Picture it, if you will. Me, a hot tub and a big iceberg in the distance. Add in HX’s expedition ship, MS Roald Amundsen, polar bears and lots of history about polar exploration, and you’ll have a good idea of where I have just been.
Last year, I wrote in Blue Horizons that the Northwest Passage was up there on my hit list. Well, I’m thrilled to say I’ve done it, cruising from Nome in Alaska to Greenland, then heading south to Halifax in Canada.
What an adventure! We were going to do in less than two weeks (the time it took to actually transit the Passage) what it took Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, our ship’s namesake and the first man to transit the Passage, three years to do. Along the way, we were going to spot wildlife, explore remote islands, and get a cultural fix by visiting Inuit settlements. Or at least that was the plan.
“We have a Plan A, but ice and weather will decide where we go, so we also have a Plan B, C and D, so you need to be flexible, as you have seen,” Expedition Leader Torstein warned us.
Alaska is six times bigger than the UK, so the first job for us expeditioners was to transit the Barents Strait, the narrow channel separating the US and Russia, and sail the Beaufort Sea across the top of Alaska into Arctica Canada - a journey that took four sea days.
That gave the expedition team who run the show on board (a 22-strong band of historians, photographers, marine scientists, glaciologists, geologists, ornithologists and various other ‘ists’) to host lectures and citizen science projects. They gave us samples of seawater to analyse under microscopes for phytoplankton, taught us how to identify clouds and were on wildlife watch on the forward deck most mornings.
We also learnt about the explorers of old who went looking for the Northwest Passage in the early 19th century. Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition was the most famous, mainly because he, his crew and their two ships, Erebus and Terror, vanished.
A landing on Beechey Island, where the expedition overwintered in 1845-46 and the bodies of three crew members were discovered in 1850 was always going to be a highlight. The temperature was close to zero and the wind was whipping around the bay as we went ashore in the inflatable Zodiacs and walked around the snowy terrain, spying the graves and message cairns as our expedition team kept a way eye out for polar bears.
Ah, yes, polar bears! They look cuddly but are not. Among the many talks is the ‘what to do if we see a polar bear’ one. ‘Keep calm’ didn’t seem a given. ‘Don’t wander off alone’ made more sense. Which is why, on Herschel Island, our first landing, it occurred to me that hiking up to a viewpoint on my own was not a good idea. Actually, it was, as I was rewarded with a sighting of caribou grazing in the distance.
There’s nowhere in the Northwest Passage for ships to dock, so all landings are made by Zodiac, invariably stepping into icy water. Waterproof trousers need to be top of the packing list, along with clothes that can be used to layer up - by the time we reached the icy parts of the passage, I had six layers on top and three on my legs - plus gloves, woolly hats and scarves. HX provides boots and waterproof jackets (the latter is yours to keep). As life onboard is very casual, you can leave the sparkles at home.
Sometime that day, we also entered the Northwest Passage. Like me, many expected a narrow channel to mark the start. In fact, we were in a vast sea with no sign of land while sailing until we were halfway through the passage. When we did spy land or go ashore, there was not a tree in sight but a surprising amount of flora surviving despite the icy conditions.
“We couldn’t land at Herschel or see the Smoking Hills last year,” Torstein told me later. So far, so good! Hopefully, our luck would last.
It did. We went ashore at Holman Island (Ulukhaktok), Murray Island, Cambridge Bay, Borge Island and Gjøa Haven, where Amundsen spent two winters during his transit.
One morning, I woke at 3:30 am to see dawn breaking (it’s not midnight sun in August/September, but not far off); next day at 4:00 am I was watching birds teeming around the cliffs of Prince Leopold Island when a call came through of a polar bear spotted on the ice. That was my cue to wrap up and go onto my balcony - one of many perks of having a suite.
I also had access to Lindstrøm, a suite-only restaurant where the food was tasty and the service personal (after day one, Erik and Norwin brought my tea and fruit plate every morning without me having to say a word!), free laundry and a complimentary mini-bar setup of beers, wine and soft drinks on arrival.
Non-suite passengers could eat in Aune or Fredheim, which was open from noon to 8:00 pm and served burgers, wraps and BeaverTail (a dessert apparently, much to the surprise of the guy who ordered a side of chips to go with it). Non-suite passengers can dine in Lindstrøm for €35.00 per person.
More polar bear sightings followed as we sailed through the narrow Bellot Strait, and there was another bear at Croker Bay Glacier, our last stop before exiting the passage. Total tally: at least 11.
As we headed south, the days got warmer. There was another stop in Greenland, this time in colourful Sisimiut, calls into Red Bay and Corner Brook in Canada, where stories of whaling and hikes through the woods awaited, and three more sea days. Along the way, we were joined by playful dolphins splashing about, and an expedition quiz revealed who had been paying attention. Not me, apparently. I blame the science questions! 
