of breath or laughs and loses.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE EXPLORERS
If Pond Inlet feels remote, it’s positively bustling compared to what comes next. Following those early explorers, we enter the Northwest Passage – wild and raw, it’s a desolate and largely uninhabited land. “For Europeans, the Northwest Passage was something of a holy grail,” says Nina Gallo.

With rifles at the ready, the expedition team scout out a landing on Devon Island. It’s deemed safe enough for the rest of us to explore, as long as we wear life jackets in case we need to escape from predators in a hurry.

Moss bounces beneath my feet as I pick my way through marshland to a pebble beach. Here lie whale skeletons and an abandoned shack, its door ajar, straight from a horror film. Our guide tells us that Canadian police lived here from 1924 to 1951. The grave behind it belongs to a suicide victim.

The size of Croatia, Devon Island consists of sandstone and is likened to Mars. A meteor hit it once, and space scientists have conducted research here, says our guide, Dot Robertson.

The following evening, sea ice swirls in fog, potentially disguising polar bears. It’s too unsafe to land, so we explore Prince Leopold Island by Zodiac instead.

Established in 1992 as a migratory bird sanctuary, it seethes with birds squawking like bats in the mist above sandstone and limestone precipices as stripy as humbugs and as tall as skyscrapers.

I feel small, even more so when the mist clears and I spot a polar bear and her cub on the shore. The mother clocks us, sniffing the air several times as her year-old baby shelters between her legs.

“Polar bears can run 46km an hour and swim up to 10km an hour,” says our guide, Rene Olsen, as we observe the pair through binoculars at a respectful – and safe – distance. “Their skin is actually black, and their fur gets yellower as they age as it’s affected by the amount of seals they’ve eaten. Seal oil sticks to it and algae grows in it.”

Another day, another Zodiac tour, and this time we see playful seals, a walrus and a two-year-old cub licking its paw near its mother, who is curled up as if ready for bed – although she occasionally checks us out.

Another time, we land on an ice sheet, taking care to avoid the puddles, holes and edges. No one wants to fall in. We also visit four graves on Beechey Island. Once teeming with 130 men, it’s now a ghost town with a cabin built in 1852 during the search for the missing explorer John Franklin. We hold a minute’s silence by a graveyard on a shingle beach.

Before I know it, it’s our last night. We gather in the lecture room one last time as the expedition leader, Alex Cawan, sums up the trip.

Magic exists everywhere on this planet and it needs to be protected everywhere,” he says. “One magical moment for me was when we were at the bottom of those giant cliffs, when we saw those enigmatic bears, almost hidden by ice, with spray bursting into the air.

“Sometimes we go into empty realms with entitlement, but this is far from an empty realm. We’re here as guests of the people who’ve lived here for thousands of years. The Inuit have welcomed us to their land.”

GET ON BOARD
AE Expeditions’ 15-night Northwest Passage cruise aboard Greg Mortimer, from Toronto to Calgary via Nuuk, Sisimiut, Ilulissat, Pond Inlet, Northwest Passage and Cambridge Bay, departs on August 25, 2025, from £16,910 per person