Canadian Arctic - Baffin Bay

 After Dundas Harbour, the ship sailed into Baffin Bay, a "marginal" sea of the Arctic Ocean.  It is not navigable most of the year because of ice cover and the high density of floating ice and icebergs in the area.  Ploughing through sea ice was one of the highlights of this cruise - it was a most amazing experience!

We were originally going to visit Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island, our most northern reach on this cruise.  But the threat of sea ice coming down from the north prevented the captain from taking the risk of going through the opening in the ice but not being able to come back out if that opening closed up.  He showed us ice charts galore to explain the risks - we could only trust him to do the right thing.

There was a lot of disappointment about the not being able to visit Grise Fjord, but this was more than made up for by the alternate cruise through the sea ice in Baffin Bay plus a bonus landing on an actual ice floe after pushing through the sea ice.  Everyone was on a high as even many of the expedition team members have never set foot on an ice floe before.  Thanks to our fearless leader Scott McDougall for thinking up the idea and actually finding a suitable ice floe.

The ice floe experience was beyond our expectations.  It was absolutely stunning on the ice looking down on the bay and seeing the ice underneath not to mention cruising into the bay on our zodiacs.  It was incredibly beautiful!  We were also surrounded by mist making it even more ethereal.  Kudos to the zodiac drivers who were able to speed through the mist to bring us back safely on the ship.

Baffin Bay was the beginning of our encounter with huge icebergs - here is one reflecting the setting sun as we sailed into the bay

This one reminded me of a Lawren Harris painting

This iceberg must have been around for a while!

Look at the beautiful colours on it - reminds me of the candy we get around Christmas

Another Henry Moore...but you would never believe the one in the photo below is the same iceberg-

 it looks the balleen in the whale's mouth!

Everyone was on deck to watch the ship cruise through the first sea ice.  Here are two videos  - they by no means do justice to the experience.  I was also too busy taking photos to spend a lot of time on the videos.

Watch the Ocean Endeavour cutting through sea ice   https://youtu.be/fatBizFiE-8 

https://youtu.be/rxkHauL0hYc

Cruising through sea ice

Sea-horse?  Or one of Snow White's dwarfs?

The ice floe that we landed on

View from the high point

Watching the zodiac cruise in was even better than being in the zodiac

Another giant ice floe that we saw from the zodiac - won't be so easy to land on this one

Waves crashing out from under

An ice floe we saw from the deck

Sunset on the ocean was always a treat 

That was one of the most exciting day on the cruise!

Canadidan Arctic - Croker Bay and Dundas Harbour

Our last two stops on Devon Island are Croker Bay and Dundas Harbour.  Croker Bay is an Arctic waterway off the coast of Devon Island just a short distance from Powell Inlet.  We visited after our hike on Powell Inlet.  It was late in the day and the light was poor, as you can see from the photos.   The weather did not permit an originally planned zodiac cruise so the captain steered the Ocean Endeavour through the ice to let us see the glacier from the ship.  It was a spectacular show that brought us close enough to the glacier to see some calving activity then took us through the sea ice and icebergs.  

This iceberg on the way to Croker Bay reminded me of a Henry Moore sculpture

The glacier in Croker Bay - I had thought this is the width of the glacier, but as we rounded  the corner, there was twice the width on the other side!

One end of the glacier

The main face of the glacier

A fulmar flying in front of the glacier

As we moved further into the bay, there were a lot of ice and icebergs

This is not the end of the glacier.  It seemed to stretch on and on...

...one tongue stuck out after another.  Would have loved to see a drone view of the glacier.

The visit to Croker Bay was the end of an exciting day on Devon Island.  The last stop at Dundas Harbour the following day was an anti-climax, not to mention it was wet with sleet and rain - an altogether forgettable experience.  The swells prevented us from landing close to the Thule settlement that we were supposed to visit so we did a long hike to the settlement and back through wet bogland.  At the end of the excursion, everyone was wet and exhausted.  There was an RCMP outpost on the island but I did not have the energy to hike down and back so I gave it a pass.  It was a relief the following day was a sea day!

Dundas Harbour - the kayakers (you can vaguely see them in the bay) were able to have some fun in spite of the wet weather - afterall they were dressed for it!

Storage houses at the Thule settlement

The one and only hill in the area - as usual a bear guard on duty at the top - it must have been hard standing up here for hours in the wet weather.  And we were complaining down on the ground...

Our Inuit guide Suzie explaining the Thule settlement

This was the entrance to the house

View of the harbour

Odd outcrops on the ground

This is a view of Dundas Harbour from the top of the ridge.  The beach where we landed is on the left.  The RCMP outpost is on the right.  After the hike to the Thule settlement and back, I was soaked so decided a distant shot of the outpost will do - surely you can see the speck that's the hut on the right?!  ;-)  This was our last hike in the Canadian Arctic.  

Canadian Arctic - Beechey Island & Devon Island 75° N

 We are now almost 10° North of the Arctic Circle reaching Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island on Earth at 55,24 square kilometres. 

We first stopped at Beechey Island, a tiny island off the southwest tip of Devon Island.  Franklin's ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, were here over the winter of 1845-6, leaving behind storehouses, and the graves of three crewmen.  Then the two ships disappeared and all 129 men were lost - one of the most celebrated mysteries of the 19th century.  Over 40 expeditions were launched in search of Franklin's party and the harbour at Beechey Island was the base of that search.

We landed on the beach and the walk on the island was easy compared to the boggy tundra at Port Epworth.  It was an easy hike to see the isthmus which linked the island to the big island. There were the graves and the ruins of Northumberland House plus more arctic plants and lots of fossils.  It was one of the last sunny days for a while.

Beechey Island

Graves of three crewmen on Franklin's expedition

This is the isthmus (tombolo) that joined the small Beechey island to the big Devon Island

Panorama of the bay where we landed on Beechey Island

A cenotaph commemorating men who died on the Belcher expedition

Northumberland House (what's left of it) - erected with material from wrecked ships, was meant to be a supply depot

We were lucky to see many arctic flowers on the island.  This is Mountain Aven.

Thanks to botanist Carolyn Mallory on the expedition team, we were able to identify many plants, including male (above) and female (below) arctic willows!  They need each other to reproduce.

Geologist, Dr. Marc St. Onge, collected many fossils on the island to show us -

Fossilized scallops

Horn coral

Branching coral

Fossilized clams

Snail fossils

The first icebergs we saw were very small but since we didn't know what is to come, we made sure we took photos of these!

Our second stop was at Powell Inlet on Devon Island    Devon Island is made up of Precambian bedrocks which formed the Canadian Shield, so we were standing on 3 billion years old Precambrian rocks while the mountains above us, consisting of sandstone and limestone sedimentary layers, are only 300 millions years old!  Incredible!

Devon Island looks like a chocolate layer cake 

Where we landed

The steep climb up to the top of the cliffs.  

The surface of Devon Island has been compared to Mars.  We had to watch our step as it was very rocky and wet.

The Precambrian beddrock

Rock formations at the top of the cliffs.  There is a walrus colony at the bottom of the cliffs but I didn't bring my long lens with me on the hike.

Amidst the rocks, there were surprisingly many flowers, like this Alpine Bistort

 and the cottongrass below.

After the Powell Inlet hike, we were supposed to go on a zodiac cruise to the glacier at Croker Bay.  But windy conditions aborted the zodiac cruise and we stayed on deck while the captain steered the ship into Croker Bay and through the ice in front of the glacier.  There will be lots of ice and icebergs in the next post!