Today at 09:00 we were at 70N 120W heading towards Victoria Island and Ulukhaktok on Prince Albert Sound on the west coast of the island. Formerly known as Holman Island, the rocky island offshore is the site of a Hudson’s Bay Company centre. In 1944 Larsen reached here on his transit to Vancouver via the […]

At the start of the day, we were at 71N 130W heading due east at 14 knots with some fog. By 08:30 it was beginning to clear. We are en route to Franklin Bay and the unusual location known as Smoking Hills, where the Pebble Shales can self-combust. If one had been brought up in

We arrived at Herschel Island in the early morning light, with a temperature of 7C, fog, light winds and no swell. Later this morning we expect to be making a landing by Zodiac dinghies. The island is part of National Parks Canada as it is a former whaling station, Inuit settlement with lots of archaeological

It looked like a crisp summer morning off the North Slope when we had breakfast (4C, southerly wind, 15 knots, gusting 30). For the first time on the voyage, we have a moderate chop but nothing is sliding about in the restaurant yet! We are making good progress towards Herschel Island. This is a significant

This is another getting there day. After breakfast we were at 71N 153W, with an air temperature of 7C, having travelled more than 650 nautical miles. We were heading southeast towards Prudhoe Bay, having passed Point Barrow during the night. Utqiagvik, Point Barrow, is the most northerly settlement of the USA. Essentially, it is a

By breakfast at 07:45 we had reached 73N 163W and had travelled 450 nautical miles from Nome. Passing the Icy Cape we were now off the North Slope. These are the last miles of the North American continent where the tundra slopes to sea level and the Arctic Ocean. The Cape was found on 17th

We ate breakfast at 66N 168W as we were about to leave the narrow section of the Bering Strait, staying on the USA side of the international boundary between the US and Russia and the International Date Line. Here are two islands – Big Diomede (Russia) and Little Diomede (USA). There is 2.5 miles between

Essentially, today was a ‘getting there’ day. An 05:00 breakfast followed by an 11:30 flight to Nome via Anchorage. En route there were beautiful views of snow-capped peaks and glacial lakes. At -9 GMT we are on board the ship at the tiny town of Nome (64N 165W). It is a rainy and wind-swept scene

Today our luck was in as power had been restored to the Maritime Museum. We toured St. Roch which was supported by very many copies of maps and documents not only related to Larsen’s voyages but those of Amundsen, Franklin and those involved in the search for Franklin. Canada Place (improved docklands) is backed by

We arrived in Vancouver and disembarked at 07:15, transferring to the hotel in Vancouver. This is the third largest and fastest growing city in Canada. Our morning walk took us across the Art-Deco Burrard Bridge. Its decorations recall the arrival of Captain George Vancouver (British) who arrived here in 1792. He encountered First Nation people